In an all-too-poised appearance on Fox & Friends last week, Penelope Hegseth sought to distance herself from herself.
The mother of president-elect Donald Trump’s choice for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, Penelope listened intently as host Steve Doocy read excerpts from a scathing email she had sent her son in April 2018. (The New York Times had published the email a few days prior, a flashpoint in Hegseth’s already-controversial nomination.)
In blunt language, Penelope accused her son of being a liar, a cheater, and “an abuser of women.” Doocy ended his recitation with the devastating quote: “We are broken by your behavior and lack of character.”
He then turned to Hegseth and asked, “What was going on that made you so angry you wanted to write that?”
She flashed a smile and chuckled, before offering a spirited defense of her son’s capacity to lead the US military.
Despite Hegseth’s attempt to laugh it off, her email comes across dead serious—a cry from a disgusted mother who is out of patience and out of f--ks. But a very different Hegseth showed up on Fox to tell the network’s viewers (and US senators—especially female senators) that she no longer believes anything she wrote to be true.
“Pete is a new person. He is redeemed. Forgiven. Changed,” she insisted. “I think we all are after seven years.”
If Pete is a changed man, Hegseth is a changed mom. Her critical parental stance has been replaced by a subservience that could be the start of a new retro cultural trend: As some women have embraced the “trad wife” lifestyle, Hegseth was performing the role of “trad mom.”
During her Fox appearance, she exhibited all the characteristics associated with trad wives, starting first and foremost with utter devotion to her man—or at least, her boy. In 2018, Hegseth told Pete that she had “no respect” for him, but today, her faith is rock solid.
“I believe in God. I believe in Pete,” she said.
She looked the part too, wearing a deep purple dress paired with knee-high black boots, a gold cross and perfect blonde highlights.
Hegseth ascribed blame not to her son’s own actions, but to media “misinformation.” To be fair, blame also fell somewhat on her. She told Doocy that about two hours after she sent that emotional email, she followed it up with an apology. This latter message has not been made public.
She was working to clean house and tidy up her son’s mess, explaining that the trigger for her missive was that Pete and his then-wife, Samantha Deering, were at the time “going through a very difficult divorce.” She did not explain that the divorce was likely difficult, in part, because Pete had impregnated his Fox News colleague Jennifer Rauchet while still married to Deering. (Hegseth and Rauchet are currently married.)
Finally, Hegseth displayed the ultimate trad wife trait: obedience. When Doocy asked why Hegseth wanted to tell her story, she said, “I’ll do anything for my son.”
Except, perhaps, to do the hardest thing for any parent—to see one’s child for who they truly are.
As an all-too-true joke tells it, the two skills every parent needs are the ability to love unconditionally and to hide their disappointment. The fact that Hegseth did not hide her disappointment in her son in 2018 is remarkable. Even though she admitted it pained and embarrassed her to be stating the “sad, sad truth,” she took the blinders off—briefly.
But now they’re back on.
Whether Hegseth saved her son’s nomination remains unclear—although her appearance probably helped keep him in the running. A leader doesn’t need to be a saint in their personal lives, but a man who is by his own admission a serial adulterer, and has reportedly struggled with drinking to excess, would seem to lack impulse control. These are not qualities that screams, “Make me leader of the largest military force in the world.”
(Pete Hegseth has denied ever having a “drinking problem.”)
Penelope Hegseth’s backpedaling may serve her son’s ambitions, but they do not serve our country’s best interests. The stakes are too high. And we can’t afford to look back and say—to use Hegseth’s own words—that we were broken by her son’s behavior.
