Pete Hegseth’s Mom Desperately Tries to Take Back Her Own Words

Pete Hegseth called his mom to come do some damage control.

Penelope Hegseth appeared on her embattled son’s former show, Fox & Friends, on Wednesday and was asked about the email she sent him in 2018 in which she begged him to stop lying, cheating, sleeping around with, using, and abusing the women in his life. Instead of answering the question, she chose to point the finger back at the media in a public plea for her son’s nomination for defense secretary.

“We all believe in him, we really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago; I’m not that mother.… I am here to tell the truth. To tell the truth to the American people, to the senators on the Hill, especially our female senators. I really hope that you will not listen to the media, and that you will listen to Pete.”

She then turned her scorn on the media, and on The New York Times, saying that they threatened her, and described them as “almost criminal” for reporting on the 2018 email she sent to her son, who could likely become the head of the Pentagon. “They are in it for the commission, for the money, and they don’t care who they hurt: families, children,” she claimed.

Pete Hegseth is on the Hill today trying to convince senators that he’s a changed man, as his nomination has been upended by troubling allegations of rape, sexual harassment, and financial mismanagement in previous workplaces. Beyond all that, he is an unabashed Christian nationalist who would bring a violent, incendiary energy to the Pentagon. The status of his nomination is yet to be determined.

With growing scrutiny mounting against Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump is reportedly looking at replacements for his defense secretary nominee—but the number two pick might be an even more dangerous selection to run the Pentagon.

The president-elect is having casual conversations at Mar-a-Lago about tapping Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the highly coveted Cabinet position, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Unlike the majority of Trump’s “anti-qualified” picks to run his government, DeSantis would, at least, have some level of experience for the role. The 46-year-old briefly served as a Navy lawyer in Iraq and was part of a legal team that advised the Guantánamo Bay detention center, where he backed torture methods such as force-feeding.

DeSantis was also one of Trump’s more outspoken primary challengers, sparking a bitter—if lopsided—rivalry that cast the Florida governor as disloyal to the MAGA cause. But the pair’s shared perspective on “woke” politics in the military might be enough to get him in the door.

But DeSantis isn’t the only option being floated. Also on the list of Hegseth replacements is former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, a friend of Vice President–elect JD Vance, and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, according to sources that spoke with the Journal.

Conservatives have grown increasingly concerned about Hegseth’s ability to pass the Senate confirmation process in light of sexual assault allegations against the ex–Fox News host. Even Hegseth’s own mother couldn’t defend the white nationalist–connected conservative, accusing her son of “using women for his own power.” (Hegseth’s mother has since changed her tune—on Tuesday, she told Fox News that her son was a “changed man” whom she hoped “our dear female senators” would get to know.)

Senator Mike Lee wrote out a blueprint for dismantling Social Security on X Monday night that Elon Musk amplified, hinting at disturbing GOP plans for the program.

In a thread now pinned to his X profile, the Utah Republican laid out a case for overhauling the program and amending the 1933 Social Security Act itself, claiming that the law allows for the government to steal taxpayer funds for its own purposes rather than safeguard Social Security itself.

Musk, along with Trump crony and business executive Vivek Ramaswamy, has been tasked by Trump to run the figurehead Department of Government Efficiency, where their mission will be to eliminate government waste. It’s no secret that their vision of waste includes Social Security, and they seem to have the backing of Trump and Vice President–elect JD Vance.

Lee is a leading Republican senator and, with Republicans controlling Congress, could be an architect for the GOP’s designs on the program. Lee would have plenty of allies in the House, with one congressman, Richard McCormick, alluding to overhauling the program along with Medicare and Medicaid, in a Tuesday interview. Earlier this year, House Speaker Mike Johnson promised to cut Social Security and increase defense spending, and the right-wing Project 2025 manifesto also includes drastic cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

With control of the Senate, the White House, and a very thin majority in the House, it seems quite clear that Republicans will take aim at the popular government program, despite the fact that most Americans oppose making any cuts to Social Security along with Medicare. Right now, Republicans are building a case for making dangerous changes. The question is whether they will follow through over popular opposition, and whether Democrats will put up a fight.

Hunter Biden’s federal pardon has Eric Adams holding out hope for a way out of his own legal troubles. 

When asked about President Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter of tax evasion and possession charges, New York City Mayor Eric Adams responded by reading a sentence from The New York Times: “‘President Biden and President-Elect Trump now agree on one thing: The Biden Justice Department has been politicized,’” Adams intoned. “Does that sound familiar? I rest my case.”

In that same interview Adams went on to strike a particularly conservative tone, even daring an unspecified group of people to “cancel” him.

“Those who are here committing crimes, robbery, shooting at police officers, raping innocent people … I would love to sit down with the border czar and hear his thoughts on how we are going to address those who are harming our citizens,” the mayor said. “This is not a new position. In the era of cancel culture, no one is afraid to be honest about the truth. Well, cancel me.”

Adams seems to be not so subtly angling for a pardon in the near future from President-elect Donald Trump. Adams has been federally indicted on charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting political donations from the Turkish government in exchange for favors. 

Trump has already shown Adams public sympathy for his indictments, telling him at a charity event in October that they were both “persecuted.” Trump is also very likely to replace the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case against Adams, instead appointing someone who better aligns with his yes-men preference.   

Adams’s pardon pandering is shameless, and who knows? He might have a pretty good chance at getting one. Trump would love to have a loyal MAGA ally in charge of his hometown.

Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, has hopes of enacting the president-elect’s revenge plot against anyone he deems to be part of the so-called “deep state”—and that includes a number of Republicans.

Patel’s list, which can be found in his 2023 book, Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for our Democracy, includes a number of prominent Republicans and former Trump appointees.

Those people include Christopher Wray, whom Patel is set to replace before his 10-year term is up. Trump and his Republican sycophants went after Wray after he testified about the failed assassination attempt on Trump, saying he wasn’t sure whether Trump had been struck by an actual bullet.

The list includes Bill Barr, Trump’s former attorney general who publicly endorsed him even though he previously called Trump “nauseating” and “despicable.” Also on the list are Rod Rosenstein, a deputy attorney general; Pat Cipollone, Trump’s White House counsel; and Pat Philbin, a deputy White House counsel.

Ex–communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin appears on the list, as well as Stephanie Grisham, the former chief of staff for Melania Trump who sounded the alarm against Trump ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide who turned star witness for the House January 6 investigative committee is mentioned too. Hutchinson publicly described a hostile work environment ruled by Trump’s volatile temperament.

The list also includes John Bolton, an outspoken critic of the president-elect who once said Trump “can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what’s false,” and Mark Esper, Trump’s former secretary of defense, who said that reelecting Trump would put our “nation’s security at risk.”

Patel’s list mentions special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated President Joe Biden for mishandling classified documents but declined to prosecute because there was not enough evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

The list also included the names of Ryan McCarthy, a secretary of the Army under Trump; Miles Taylor, a Department of Homeland Security official under Trump; Charles Kupperman, a deputy national security adviser for Trump; and Sarah Isgur Flores, who was head of communications for Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

Something that many of these Republicans have in common is that they were distinctly not anything like the “deep state” actors Patel wishes to persecute, but rather a group of people who were once defenders of Trump but failed to execute his wishes after he left office. Patel plots to chase them down for the biggest crime in Trump’s book: disloyalty.