“Even if it’s a little bit true, you don’t want her as governor,” Trump said. Looking beyond the fact that he’s clearly willing to dismiss credible abuse allegations, there are some real ironies here. First, if a mother calling her child a liar is inherently disqualifying, that would be bad news for the man Trump made Defense secretary: Pete Hegseth. Hegseth’s mother wrote him an email in 2018 saying he “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego,” according to a New York Times report.