On April 7, CNN hosted Mark Glesne, whom CNN identified as an ordained pastor and Marine Corps veteran, to discuss religious rhetoric in recent public statements by President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. According to LinkedIn and what appears to be Glesne’s personal website, Glesne serves as vice president of marketing, consumer products at The Daily Wire.
On CNN, Daily Wire’s Mark Glesne says Defense Secretary Pete Hegesth is “supported” in “praying for overwhelming violence”
Glesne: “You can support it both from a military leadership perspective. ... And I think biblically it is supported as well”
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From the April 7, 2026, edition of CNN's The Situation Room
PAMELA BROWN (CO-ANCHOR): You believe Secretary Hegseth's invoking of religion, his Christian faith in particular, in this Iran war is appropriate both militarily and biblically? Explain why.
MARK GLESNE (GUEST): I do. Thanks for the question. I think militarily, praying for overwhelming violence, as Pete recently has done, is appropriate because that's how wars are won. That's how conflicts are victorious. And I think biblically, what the secretary is expressing is the uncomfortable reality of Romans 13, which is, while Christians are called not to personal revenge, the state and governing authorities have been ordained by God and set up, as it says in Romans 13:3, to be a quote "terror to bad conduct." And so I think you can support it both from a military leadership perspective — of this prayer and this use of a personal faith. Keep in mind, the military is a deeply faith-based community, with less than 2% of active military members claiming to be agnostic or atheist. And I think biblically it is supported as well.