“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough again skewered U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over his failure to manage U.S. military munitions and Navy rotations, remarking that the former Fox News host “can’t run from the truth” that he doesn’t know how to lead “the greatest military on the face of the Earth.”
Scarborough kicked off the Friday morning segment with an update on the USS Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy carrier that has not returned to its home port of San Diego since it left on Nov. 21, 2025. Not only have concerns continued to mount about the living conditions for the sailors and Marines aboard the vessel, but reports have also surfaced revealing that several servicemen have either attempted or gone through with jumping overboard.
“It’s been nine months since the Lincoln pulled out of San Diego on what was supposed to be a routine seven-month cruise, and here they still sit. 5,000 sailors and Marines. Hundreds of days at sea,” Scarborough recapped, adding, “I can tell you: That breaks the morale of American servicemen and women.”
“The thing I learned on the Armed Services Committee is readiness isn’t limited to weapon systems,” the former Florida Republican congressman said. “It’s sailors and Marines that are forced to sleep under moldy conditions. Marines and sailors forced to drink contaminated water, to continue working with no days off, to be separated from their children, their spouses, their parents and their loved ones longer than any military leader would ever willingly permit.”
You can watch the full “Morning Joe” segment yourself in the video below.
Scarborough laid the blame for not only the USS Lincoln’s issues but also the munitions concerns that have begun to plague the United States in its war against Iran directly at Hegseth’s feet.
“Pete Hegseth’s cartoonish celebration of war, his advocacy of these endless wars, these constant invasions, his continued failure to plan ahead, whether it’s on munitions or whether it’s on deployments, it’s left the U.S. Navy with too few carriers to send in relief,” Scarborough said. “While Pete Hegseth dithers, morale bleeds American readiness.”
The “Morning Joe” host turned his attention to President Trump, asking, “How long is Donald Trump going to allow this guy to remain Secretary of Defense?”
“[Hegseth has] kicked out any real reporters from the Pentagon. But he can’t run from the truth,” Scarborough remarked. “This guy doesn’t know how to do deployments. He doesn’t know how to manage munitions. He doesn’t know how to have his military, the greatest military on the face of the Earth, fight a war that he begged the president to get into.”
