Did a video truly show Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth drink what appears to be bourbon whiskey from a glass during a NATO press conference? No, that's not true: The video that appeared on TikTok appears to have been created by using a phone to film a TV screen, and some kind of sheen made the liquid in Hegseth's glass appear yellowish brown. Clearer video directly from The Associated Press shows the liquid was clear as water.
The TikTok video (archived here) was published on February 14, 2025 by an account named "amiya rose" with following description:
gota shake off those nerves #fyp #politicstiktok #hegseth #news #foxnews #absnews
This is the video in question:
amiya rose on TikTok
gota shake off those nerves #fyp #politicstiktok #hegseth #news #foxnews #absnews
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Sat Feb 15 17:59:51 2025 UTC)
The video quickly spread on X, with some users speculating Hegseth was drinking bourbon (archived here):
BREAKING: Trump's new minted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who promised Congress he had his drinking "under control" during his confirmation is already taking swigs of bourbon at a NATO presser earlier this week. The guy is an alcoholic & shouldn't be leading our military! pic.twitter.com/PyOatCnTNp
-- Beep🇺🇸 (@fiercefreckled) February 14, 2025
However video of the same event appeared on the YouTube channel of The Associated press on February 13, 2025 (archived here), where it was described as:
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth holds a news conference after a meeting with NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Belgium.
This is what the video looked like:
The moment where Hegseth drinks from a glass starts at 19:25 into the video.
The liquid in the glass is fully transparent, completely unlike bourbon whiskey, which has a brownish/yellow tint:
(Source: screenshot taken by Lead Stories on February 15, 2025 at 18:08:22 UTC)
