Hegseth channels his inner Tarantino with fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction | Trump administration
It was perhaps inevitable that a boastful Christian nationalist defense secretary who rose from his role as a Fox News television host over the weekend would take a spoof Bible verse from a violent Hollywood blockbuster and present it at a prayer session at the Pentagon to rally troops for the “holy war” in Iran.
Among the slew of stories swirling around Pete Hegseth this week, including articles of impeachment brought against him by a group of ambitious Democratic lawmakers, is the bizarre claim that the Bible-thumping Hegseth passed around Oscar-winning director Quentin Tarantino’s fire and brimstone script because God’s word was too compelling to ignore.
On Wednesday, at the last of his new prayer services at the Pentagon to bless Iran’s war effort, Hegseth took the podium and offered a prayer for search and rescue teams that he said was based on a passage in the Bible book of Ezekiel.
But as is often the case in the topsy-turvy world of Donald Trump’s second term in office, all was not as it seemed. The prayer Hegseth used appeared to be a bastardized version of actor Samuel L Jackson’s speech in the movie Pulp Fiction.
According to some accounts of the eventHegseth only accepted Ezekiel 25:17, the Bible verse on which it was loosely based, rather than the oratory Jackson more closely resembles in the film.
The confusion was further compounded by the fact that a Hollywood movie Hegseth mentioned, promising “great revenge” and “furious fury” from the skies, turned into a prayer for the safety of military search and rescue teams.
Useful in its own way analysis Newsweek also presented three passages of text regarding the situation: Ezekiel 25:17; Jackson’s dialogue from Tarantino’s 1994 cult black comedy; and the words Hegseth said Wednesday, which he identified as coming from the prayer called CSAR 2517 (combat search and rescue), were common in military circles and recited to the crew who rescued an air force colonel from a mountain in Iran after his fighter jet was shot down this month.
The shortest passage is this verse in the Bible: “And I will take great vengeance on them with severe rebukes; and when I have taken vengeance on them, they will know that I am the Lord.”
Both are longer, more compatible with each other, and expand significantly on the original Bible text.
In Pulp Fiction, Jackson’s character, Jules Winnfield, says just before the mob boss executes a crooked business partner: “The path of the righteous man is besieged on all sides by the evil of the selfish and the cruelty of evil men. Blessed is he who shepherds the weak through the dark valley in the name of charity and good will, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and finder of lost children.”
“And I will come upon you with great vengeance and fierce anger on those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know that my name is the Lord when I take my revenge on you.”
Hegseth said he thought the military prayer he recited “should reflect Ezekiel 25:17,” making no mention of Tarantino’s script, Jackson’s nearly identical recital, or his role in the film for which he received an Academy Award nomination.
“The path of the downed airman is surrounded on all sides by the evil of selfish people and the cruelty of bad men,” he said.
“Blessed is he who shepherds the lost through the dark valley in the name of fellowship and duty, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and finder of lost children.
“And I will attack with great vengeance and fury those who tried to capture and destroy my brother. And when I have my revenge on you, you will know that my call sign is Sandy One.”
One Publish on X At lunch on Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Sean Parnell acknowledged that the prayer was “clearly inspired by the dialogue in Pulp Fiction,” although Hegseth did not mention it at the event.
Still, Parnell wrote: “Anyone who says the Minister misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is peddling fake news and is ignorant of reality.”
Newsweek noted that the biblical passage is a condemnation of the Philistines and Cherethites, historical enemies of the Israelites, dating back to the 5th century B.C. The Old Testament book in which it appears, Ezekiel, focuses on a demonstrative prophet of the same name who performs street theater to attract the attention of crowds to deliver his message.
On Thursday morning, at a press briefing on the progress of the Iran war, Hegseth, who also has a knack for performing to the masses from his days as a television host, once again invoked the Bible, likening the media to the Pharisees, a New Testament-era group often at odds with Jesus Christ and his teachings.
“When the passage ended, the Pharisees came out and immediately gave advice against him, on how to destroy him,” Hegseth said, recalling a sermon he heard last weekend.
“I sat there in the church and thought: ‘Our press is just like those Pharisees. The hardened hearts of our press are geared only to opposition.'”
The defense secretary has vociferously and repeatedly condemned the press for its coverage of the Iran war and the Trump administration’s skepticism of statements by the White House and Pentagon that the ongoing six-week war has already been won and that Iranian leaders have “already won.”I beg for agreementTo end this despite denials from Tehran.
Addressing the media’s perception of “constant negativity,” Hegseth said: “Sometimes it’s hard to tell which side some of you are really on.”
