Is Hegseth Toast?

So, the latest revelation that Pete Hegseth’s mother once e-mailed him to call him out for his character and behavior with women is enough to kill his nomination, right? I mean, we already have credible accusations of sexual assault to go along with misogynistic views about women in combat, and White nationalist adjacent tattoos. Plus, you know, the fact that he is utterly unqualified save in the most minimal of senses.

Under more normal circumstances the sexual assault allegations would have been enough to kill the nomination. But, under normal circumstances, Hegseth never would have been nominated and, moreover, would not have had the Gaetz nomination to make him look better (not to mention RFK, Jr., and a host of other less-than-stellar picks).

And without any doubt in my mind, the above knowledge plus the following would have devastated any chances for a nominee. Via the NYT: Pete Hegseth’s Mother Accused Her Son of Mistreating Women for Years.

The mother of Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, wrote him an email in 2018 saying he had routinely mistreated women for years and displayed a lack of character.

“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,” Penelope Hegseth wrote, stating 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) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”

Mrs. Hegseth, in a phone interview with The New York Times on Friday, said that she had sent her son an immediate follow-up email at the time apologizing for what she had written. She said she had fired off the original email “in anger, with emotion” at a time when he and his wife were going through a very difficult divorce.

So, will Mrs. Hegseth’s repudiation of her e-mail be enough to blunt its impact?

In the interview, she defended her son and disavowed the sentiments she had expressed in the initial email about his character and treatment of women. “It is not true. It has never been true,” she said. She added: “I know my son. He is a good father, husband.” She said that publishing the contents of the first email was “disgusting.”

For the record, I acknowledge that the publication of this e-mail is a breach of privacy and it is a very serious thing to have done. I will hasten to add, however, that being Secretary of Defense is a very serious job, and character matters (or, at least I thought it did). This letter adds to the growing preponderance of evidence that Hegseth is not worthy of the position.

Mrs. Hegseth emailed her son on April 30, 2018, during a turbulent period in his life. He was in the middle of a contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha, the mother of three of his children. Samantha Hegseth filed for divorce after her husband impregnated a co-worker, part of a pattern of adultery that dated back to his first marriage.

I mean, I understand that life is complicated and that not all marriages last. But this is the picture of someone with deep character flaws, not just someone whose relationship didn’t work out. But, again, when POTUS has the same character, I guess that metric is out the door.

Mr. Hegseth married Meredith Schwarz, his high school sweetheart, in 2004, one year after they both graduated from college. Ms. Schwarz sued for divorce less than five years after their wedding. The 2009 court judgment cited Mr. Hegseth’s infidelity as the reason for the breakdown of the marriage.

The following year, Mr. Hegseth married Samantha. Within five years, they had three boys.

[…]

By late 2016, Mr. Hegseth, a Fox News contributor and aspiring anchor, was having an affair with Jennifer Rauchet, an executive producer at Fox News. He was named as the weekend anchor of Fox & Friends in early 2017 — a post he held until earlier this month, when Mr. Trump announced he wanted him to head the Defense Department.

Ms. Rauchet, who has three other children, delivered a baby girl in August 2017, one month before Samantha Hegseth filed for divorce. Mr. Hegseth married Ms. Rauchet in 2019 at a ceremony at Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck in New Jersey.

The acrimonious divorce from Samantha took 10 months to finalize and led to the appointment of a parenting consultant to help negotiate disputes over dividing time with the children.

Sounds like a solid, trustworthy individual.

I expect that the defenses will be along these lines:

 Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said in an email that The Times was “despicable” for publishing “an out-of-context snippet” of Mrs. Hegseth’s exchange with her son, adding that Mrs. Hegseth had “expressed regret for her emotional message and apologized.”

The Times published the entire e-mail here: Text of the Email That Pete Hegseth’s Mother Sent Him (I am out of gift links for the month, so you are all on your own for this one). To be clear, the e-mail itself proves nothing. But it is part of a broad pattern of behavior that is impossible to ignore.

I also expect a lot of defenders to attack the media for publishing the e-mail, rather than dealing with is implications. The rationalization was already underway in regard to the other alleged bad behavior, so who knows how this will hit?

Several key Republican senators have said that the sexual assault allegation in Monterey is not an obstacle to Mr. Hegseth’s nomination because it was never proven. But Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican of Iowa who has said she was sexually harassed while in the military, told Politico: “Any time there are allegations, you want to make sure they are properly vetted, so we’ll have that discussion.”

As I have noted in multiple posts on the nomination process: there is every reason to hold the nominees to a high standard because there are other options out there. Hegseth was a major test for the Senate GOP from the moment he was nominated, and that test has only gained in clarity since that time.

The fact my headline has a question mark and that I honestly don’t know if all of this will actually torpedo the nomination is a commentary on the incoming Trump administration and the general state of the Republican Party.

However, I will underscore that even if he withdraws or is rejected, this pick, along with all the others, continues to demonstrate the low character and terrible judgment of Donald J. Trump.