NBC
Last month, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth garnered plenty of attention after quoting the fictional Bible verse from Pulp Fiction during a prayer service at the Pentagon. It was a scene that could have been ripped straight out of a Saturday Night Live sketch, and it turns out it almost made it into one before it played out in real life.
Saturday Night Live has been using politics as comedic fodder since its inception, and that has certainly been the case during Donald Trump’s time as the President of the United States.
The show’s cold open has frequently featured actors playing Trump and members of his administration during his two terms in office, and this season, head writer and “Weekend Update” co-host Colin Jost has stepped into the role of Pete Hegseth on more than half a dozen occasions since portraying him for the first time in October.
Jost’s character is a caricature that positions the Secretary of War as a hyperalpha man’s man with a sense of humor that’s frozen decades in the past; the kind of guy who worshipped Dane Cook and had a Pulp Fiction poster next to one for Boondock Saints on his wall in college.
The actual Hegseth attracted plenty of mockery for trotting out a fictional quote from that first movie a month ago, and SNL was apparently ahead of the curve when it came to predicting that moment.
Colin Jost says “Saturday Night Live” thought about joking about Pete Hegseth quoting “Pulp Fiction” before he did it
One of the most memorable scenes in Pulp Fiction involves Samuel L. Jackson’s character reciting a Bible verse he asserts is Ezekiel 25:17, which includes a line about God’s promise to “strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.”
Quentin Tarantino loosely adapted that verse from the actual one in Ezekiel where God promises to “execute great acts of vengeance” upon the Philistines, but they are fairly distinct as far as the literal text is concerned.
On April 15th, Hegseth led a prayer service at the Pentagon where he read what he also asserted was Ezekiel 25:17, although the version he went with was ripped from the movie as opposed to the actual Bible.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth quotes a fake Pulp Fiction Bible verse during Pentagon sermon
He runs a bible study at the White House every week pic.twitter.com/U4Q9NYLmf5
— HOT SPOT (@HotSpotHotSpot) April 16, 2026
On Thursday, Jost sat down wth Jimmy Fallon for an interview where he revealed he pitched a joke about Hegseth doing exactly that for a cold open a month before he went that route, noting it didn’t make it on television thanks to the amount of time it would have taken up and its “ridiculous” nature.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth quotes a fake Pulp Fiction Bible verse during Pentagon sermon
He runs a bible study at the White House every week pic.twitter.com/U4Q9NYLmf5
— HOT SPOT (@HotSpotHotSpot) April 16, 2026
Truth is really stranger than fiction sometimes.