Morning Joe's Joe Scarborough Questions How Pete Hegseth Has Time to 'Trash' Thomas Massie as Iran War Erupts in Middle East

Joe Scarborough expressed incredulity on Morning Joe that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "finds time" to campaign against Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) while managing an active war in the Middle East.

Hegseth had appeared in Kentucky to rally for Ed Gallrein, Massie's challenger. Scarborough and his co-hosts highlighted the unusual nature of a cabinet official actively meddling in a congressional primary.

They pointed out that Massie has drawn the ire of the administration by criticizing the Iran conflict and pushing for greater transparency in the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The ongoing feud between President Donald Trump and libertarian-leaning Republican Massie has escalated into an all-out political war, culminating in the Tuesday, May 19, Kentucky primary.

Trump has explicitly targeted Massie for removal, endorsing his primary opponent, Gallrein. This intense proxy battle has transformed Kentucky's 4th Congressional District primary into the most expensive House primary in U.S. history, with ad spending exceeding $32 million.

On Tuesday, Morning Joe aired a clip of a combative Hegeseth accusing Massie of “throwing elbows” at fellow Republicans and voting “with Democrats.”

A disgusted Scarborough called the moment “really incredible.”

“You have a secretary of defense who is fighting a war that has upended the economy, not only in America, but across the world, that, as Bob Kagan has written, may be one of the greatest losses militarily in American history,” Scarborough said. “And he finds time to campaign against a Republican congressman who Donald Trump hates because that Republican congressman is trying to follow through on Donald Trump and Republican candidates’ promise to release all the Epstein files.”

He continued, saying, “And because Donald Trump has been trying in every way possible to cover up the Epstein files, something we haven’t talked about since this war began, he is doing everything he can, along with all of his billionaire supporters, to destroy a congressman who wants the Epstein files released.”

The host then laid into Hegseth, appalled that he has time to campaign amidst a failing war in Iran.

“And the Secretary of Defense has time to go down and, instead of trying to prosecute this war which we are losing politically, he’s instead trying to beat a congressman because the congressman wants full accountability for the victims of Epstein and all the very powerful people around Epstein, some say, including the president," Scarborough added.

Co-host Willie Geist noted that Massie is very conservative, albeit an anti-Trump conservative, and agreed with Scarborough.

“Talk to anybody who has ever spent 10 minutes on Capitol Hill. He is incredibly conservative in all the ways that conservatism used actually to hold up. Now we’re talking about Trumpism, which is something very different from conservatism. But the MAGA folks, the Secretary of Defense, are trying to conflate those two things. If you’re against Donald Trump, even on the Epstein files, now you’re not conservative,” Geist said.

Scarborough added that Republicans are doing nothing to help their constituents in the race to please Trump.

“And they wonder why they’re getting crushed right now,” he said. “They don’t care about affordability. They don’t care about working Americans.”

While Hegesth has faced significant pressure and calls to resign from Democratic lawmakers following controversies surrounding the conflict with Iran, a Signal app communications scandal, and the ousting of top military officials, the POTUS has not fired him — yet.