President-elect Donald Trump’s support for Pete Hegseth, whom he announced as his pick for defense secretary shortly after Election Day, is wobbling after a crush of controversy over a rape allegation and a 2018 email from Hegseth’s mother accusing him of a pattern of abuse toward women.

Penelope Hegseth, who said in the email that her son “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around,” told a Fox News interviewer today that she regretted sending the email and that her son was no longer the person she lashed out at six years ago.

“Pete is a new person,” Hegseth said in an appearance on “Fox & Friends.” She urged senators who will consider his nomination to listen to him now. “He’s redeemed, forgiven, changed.”

Her appearance was greeted with optimism by people in Trump’s orbit, who have told associates they believe it could help minimize some of the concerns about the swirl of allegations about sexual misconduct, drinking and financial mismanagement. They have also been encouraged by a burst of expressions of support for Pete Hegseth from conservative activists on social media.

But Hegseth faces a series of tests today that will be critical for his chances. He is set to continue his meetings with key senators, including Joni Ernst of Iowa, a combat veteran who has spoken about being sexually assaulted herself. He is also set to start defending himself on television.

“I spoke to the president-elect this morning. He said keep going, keep fighting,” Hegseth told reporters as he arrived on Capitol Hill.

Asked whether he would back down amid reports that Trump was already talking to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida as a possible alternative, he said: “Why would I back down? I’ve always been a fighter.”

Still, Trump’s allies fear that the public reporting about the president-elect’s private conversations with DeSantis, which were reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, have emboldened Republican senators to question Hegseth’s viability.

Sens. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who are both Trump loyalists, have called the allegations against Hegseth disturbing, even as they say he deserves a chance to tell his side of the story.

“We absolutely cannot have a secretary of defense that gets drunk on a regular basis,” Cramer told The Washington Post, adding, “I got to know that he’s got that problem licked.”

Trump has made clear to people close to him that he believes Hegseth should have been more forthcoming about the problems he would face getting confirmed, according to two people with knowledge of his thinking.

The combination of events could determine whether he hangs on as the expected nominee. Trump has had discussions with other people for the job, including DeSantis, whom he defeated in the Republican presidential primary and has had a contentious relationship with. Trump likes the story of bringing on someone he dominated publicly, and he talked about it with DeSantis on Tuesday at a service honoring three Florida sheriff’s deputies who were killed in a car crash.

But the number of people in Trump’s world who dislike and distrust DeSantis — and bitterly recall the campaign he ran against the president-elect — is vast. Those people are discussing other options, including whether Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., who Trump picked as his national security adviser, could slide into the job, expecting he would be confirmed fairly easily by the Senate.

While criticizing Trump in the past has not always been an obstacle for his appointees, DeSantis threw aggressive jabs at Trump during the primary. They included a flip line about paying money to a porn actor, which was the basis for an indictment against Trump.

Trump has spent little if any personal capital with senators trying to push Hegseth through. And the president-elect’s advisers are mindful in private discussions that Republican senators are trying to be respectful of Trump while not approving of a nominee who concerns them.

Hegseth, 44, could become the third Trump pick to step aside after Matt Gaetz withdrew his name for attorney general and Sheriff Chad Chronister pulled out of consideration to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In the past two weeks, Hegseth has come under intense scrutiny. It was revealed that he had entered into a settlement agreement with a woman who accused him of rape in 2017; he had insisted it was a consensual encounter, and Trump told aides at the time that he wanted to stick with his announced nominee.

But the troublesome headlines, which Trump hates, only grew worse. The New York Times reported on the email his mother wrote him in 2018 as he was going through an acrimonious divorce, in which she told her son he had “abused” a number of women “in some way” over the years.

Trump has told people he was unhappy with the story about the email.

Hegseth was also the subject of a damning article in The New Yorker, which reported that he had been forced out as the head of two veterans groups because of his behavior. NBC News reported Tuesday that Hegseth’s drinking worried his colleagues at Fox News.

It was unclear how extensive the vetting into Hegseth’s past was by Trump’s transition team.

Now the Trump team is watching closely how Hegseth and his mother perform in the interviews, knowing they will be critical for Trump in deciding whether to stick with the former Fox News host and combat veteran whose qualifications to lead the Pentagon have come into question.

The perception from people close to Hegseth is that if he wants to save himself, he must perform well. The Trump team is particularly worried about female Republican senators breaking with Hegseth, especially Ernst.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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