Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth leaves a meeting with Republican Senators at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 21, 2024.

Pete Hegseth’s mother trashed his character in a blistering email shortly after his contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha, the mother of three of his children.

Penelope Hegseth, 70, wrote that President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary had been mistreating women for years.

“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,” she wrote on April 30, 2018.

“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.”

The stunning email was obtained by The New York Times and published in a report on Friday night.

Hegseth’s mother also condemned his treatment of Samantha during their bitter divorce, writing: “For you to try to label her as ‘unstable’ for your own advantage is despicable and abusive. Is there any sense of decency left in you?

“She did not ask for or deserve any of what has come to her by your hand.

“Neither did Meredith,” Penelope Hegseth added, referring to her son’s first wife.

Speaking with the Times on Friday, Penelope Hegseth said she had recanted the claims contained in the email and now regrets sending it.

“It is not true. It has never been true,” she said. “I know my son. He is a good father, husband.” She said that publishing the contents of the first email was “disgusting.”

Trump communications director Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast: “The New York Times is despicable for using an out-of-context snippet of an illegally obtained private email exchange between a mother and her son that does not accurately reflect the entirety of the conversation. In subsequent emails, Mrs. Hegseth expressed regret for her emotional message and apologized.”

Pete Hegseth, 44, was accused of rape by a woman he met at a Republican conference in Monterey, California, in 2017.

He admitted to paying the woman off later to protect his hosting job Fox News host but strenuously denied her claim, saying the encounter was consensual. He was never charged.

His second wife filed for divorce after it emerged he had been having an affair with Fox News executive Jennifer Rauchet, 39. The two have a daughter together, and married in 2019 at a Trump golf course.