Pete Hegseth in Washington, April 16. KEVIN WOLF/AP/SIPA / KEVIN WOLF/AP/SIPA
Blurring the lines
"Anyone saying the secretary misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is peddling fake news and ignorant of reality," insisted the spokesperson for US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. "The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men," Hegseth had declared on April 15, during a religious service at the Pentagon. Believing he was quoting the Bible, the "secretary of war" was actually repeating a line from Pulp Fiction (1994), directed by Quentin Tarantino, in which Samuel L. Jackson promises "great vengeance and furious anger" before shooting a former associate. A close ally of Donald Trump, Hegseth was paying tribute to soldiers who rescued the pilots of a fighter jet shot down over Iran on April 3.
A crusading obsession
In 2020, this former weekend host on the ultra-conservative Fox News channel published the book American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free with Center Street, in which he described himself as a "crusader" battling the left and Islam to "save" the United States. The author, an ardent Christian nationalist, also compared his defense of the State of Israel and of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the struggles of medieval crusaders. One chapter of his book is titled "Make The Crusade Great Again."
