Pete Hegseth’s mom defends her ‘changed’ son as she trashes the media — then lauds his Fox News experience (in interview on Fox)

Addressing the 2018 email she sent her son blasting him for mistreating women over the years, Pete Hegseth’s mother called the media “despicable” over the way it had treated him.

With Pete Hegseth’s appointment to lead the Pentagon on the brink amid a flood of news stories about his alleged sexual misconduct, excessive drinking and financial mismanagement of veterans’ groups, the former Fox News host’s mother Penelope Hegseth appeared on her son’s old show Fox & Friends on Wednesday morning to “set the record straight” regarding the 2018 email she sent accusing him of mistreating women for years.

Sitting down with the Fox & Friends crew, Penelope kicked off her interview by essentially pleading with President-elect Donald Trump to not drop her son as his nominee for secretary of defense. It has been reported that Trump is considering a list of other potential nominees following the controversies surrounding the ex-Fox star, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Thank you for your belief in my son,” she said. “We all believe in him. We really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago. I’m not that mother and I hope people will hear that story today and truth of that story.”

She continued: “So the other thing, I am here to tell the truth. To tell the truth to the American people and tell the truth to senators on the hill, especially female senators. I really hope that you will not listen to the media and you will listen to Pete.”

Pete Hegseth’s mom Penelope Hegseth appears on Fox & Friends to defend her son and trash the media. (Fox News)

As far as the email she wrote to her son that was recently published by The New York Times, which was sent while Pete was divorcing his second wife after having an affair with a Fox News producer (who would become his third wife), Penelope insisted that this wasn’t the “whole story” and that her son is a different person than he was years ago.

“This all went back seven years, we would say, maybe, we are not the people we are today,” Penelope declared.

“They were going through — Pete, and his wife — were going through a difficult divorce, a very emotional time and I’m sure many of you across the country understand how difficult divorce is on a family. There is emotion. We say things and I wrote that in haste, with deep emotion, as a parent.”

She added: “About two hours later, my husband tells me I should think through things more. Pete and I are both very passionate people. I wrote that out of love, two hours later I retracted it with an apology and nobody has seen that. It was a difficult time. I want to say something about the media. Part of today is to discredit media and how they operate. When they contact you, I let a few phone calls go. They call and threaten you, first thing they do. Unless you make a statement, we will publish it as is. That is despicable way to treat anymore, threats are dangerous and they are hard on families.”

Co-host Steve Doocy went on to ask Penelope if she believed the allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse and financial mismanagement levied against her son, adding that it must be “hard to hear” as a mother.

“Our jobs as parents are to correct. They are to speak truth,” she reacted. “And I am a passionate person like Pete, and sometimes emotional words come out. I don’t believe any of that is true. I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair today if I didn’t believe that about my son.”

While framing her 2018 email as regretful, Penelope repeatedly described her son as a “changed” man — even going so far as to say that his time as a Fox & Friends host had made him a better person and prepared him to lead the Department of Defense.

“Being a TV news host prepares you for most things in a position like this: good communicator, think on your feet, take charge,” she declared. “Everybody should do a year with Fox!”

At one point, she thanked everyone at Fox News — including the makeup team and cameramen —for helping grow Pete “as a leader” and a “communicator.”

Seemingly using her Fox News appearance to directly beg Trump to stick with her son, she also thanked Pete’s former Fox & Friends colleagues for defending him as the scandals have piled up. All the while, she made a point of describing the ex-Fox star as a “good husband” and “wonderful son.” At the same time, though, she demurred when asked if she would testify in front of Congress if her son continued through the confirmation process.

“I don’t have an answer for that right now, Steve,” she replied. “I haven’t thought about that.”

While she claimed she had no idea how the New York Times got a hold of the email, adding that she wasn’t sure who had been copied on it when she initially sent it, she trashed the paper over the way it handled the story. “It feels almost criminal when reporters call and threaten you. I don’t think people know that is how they operate,” she fumed.

After largely ingoring the eyebrow-raising allegations in recent days, which even prompted MAGA media competitor Newsmax to urge Trump to ditch Hegseth, Fox News kicked off Wednesday with a full-court press in defense of its former employee. Besides the sympathetic interview with Hegseth’s mother, the hosts of Fox & Friends empathically and universally dismissed the claims against their “buddy” — including a recent NBC News report that Hegseth’s excessive drinking worried his Fox News colleagues.

“And by the way, there’s reports coming out there...that we’ve known for years that’s just not true. And the fact that they’re going out there with unnamed sources when we sit on the couch with him almost every day, for over ten years. Its just — to me, that is the stunning part,” co-host Lawrence Jones groused, adding that Hegseth is being treated similarly to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation.