Hegseth’s War on Pharisees, Journalists, and Reality
Pete Hegseth, who likes to call himself “secretary of war,” has a new favorite insult for journalists that’s inspired by the Bible. But like his recent Pulp Fiction prayer, it’s not a very accurate interpretation of Scripture.
“Our press is just like these Pharisees,” Hegseth declared during a press conference last month after recounting a sermon he heard about some Pharisees criticizing Jesus in Mark 3 for healing a man’s shriveled hand on the Sabbath.
“The legacy, Trump-hating press: Your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors. The Pharisees scrutinized every good act in order to find a violation, only looking for the negative. The hardened hearts of our press are calibrated only to impugn,” Hegseth added. “I would ask you to open your eyes to the goodness, the historic success of our troops, the courage of this president, and this historic moment for a deal that could end the Iranian nuclear threat. The incredible battlefield victory laid before your eyes. The not one but two incredible rescue missions — miracles, you might say.”
The next day, Hegseth criticized reporting about the poor food quality aboard U.S. ships in the Middle East as false, though more reporting continues to document with images concerns about the food. Writing on Elon Musk’s X platform about the claims, Hegseth called it “more FAKE NEWS from the Pharisee Press” (which probably would’ve been a good newspaper name back in the first century, along with the Sadducee Sentinel, Essene Enquirer, and Zealot Gazette).
A couple of weeks later, a Department of Defense account on X posted a graphic from a rightwing organization claiming that on major media news apps there had been 634 “left-leaning articles” about the Iran war and only 41 “right-leaning articles.” The DoD account captioned it: “Secretary Hegseth was right — the media is filled with Pharisees.”
Putting aside the absurdity of the graphic that labeled any story noting how the war wasn’t going well or how the U.S. was committing war crimes as “left-leaning” (instead of reality-based), the use of “Pharisee” as a stand-in for “left-leaning” journalist shows how divorced from the biblical texts Hegseth’s favorite new insult has become. And as his use of it at the press conference suggests, he’s calling someone a “Pharisee” simply based on whether they criticize Trump or the war in Iran, which makes Trump the Jesus-like figure in that analogy (not that Trump would ever depict himself as the Great Physician).
But there’s another problem with how Hegseth is using the term “Pharisees” as an insult: He seems to be drawing upon inaccurate and antisemitic uses of the term. But he refuses to stop, even when confronted about it being disrespectful.
While testifying before a U.S. Senate committee last week, Hegseth again invoked the old Jewish group as he attacked journalists for not being pro-war enough (and pro-administration spin enough). A bit later in the hearing, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada criticized him for using the “problematic and historically weaponized term that casts Jewish communities as hypocritical or morally corrupt.” As Hegseth dismissively laughed at the senator, who is Jewish and even served as president of her Reform synagogue before entering politics, she insisted that “words matter.” Noting that such rhetoric can suggest his department “is going to target specific groups or individuals of people based on their religion,” she asked why he’s using the term in “a historically hurtful” way.
“I feel like it’s a pretty accurate term for folks who don’t see the plank in their own eye and always want to see what’s wrong with an operation as opposed to the historic success of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, so I stand by it,” he insisted as he borrowed a teaching from Jesus that was actually directed toward his disciples and not the Pharisees (and that wasn’t about dropping bombs since it’s literally found in the same sermon as “love your enemies”).
Rosen angrily responded by blasting Hegseth for not being respectful and for being antisemitic. In response, Hegseth quietly sat as if being dared by Samuel L. Jackson to “say ‘what’ again.”
Given Hegseth’s insistence on co-opting a biblical term and employing it out of context as an insult against reporters doing their job, this issue of A Public Witness takes a look at the real Pharisees and the lesson Hegseth is missing with his childish name-calling.
Will the Real Pharisees Please Stand Up?
New Testament professor Roland Deines has called the Pharisees “good guys with bad press.” If Hegseth learns that, he might switch course and borrow from Paul to declare himself “a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees.”
That description of “good guys with bad press” might surprise many Christians since the group often gets a bad rap in sermons. But the assessment by Deines is widely shared among New Testament scholars and among Jewish scholars and rabbis.
