British-American actor, comedian, political commentator, and TV host John Oliver called out Pete Hegseth for mocking women in combat. Oliver even quoted the War Secretary’s mother, Penelope Hegseth, from a “pretty striking” email she wrote to her son in 2018, which was later published by The New York Times in 2024.“You are an abuser of women – that is the ugly truth, and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego,” Penelope wrote in 2018.John Oliver also recalled that Pete Hegseth admitted before the Senate, before being appointed as the Defense Secretary, that he paid $50,000 to a woman who accused him of s****l assault in 2017.During his show, John Oliver played a clip of Pete Hegseth where the latter said:“Women shouldn’t be in combat at all. Not at all. They are life-givers, not life-takers. I know a lot of wonderful female soldiers who have served. They were great, but they shouldn’t be in my infantry battalion. Not once.”Oliver reacted to the particular video by stating:“Oh, f**k you. It is absolutely ridiculous to assert that because women can give birth, it makes them incapable of practicing violence. Especially when I am pretty sure that if you said that to any woman who had just given birth, she could and would ram your head through a f**king wall.”Exploring Pete Hegseth’s mother’s email amid John Oliver's take on the War Sec's women in combat commentTwo years ago, The New York Times published a “pretty brutal” email from Penelope Hegseth to Pete Hegseth, where she wrote:“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.”The mother claimed she wrote the email in “anger” and “emotion,” and added:“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.”According to John Oliver, Penelope Hegseth pleaded with her son to “fix” himself and wrote the email when Pete Hegseth was going through an “ugly” divorce from his second wife, Samantha Deering.“Honestly, I don’t know what you are talking about, Pete, with this whole ‘Women can’t be life-takers’ s**t, because it seems your own mom just took you the f**k out,” Oliver noted in his latest episode.Hegseth and Deering met at Vets for Freedom in 2008 and married in 2010. They had three children. Samantha filed for divorce in 2017 after Pete admitted to having an affair with Fox & Friends producer Jennifer Rauchet and fathering a child with her. In 2019, he married Rauchet.Pete Hegseth’s first wife was his high school sweetheart, Meredith Schwarz. They were married from 2004 to 2008, until he admitted to infidelity.It is noteworthy that Penelope Hegseth later retracted the email and instead wrote an apology to her son. In fact, the mother told The New York Times in 2024:“It is not true. It has never been true. I know my son. He is a good father, husband.”Penelope also called out the outlet for publishing the contents of her first email and described it as “disgusting.”As for the 2017 s****l assault allegation, Pete Hegseth’s attorney Timothy Parlatore claimed that his client was “visibly intoxicated” when the alleged incident occurred in a hotel in Monterey, California, and it was the complainant who was seen as the “aggressor in the encounter” by the authorities.Parlatore also claimed that Hegseth paid an undisclosed amount to the woman as he feared the revelation of the alleged incident would cost him his job at Fox News at the time.In late 2024, Pete Hegseth told podcaster Shawn Ryan:“It hasn’t made us more effective. It hasn’t made us more lethal. I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.”In his book, The War on Warriors, Hegseth wrote:“Dads take us to push risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.”However, during his January 2025 oath ceremony, Pete walked back on his views and said:“Women in our military, as I’ve said publicly, have and continue to make amazing contributions across all aspects of our battlefield.”In January 2026, NPR obtained a month-old memo stating that the Pentagon was seeking a six-month review of women in ground combat to ensure “operational effectiveness” of thousands of servicewomen across the Army and Marine Corps in infantry, armor, and artillery divisions.Last week, Pete’s father, Brian Hegseth, defended him amid midterm election results and calls for his impeachment, concerning the Iran war. Hegseth Sr. reposted the White House’s clip titled, “Stand. Fight. Defend the Republic,” and wrote in the caption:“The @SecWar has a pretty good defender. And a fantastic record.”Meanwhile, the War Secretary posted a video titled:“At the War Department: We Stand. We Fight. We Defend the Republic.”In it, he spoke about President Trump’s America First agenda and his department keeping up with it.“We are rebuilding our military and defense industrial base, bigger, better, and stronger than ever before… Diversity is not our strength; our unity is. Men and women are not the same, but in the military, they must be held to the same standard… Patriot extremism is not a thing. Patriots are now in control,” Pete Hegseth stated.About the Democrats and their takeover of U.S. Congress, the Defense Secretary added:“Their policies don’t work, so their obsession with political theater disguised as power drives them to try to destroy their opponent. It’s all about the politics of personal destruction. Didn’t work against President Trump and won’t work with me. You can rest assured of that.”Meanwhile, his father defended him by claiming Pete didn’t start wars but rather executed them as per the orders of the commander-in-chief, aka Donald Trump. The POTUS told ABC News that he has “every intention” of keeping Pete Hegseth, who was doing a “good job,” despite getting calls for the War Secretary’s impeachment.