Embattled Trump Defense Department nominee Pete Hegseth has enlisted a new ally to help win over skeptical Republican senators: His own mother.
As reported by The Hill's Mychael Schnell, Hegseth told Republican Study Committee members on Wednesday that "his mom has been making calls to senators on his behalf."
Hegseth's mother, Penelope Hegseth, was thrust into the news last week when the New York Times reported that she sent her son a scathing email back in 2018 in which she accused him of serially abusing women.
"I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego," she wrote. "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."
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Penelope Hegseth has since recanted these views and has done interviews to insist that her son is no longer than many whom she so unsparingly denounced just six years ago.
Regardless, news that Hegseth's mother has come to rescue his endangered cabinet nomination was met with instant ridicule from many political observers.
"The Real Man Administration is here y’all," joked former Republican operative Tim Miller.
"Real men need their moms to call Senators for them," echoed one-time Republican pollster Sarah Longwell.
"Hegseth should show up to a Senate meeting with a note from his mom safety-pinned to his jacket sleeve," suggested The Atlantic's Jonathan Chait.
"Is this alpha?" asked The Bulwark's Sam Stein rhetorically.
"Alpha male," former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) sarcastically asserted.
"Nothing says 'lead the Pentagon' like mommy making phone calls for her very good boy," cracked MSNBC contributor Brian Tyler Cohen.
Twitter user Wilson Valdez, meanwhile, responded to the news by posting a video of the Simpsons' character Milhouse saying, "But my mom says I'm cool."
