An abuser of women
By 
Pete Hegseth is a grotesque misogynist asshole. You don’t just have to rely on police reports — ask his mother:
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.”
[…]
Mr. Hegseth’s mother, who is a longtime executive business coach, wrote her email three months before the final divorce decree. It began: “Son, I have tried to keep quiet about your character and behavior, but after listening to the way you made Samantha feel today, I cannot stay silent.”
She said that “Sam is a good mother and a good person,” adding that she knew that her son thought that “we” had taken her side. That was “bunk,” she wrote. “We are on the side of good and that is not you.” The email did not say who “we” referred to, beyond herself.
“It’s time for someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women,” she wrote. “We still love you, but we are broken by your behavior and lack of character.” If the email “damages our relationship further,” she added, “so be it.”
She described his abusive behavior over the years as “dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, belittling” women.
She told him not to bother to reply, because “you twist and abuse everything I say anyway.”
In the years that followed, Pete and Samantha Hegseth continued to fight over care of the children, according to documents in their divorce record. In 2020, after Mr. Hegseth sent a text to his ex-wife calling her “pathetic and selfish,” the court-appointed consultant said she wanted to see “an action plan from Pete regarding cessation of hostile and degrading communication to and about Sam.”
I wish I could tell you that this would be disqualifying for Senate Republicans — particularly since he’s completely unfit to be Secretary of Defense even leaving aside his major character issues — but when you’re dealing with a party dominated by Donald Trump who knows anymore.