Donald Trump's pick to run the Pentagon says he is the victim of an unfair smear campaign and he'll "fight like hell" for the job — despite reports the president-elect is already considering replacing him.
Pete Hegseth's mother has also come to the defence of her son after it was revealed she called him a serial abuser of women in a 2018 email.
Mr Hegseth, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming a Fox News host, was tapped by Trump for the defence secretary role a week after his election win.
He has since acknowledged that he paid off a woman who accused him of rape to prevent her from filing a lawsuit — but he maintains the encounter, in 2017, was consensual.
And he's disputed further allegations, published in The New Yorker magazine, of sexual impropriety and financial mismanagement at two veterans' advocacy groups he once ran.
"What you're seeing right now with me is the art of the smear," Mr Hegseth told conservative interviewer Megyn Kelly on Wednesday, local time.
"Take whatever tiny kernels of truth — and there are tiny, tiny ones in there — and blow them up into a masquerade of a narrative about somebody that I am definitely not."
Mr Hegseth conceded he was a "serial cheater" in the past, but said he had changed.
"It was a fair characterisation of me before I truly was changed by [wife] Jen and my lord and saviour Jesus Christ," he said.
"Am I a perfect man? No. Was I a perfect man? Absolutely not. Do I regret those things? Yes. Is it who I am today? No."
Mr Hegseth also spent Wednesday lobbying senators — who must confirm Trump's cabinet picks — not to block his appointment to the defence secretary role.
He said he had spoken to Trump that morning, and Trump had told him "I got your back" but "you need to be as tough as shit".
Multiple US media outlets have reported that Trump has been considering replacing Mr Hegseth with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He was Trump's one-time rival for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, who Trump has previously referred to as "Ron DeSanctimonious".
'Ridiculous narrative'
The New Yorker report cited anonymous former colleagues and multiple documents, including one compiled by ex-employees of the Concerned Veterans for America group, where Mr Hegseth was president from 2013 to 2016.
The document said Mr Hegseth, who was married, was frequently excessively drunk at work events and often sexually pursued female staff, who he and members of his management team had categorised as "party girls" and "not party girls".
One former employee's letter of complaint said he drunkenly chanted "kill all Muslims" at a bar while on a work trip in Ohio. Another said that he "treated the organisation funds like they were a personal expense account — for partying, drinking, and using CVA events as little more than opportunities to 'hook up' with women on the road".
Mr Hegseth blamed "disgruntled" staff, who he said were fired for good reasons, for spreading false stories as an act of retribution while refusing to put their names to their claims.
"The media's driving with this ridiculous narrative," he told Kelly. "They're going to make it up just like they have so far — all anonymous, all innuendo, all rumour, nothing sourced, no verification."
His mother, Penelope Hegseth, meanwhile appeared on Fox News to discuss an email she sent Mr Hegseth which later appeared in the New York Times.
In the 2018 email, 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.
"… 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."
Ms Hegseth said she wrote the email during an emotional time, when her son and his then-wife were going through a painful divorce.
"I wrote that in haste," she told Fox News. "I wrote that out of love, and about two hours later I retracted it with an apology email." She said her son was now a "new person, redeemed, changed".
"I believe he's the man for the job," Ms Hegseth said. "Being a TV news host, I think, prepares you for most things in a position like this — you're a good communicator, you have to think on your feet, you take charge."
The defence secretary role would put Mr Hegseth in charge of the Pentagon and make him leader of America's 1.3 million active-duty military members.
If Trump decides to replace Mr Hegseth, he'll become the second of Trump's picks not to make it to the Senate confirmation process after divisive ex-congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew as nominee for attorney-general.
