War Secretary Pete Hegseth thinks of President Donald Trump as a modern-day Jesus.
Or at least that’s what he appeared to suggest at his Pentagon briefing Thursday morning. Hegseth was customarily kinetic toward the press, but this time he reached for a Biblical comparison to smite his scribbling adversaries.
“The Pharisees — the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time — they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report,” the secretary explained. “But … even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda.”
He added that journalists “are just like these Pharisees” — their “politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds” them to “the brilliance of our American warriors.”
To be fair, the legacy media exhibit many Pharisaical qualities. They are extremely self-important. They twist the truth to advance their agenda. And they are principally concerned with maintaining their own authority.
There’s nothing wrong with calling them Pharisees, per se.
The problem — and it’s a big one — is that in doing so, Hegseth cast Trump in the role of Jesus and the war in Iran as a miracle from God. The secretary, known more for his pugnacity than his intellectual capaciousness, probably didn’t think his sermon through. Even now, one can imagine him cursing the press from behind his desk at the Pentagon for their criticism of his Pharisee comments, still not quite sure what he said wrong.
It’s yet another example of why the Trump administration, particularly Hegseth, should refrain from injecting religion and religious language into government proceedings. Religion is delicate, and while he has other qualities, he lacks the necessary subtlety and depth to wield it as anything other than a blunt instrument.
One who leads Pentagon prayer services, quoting a Quentin Tarantino hitman preparing to shoot someone — apparently mistaking it for scripture — should not be reaching for Biblical comparisons to make his political arguments.
If Hegseth and Trump — who had to delete an image of himself as Jesus earlier in the week because he supposedly didn’t realize it was an image of Jesus — aren’t capable of speaking about religion productively, they should just leave religion out of things.
HEGSETH SAYS IRAN IS DIGGING OUT BOMBED FACILITIES
Trump and Vice President JD Vance have a point when they say the pope and other clergymen should be careful when wading into matters of policy and politics.
The same principle should apply at the Pentagon when it comes to religion.