“Daily Show” correspondent Ronny Chieng on Wednesday mocked Penelope Hegseth, the mother of Donald Trump’s embattled defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth, after she went to bat for the former Fox News host on his old network.
“What kind of parent-teacher conference are we watching right now?” ’Cause the future secretary of defense needs his mom to come out and defend him? I thought you were against women in combat roles,” joked Chieng in a reference to the DOD pick’s controversial remarks about women in the military.
The former Fox News host’s mother, who was reportedly behind a 2018 email where she called her son an “abuser of women,” dropped by “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday to defend his character and qualifications.
She’s also reportedly made calls to senators on his behalf as a confirmation battle awaits him.
“I wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t believe he’s the man for the job,” she said.
Chieng joked that he never saw former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld call on his mother to issue a “warning for the Taliban” before he played a “Fox & Friends” clip of Penelope Hegseth dismissing the email she sent amid her son’s divorce proceedings at the time.
“Let’s go back seven years, which if we all went back seven years we would see that maybe we were not the people we are today,” she said.
“I want people to look at Pete. … Understand him for who he is today and to disregard the media, that was seven years and most of it is misinformation.”
Chieng looked baffled by the claim.
“What? Misinformation? You wrote the email? You’re the one who told us he’s a piece of shit,” Chieng said.
“And by the way, seven years ago wasn’t ancient history, OK? We still have the same Spider-Man.”
Check out more of Chieng’s monologue on Wednesday.