Pete Hegseth’s hopes of being approved as Secretary of Defense are being overshadowed by his own mother. The New York Times has traced a 2018 email that Penelope Hegseth allegedly wrote to her son denouncing his misogynistic and abusive behavior. The woman would later try to apologize in another letter and deny what she said in a phone interview with the newspaper.
“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” reads the email written at the time of Hegseth’s second divorce from Samantha, on April 30, 2018. “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”
“[Samantha] did not ask for or deserve any of what has come to her by your hand. Neither did Meredith,” the letter continues, referring to the first wife. The second, Samantha, also the mother of three children all fathered by Hegseth, allegedly filed for divorce after discovering that a colleague of the former Fox & Friends host had become pregnant. In full, the email highlights incidents of repeated infidelity and allegations of abuse, including a case of sexual assault.
Penelope told The New York Times that she sent a second letter soon after, immediately apologizing to her son for these words, which she described as “the result of anger.” “They are not true. I know my son. He is a good father and a good husband,” Mrs. Hegseth confessed to the newspaper.
However, Hegseth’s past and doubts about his conduct raise more questions about his role as a possible Pentagon leader, adding to the rape complaint filed against him with the police in October 2017. The former Fox & Friends host has denied all allegations and stated that the relationship was consensual. The woman never came forward publicly, but she was secretly paid off.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s spokesman, said in an email that the New York Times was “despicable” for publishing “an out-of-context snippet” of the exchange between mother and son Hegseth.
