Penelope Hegseth, Pete Hegseth’s mother, said Wednesday morning that her son was not the same man he was in 2018 when she fired off an email accusing him of routinely abusing women and lacking decency and character.
“Pete is a new person,” Mrs. Hegseth said in an appearance on “Fox & Friends.” “He’s redeemed, forgiven, changed.”
“I just hope people will get to know who Pete is today, especially our dear female senators, that you would listen to him, listen with your heart to the truth of Pete,” she said, adding, “He doesn’t misuse women.”
Her appearance came after The New York Times published an email she wrote as Mr. Hegseth was in the midst of a contentious divorce from his second wife. She told The Times in an interview Friday that she did not believe what she said in that email and that she had apologized to her son in a follow-up email.
It also came in the wake of allegations of alcohol abuse and mismanagement of nonprofit organizations published this week in an article in The New Yorker. Mr. Hegseth has also faced the revelation of a police complaint by a woman who claimed that he raped her at a political conference in 2017. The investigation resulted in no charges and Mr. Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, has said the encounter was consensual.
The combined fallout has jeopardized Mr. Hegseth’s chances to lead the Defense Department in the next Trump administration, as President-elect Donald J. Trump is said to be discussing other options for the role.
Echoing her comments to The Times, Mrs. Hegseth told “Fox & Friends” that she wrote the email in a moment of passion, and regretted sending it.
She also accused The Times of threatening her by indicating that it planned to publish an article about her email before she granted The Times an interview. “Some of those attachments or descriptions are just not true, especially anymore,” she said.
“That’s the first thing they do. They say, ‘Unless you make a statement, we will publish it as is,’” she said. “And I think that’s a despicable way to treat anyone.”
Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for The Times said, “In no way was Ms. Hegseth threatened.” The Times, he said, did what it always does in reporting out a story, simply reaching out and asking for comment, which was then included in the article.
In her interview on Fox, Mrs. Hegseth also said she believed her son was well prepared to run the Defense Department, not just because he had risked his life for his country in military tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, but because of his lengthy tenure as a weekend anchor on “Fox & Friends.”
“Being a TV news host, I think, prepares you for most things in a position like this,” she said. “You’re a good communicator. You have to think on your feet. You take charge.”
Mrs. Hegseth’s comments on Fox were a sharp departure from the tone and substance of her 2018 email.
“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,” Mrs. Hegseth wrote then, saying that she still loved him.
She also wrote: “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).”
Mrs. Hegseth acknowledged to the Fox host that some thought the controversy over her son was becoming a distraction for the next Trump administration. But she said she thought that could be overcome if people made the effort to get to know her son.
“Not the Pete from seven years ago, but the Pete of today,” she said.
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