Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has no plans to stop browbeating critics with what he frames as biblical authority—even when that authority looks a lot like something pulled from a movie.
On Thursday morning, Hegseth delivered a lengthy diatribe barely disguised as a sermon, quoting fake scripture from the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction, and then berated the press on biblical grounds during a press briefing, comparing the president to Jesus. The whole thing happened at the Pentagon, with the usual kind of morning stiffness in the air—some people shuffled papers like they were trying to stay awake through it.
Hegseth, who for weeks has been invoking Christian scripture to justify the administration’s war against Iran, hosted the worship service and sermon at the Pentagon on Wednesday. During the speech, he quoted a violent monologue delivered by Samuel L. Jackson’s character Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction, before he kills someone. Hegseth presented the moment as if it were scripture, loosely quoting Ezekiel 25:17—except he cut out preceding verses from Ezekiel 25 and swapped in an original monologue written for the film.
He then framed the “citation” as a prayer he claimed was recited by members of the Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) team that recovered a downed pilot from Iran earlier this month. “They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17,” he said, inviting the audience to pray with him. Then he recited a passage that, according to Misryoum reporting, is virtually word-for-word the film’s monologue, which appears three times in the movie.
The language he used—about “the path of the downed aviator” being beset “on all sides by the iniquities,” and about striking down those who attempt to capture or destroy “my brother”—is presented as if it tracks biblical meaning, but it is actually tied directly to the Tarantino scene. In Misryoum analysis, the monologue is meant to map out the violent character’s own nihilism and the road toward redemption within the film’s narrative, not to function as a stand-in for Ezekiel.
And this wasn’t the only time the defense secretary leaned on a loose reading of scripture to score points in the week’s battles over the war. During a press conference Thursday, Hegseth compared members of the Pentagon press corps to the Pharisees—a Jewish social movement in the era of the Second Temple that would eventually give rise to Rabbinic Judaism. He then traced a familiar New Testament arc: Pharisees accuse Jesus of blasphemy after they witness him forgive a paralyzed man, and Jesus responds by healing the man of his paralysis, which is often used to explain his departures from adherence to traditional Jewish religious law and customs.
“I just can’t help but notice the endless stream of garbage, the relentlessly negative coverage you cannot resist peddling,” Hegseth complained, while describing a Sunday sermon at his church where the minister discussed the Pharisees. “You see, the Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time … even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter,” he said, adding that the “legacy, Trump-hating press” are like them. In the analogy that followed, Misryoum editorial desk notes, Trump and his administration presumably represent Jesus, while the press represent the nitpicky critics—though Hegseth didn’t spend much time tightening the theological logic.
The remarks have landed with extra force because of the administration’s ongoing feud with Pope Leo XIV, who has condemned the war in Iran and sparred with Trump over threats to commit crimes against humanity if Iran doesn’t surrender. Shortly after Hegseth’s press conference, Leo wrote on social media: “Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”
It’s hard not to notice the pattern here: religion as messaging, scripture as a prop, and the press as the designated foil—except maybe the most telling part is how easily the Pentagon sermon drifted from the Bible into something that feels like it belongs under theater lights instead.
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