Megyn Kelly on Pete Hegseth: “I am not a fan of the praying and the constant references to God, Jesus, and the Bible from the Pentagon while he's announcing war plans. It makes me very uncomfortable. ”
Kelly: “I'm begging you Pete to stop doing that. Begging you to stop doing that.”
Published
Megyn Kelly on Pete Hegseth: "I am not a fan of the praying and the constant references to God, Jesus, and the Bible from the Pentagon while he's announcing war plans. It makes me very uncomfortable. "
Citation
From the April 16, 2026, edition of SiriusXM's The Megyn Kelly Show
MEGYN KELLY (HOST): On the subject of theology making its way into the White House a lot, you know, President Trump taking on the pope and posing as Jesus, I've got to talk to you about Pete Hegseth. I'm a fan of Pete's. I helped get him this job. He would be the first to tell you that. However, I am not a fan of the praying and the constant references to God, Jesus, and the Bible from the Pentagon while he's announcing war plans. It makes me very uncomfortable. Very. I do not think those two things belong together.
I much prefer the Dan “Raizin" Caine approach of just the facts. The — religion, obviously, it's a major part of Pete's life. That's great, and I'm in favor of that. It doesn't belong when you're talking about our plans to wipe out people, including possible civilians as President Trump continues to threaten. It's — these two things do not belong together, and I just — I'm really uncomfortable with it.
If Joe Biden did this through his Pentagon, I would have ripped him a new one, and therefore, notwithstanding my friendship with Pete, I feel the need to register my strong objection to what he's doing.
Today, he did it about — I'm going to play you the sound bite. You're going to hear a long wind up on a religious story he told about his time in church this past Sunday. He's talking — you will ultimately learn at the end of it, I think it's beneficial to know right now — about the press.
He's going to turn this whole thing — this story he's going to tell us — around on the horrible press, which is like another, what is he doing? You don't — you do not in that post bring up Jesus to rip on media from your perch at the Pentagon. Here's what happened.
(CLIP BEGINS)
PETE HEGSETH (DEFENSE SECRETARY): This past Sunday, I was sitting in church with my family, and our minister preached from the Book of Mark, the third chapter. And in the passage, Jesus entered a synagogue and healed a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees came to watch. And as the scripture reads, they came to see whether he, Jesus, would heal him — or he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. You see, the Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report.
But their hearts were hardened. 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. As the passage ends, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel against him, how to destroy him. I sat there in church and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees.
Not all of you. Not all of you. But the legacy Trump-hating press.
(CLIP ENDS)
KELLY: OK. Your thoughts on that and this administration's increasingly frequent use of Catholicism and Christianity and Jesus himself to make a political point.
BRITT MAYER (GUEST): Yeah. I mean, that makes me uncomfortable too. I was there with the wind up. You know, I'm kind of waiting — where are you going to connect the dots here that what you're saying is accurate, the story you're painting, but how are you going to connect it? And then when it turns and you're relating a very deeply theological issue to the press.
Yeah, that rubs me wrong. It doesn't — it's not a good connection. You know, it's taken totally out of context.
…
KELLY: Yeah. I think as an inspiration, absolutely. References to God in general, totally for them. But the Sunday biblical references, Psalms, and so on that we've been getting from Pete Hegseth, like, regularly as he's announcing who we're going to bomb next or how we're going to kill next is — it makes me extremely uncomfortable. I'm begging you Pete to stop doing that. Begging you to stop doing that.