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Pete Hegseth, the Fox News anchor whom Donald Trump has tapped to be his defense secretary, has come under intense scrutiny for his mistreatment of women, including an allegation of rape. One of his critics was, at one time, his own mother.
“That is the ugly truth.”
In 2018, Penelope Hegseth wrote her son an email in which she laid into him for poor behavior and disrespect toward women. “You are an abuser of women—that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego,” she wrote in the letter, obtained by the New York Times.
Hegseth chastised her son for how he treated his wife, Samantha, in the divorce proceedings that prompted her to send her April 2018 email. She concluded it by writing, “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…”
Reached by the Times yesterday, Hegseth defended her son and recanted the accusations in the email. She said it was written in anger, and that immediately afterward, she had followed up with a second email apologizing for the first.
Penelope Hegseth isn’t the only woman to raise question about her son’s treatment of women. Most seriously, Pete Hegseth was accused of rape while attending a 2017 Republican women’s conference in Monterey, California. Hegseth denies the allegation, saying the encounter was consensual, but paid the woman a settlement in 2020. His lawyer said the payment was to ensure the allegation didn’t cost him his Fox News job.
Hegseth also has a history of cheating on his spouses. His first marriage ended due to infidelity, according to the divorce judgement. So did his second; that divorce prompted the email lashing from his mother. He is now married to the woman with whom he fathered a child while married to his second wife, Samantha.
Samantha “did not ask for or deserve any of what has come to her by your hand,” Penelope Hegseth wrote in the email. “Neither did Meredith,” she added, referring to his first wife.
Hegseth’s treatment of women is set to be a major issue during his prospective confirmation hearings in 2025—though not necessarily a dealbreaker. In the past, Republicans have rallied around nominees accused of sexual assault, such as when they circled the wagons to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Trump himself has been found liable for sexual assault, and faced numerous other allegations of assault and cheating. If the commander-in-chief can get away with it, maybe Hegseth can too.