Penelope Hegseth, the mother of President-elect Donald Trump‘s defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth, defended her son after a 2017 email surfaced in which she claimed he had abused women.

The New York Times reported last week on the elder Hegseth’s email, in which she said, “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,” as the younger Hegseth and his then-wife were going through a divorce in 2017. Penelope Hegseth said Wednesday on Fox News’s Fox and Friends that the email was written at a “very emotional time.”