Jimmy Kimmel's Incredibly Ignorant Comparison Between Pete Hegseth And Lloyd Austin

Friday's Morning Joe opened with a clip of Jimmy Kimmel mocking Pete Hegseth that contained this:"By the way, you know who this is? This is Lloyd Austin. He is a four-star general. He was the previous Secretary of Defense. You ever seen him before? No. You know why? He was inside the Pentagon doing his job. He wasn't on TV every day. Pete Hegseth is on TV now more than Ryan Seacrest." 
Could Kimmel really be this ignorant? Of all the Defense Secretaries Kimmel should NOT have bragged about his spending time in the Pentagon, Austin leads the list. As anyone with a passing knowledge of current events is aware, Austin went AWOL for two weeks, not letting President Biden know that due to his prostate cancer surgery and aftermath, he was not on the job at the Pentagon.