Anderson Cooper delivered the perfect takedown of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth following his Pulp Fiction prayer blunder.
In an appearance on The Late Show, Cooper, 58, mocked Hegseth for reciting a Bible verse that more closely resembled Samuel L. Jackson’s monologue in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.
While speaking with host Stephen Colbert, 61, about the president’s war in Iran, Cooper came up with a new nickname for Hegseth.
“This administration says this is not a war. And yet, they insisted on renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War. Secretary Samuel Jackson calls himself the Secretary of War,” the CNN host said.
Cooper’s remark drew cheers and laughs from the audience.
Hegseth read a prayer about “great vengeance and furious anger” at a worship service at the Pentagon on Wednesday. Hegseth introduced the verse as “CSAR 2517,” or “Combat Search and Rescue 2517,” and said he thinks it was “meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17.”
“It reads—and pray with me please—the path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and duty shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children,” Hegseth read.
“And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee. Amen.”
In Pulp Fiction, Jackson’s character, Jules Winnfield, quotes what he claims to be Bible verse Ezekiel 25:17, before shooting someone dead. However, while some parts of the monologue reference the verse, most of it is fictional and was created for the movie.
Winnfield recites, “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”
The actual Ezekiel 25:17 Bible verse ends with “I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”
The Pentagon defended Hegseth, 45, after the viral error, insisting that he was reciting a “custom prayer.”
“Secretary Hegseth on Wednesday shared a custom prayer, referenced as the CSAR prayer, used by the brave warfighters of Sandy-1 who led the daylight rescue mission of Dude 44 Alpha out of Iran, which was obviously inspired by dialogue in Pulp Fiction,” Parnell, 44, wrote in a statement on X. “However, both the CSAR prayer and the dialogue in Pulp Fiction were reflections of the verse 25:17, as Secretary Hegseth clearly said in his remarks at the prayer service.”
“Anyone saying the Secretary misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is peddling fake news and ignorant of reality,” said Parnell.
Earlier on Thursday night’s episode, Colbert also eviscerated Hegseth, saying the secretary of defense managed to quote from “the gospel of Quenton Tarantino.”
“If you’re not familiar with that gospel, it’s like the regular Bible, but Tarantino’s Jesus says the N-word a lot,” he quipped.
