Trump’s Pick for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, Received an Email Saying He Mistreats Women—From His Mom

“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way,” Pete Hegseth’s mom, Penelope, wrote in an email to her son in 2018, “I say… get some help and take an honest look at yourself…”

The email’s publishing comes as Hegseth, a Fox News host and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the defense department, is also facing a rape complaint against him filed to police in October 2017 on his already rough journey to joining the next administration in Washington. (Hegseth, who later paid the woman a settlement, has held that he was falsely accused and that it was a consensual sexual encounter.)

Penelope Hegseth now says she regrets writing the email, which was penned during Hegseth’s second divorce and was recently obtained by the New York Times from another person with ties to the family.

“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, noting that she still loves her son and will pray for him. “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.”

At the time, Hegseth was in the midst of a contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha—they share three children together. Samantha, the Times’ Sharon LaFraniere and Julie Tate write, “filed for divorce after her husband impregnated a co-worker, part of a pattern of adultery that dated back to his first marriage.”

In an interview with the NYT on Friday, Hegseth’s mom said that she quickly sent another email apologizing for what she had written in the first, adding that she had acted “in anger, with emotion,” in response to difficulties in the divorce proceedings. “It is not true. It has never been true,” she said, defending her son. The contents of the first email, she now says, were “disgusting” and that her son is “a good father, husband.”

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in an email to the outlet that the Times was “despicable” for publishing “an out-of-context snippet” of a mom’s correspondence with her son, noting that she had “expressed regret for her emotional message and apologized.”

Just over a year after the initial email was sent, Penelope praised her son at his job during a Fox News Mother’s Day special. “Pete was a spitfire, in a good way,” she said, the pair joking that he’d been a troublemaker. She shared that she’s “always been proud of Pete” and that “most of all, I love the way he loves this country. I do. I don’t know anyone who loves this country as much as Pete.”

Hegseth, now 44, is an Iraq War veteran and formerly served as the head of the conservative group Concerned Veterans for America. With no senior military or government leadership experience, some in the Pentagon and the broader defense world were shocked at Trump’s choice.

Hegseth, who has been largely untested on a global stage to oversee the world’s most funded military, has railed against ”wokeness” in the armed forces and lamented women serving in combat.

Per reporting from the Associated Press, “Hegseth’s choice could bring sweeping changes to the military. He has made it clear on his show and in interviews that, like Trump, he is opposed to ‘woke’ programs that promote equity and inclusion. He also has questioned the role of women in combat and advocated pardoning service members charged with war crimes.”

During an interview on “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast, Hegseth claimed that “everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat, that means casualties are worse,” adding that while different ethnicities of men could perform similarly, women can’t.

“We’ve changed the standards in putting them there,” Hegseth said of women in combat roles, “which means you’ve changed the capability of that unit.”

According to service data reviewed by Military.com, a leading news platform for service members, veterans, and their families, around 3,800 women serve in frontline Army combat roles across infantry, cavalry, armor, and field artillery.

His would-be boss, Trump, has also questioned the impact of having American men and women serve alongside one another.

In 2016, Trump defended comments he made years earlier that the mere presence of women in the military increased the likelihood of sexual assault—saying during his first run for office that he would “go after” anyone who “does something so evil, so bad as that.”

A new study out of Brown University, completed by the Costs of War Project, found that “actual sexual assault prevalence is two to four times higher than [Department of Defense] estimations — 75,569 cases in 2021 and 73,695 cases in 2023.”

The DOD figures estimate that there were approximately 35,900 military personnel assaulted in 2021 and around 29,000 cases in 2023, per the Brown study.

Hegseth is not the only man who has been accused of sexual assault or misconduct and is poised to join Trump—who has been accused himself by dozens of women, was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and ordered to pay over $90 million to writer E. Jean Carroll, and, infamously, bragged about grabbing women by the “pussy”—in his next administration.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., failed presidential candidate and Trump’s pick for secretary of health and human services, allegedly sexually assaulted the family’s babysitter in the late 1990s, per reporting from Vanity Fair’s Joe Hagan. When the story broke, Kennedy declined to comment on it, but said he was “not a church boy.” He also texted the woman, according to The Washington Post, and said he didn’t remember the incident, but was sorry.

Matt Gaetz, who Trump wanted to run the Department of Justice, was accused of and has been investigated for allegedly engaging in a sex-trafficking scheme involving a 17-year-old girl (in addition to other allegations of sexual misconduct). Less than two weeks after being tapped to serve as the nation’s attorney general, Gaetz dropped out of the confirmation process. He has long denied any and all wrongdoing.

Elon Musk—the president-elect’s newly-minted right-hand man who spent over $118 million toward getting Trump in office and is positioned to lead the newly-conceived Department of Government Efficiency—is facing a lawsuit filed by eight former SpaceX employees who “allege that he wrongfully fired them after they accused the company of tolerating sexual harassment in the workplace,” per the 19th. Each plaintiff “experienced exposure to unwanted conduct and comments of a sexual nature by Elon Musk,” according to court documents.

“Finally, we get to use Elongate as scandal name. It’s kinda perfect,” Musk posted online, presumably in response to the allegations, with a laughing emoji.

Some people in Trumpworld are worried that the 2017 rape allegation against Hegseth is a “distraction” in his confirmation process, according to reporting from Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman. They worry that the defense secretary pick didn’t disclose the settlement earlier. “The general feeling is Pete hasn’t been honest,” a source told Sherman prior to the NYT reporting on his mother’s email.

In her note to her son some six years ago, Penelope Hegseth said, “I don’t want to write emails like this and never thought I would. If it damages our relationship further, then so be it, but at least I have said my piece.”

“It’s time for someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out,” she wrote, “especially against women.”