Transcript: Trump Erupts as Pope’s Harsh Rebuke of Hegseth Hits Hard

Source: The New Republic · Bias: Left

Summary

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the March 31 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.There have been two big developments in Donald Trump’s war on Iran. First, he’s now threatening more war crimes. And second, we just learned that American forces may have bombed a second school in Iran, killing nearly two dozen people. Interestingly, all this arises as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is coming under fire for delivering a prayer suggesting that God sanctions overwhelming violence against the enemy. Also interestingly, this Hegseth moment was dramatically undercut by the Pope, who declared that God does not heed such prayers.Sarah Posner, a scholar and host of the excellent Reign of Error podcast, has been making the point that Hegseth’s extreme theology explains much of what we’re seeing here. So we’re talking about all this today with her. Sarah, nice to have you on.Sarah Posner: Thanks for having me, Greg.Sargent: So let’s start here. Pete Hegseth has been doing monthly prayer services at the Pentagon, which itself would be a violation of church-and-state separation. He recently said a prayer that was expressly directed to American troops in Iran. I just want to highlight two parts. First, here’s Hegseth quoting King David:Pete Hegseth (voiceover): You made my enemies turn their backs to me and those who hated me I destroyed. They cried for help, but there was none to save. They cried to the Lord, but He did not answer them.And here’s Hegseth calling for God’s assistance against the enemy:Pete Hegseth (voiceover): Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.Sargent: Sarah, two things here. First, note how Hegseth says God didn’t answer the enemy, whereas he apparently does answer Hegseth. Second, note the express claim that God sanctions overwhelming violence. Your thoughts on all that?Posner: Hegseth is expressing an extreme version of Christian supremacy, where America—a Christian nation, in his view—is entitled, and in fact probably in his mind required by God, to smite America’s enemies, or to smite the enemies of Christianity even. I mean, when we talk about Christian nationalism, this is exactly what we’re talking about. But I think the important thing to remember with Hegseth, in contrast to other versions of Christian nationalism that we see more commonly in the Republican Party, is that his is a very extreme version of Christian supremacy where we Christians are entitled to go out and take dominion over the world, to vanquish enemies, and to do so violently—and even when they do so violently, with the express mandate from God.Sargent: Right. And he is an adherent of a theology called Christian Reconstructionism. He seems to see biblical law as supreme over the authority of the state. Can you explain what that belief system really is?Posner: Christian Reconstructionism holds that biblical law is superior to civil law and that the Bible—that biblical law—should govern every aspect of life: your personal life for sure, but also political life, military life. So to Hegseth, this biblical law—which of course, the interpretation of which would be contested by different scholars or adherents to the Bible—but his version of biblical law is superior to the Pentagon’s own internal military law, American civil law, and also, importantly, when we’re talking about Hegseth and the prosecution of this unjust, illegal war, that is superior to international law and the rules of engagement in war and military conflicts.Sargent: Well, I want to try to connect Hegseth’s conduct of the war to all this right now. Hegseth has been positively oozing with bloodlust and sadism in his public discussions of the war. He openly enthuses about raining, quote-unquote, “death and destruction” from the sky, about liberating the military from stupid rules of engagement, about unleashing maximum lethality, and even about killing, quote-unquote, “without hesitation”—which I translate as with no moral qualms whatsoever. So Sarah, linking all these things up, it seems like Hegseth sees his war as being in accordance with biblical law. So even U.S. law might not be binding on him. And of course international human rights law, which would be way at the very bottom of the totem pole for him, would certainly not be binding on him. Is that more or less the situation?Posner: That is more or less the situation. He sees in the biblical mandates that he reads in his Bible that violence against one’s enemies is not just necessary in the field of battle, but actually desired.

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Transcript: Trump Erupts as Pope’s Harsh Rebuke of Hegseth Hits Hard
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Transcript: Trump Erupts as Pope’s Harsh Rebuke of Hegseth Hits Hard

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The following is a lightly edited transcript of the March 31 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.There have been two big developments in Donald Trump’s war on Iran. First, he’s now threatening more war crimes. And second, we just learned that American forces may have bombed a second school in Iran, killing nearly two dozen people. Interestingly, all this arises as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is coming under fire for delivering a prayer suggesting that God sanctions overwhelming violence against the enemy. Also interestingly, this Hegseth moment was dramatically undercut by the Pope, who declared that God does not heed such prayers.Sarah Posner, a scholar and host of the excellent Reign of Error podcast, has been making the point that Hegseth’s extreme theology explains much of what we’re seeing here. So we’re talking about all this today with her. Sarah, nice to have you on.Sarah Posner: Thanks for having me, Greg.Sargent: So let’s start here. Pete Hegseth has been doing monthly prayer services at the Pentagon, which itself would be a violation of church-and-state separation. He recently said a prayer that was expressly directed to American troops in Iran. I just want to highlight two parts. First, here’s Hegseth quoting King David:Pete Hegseth (voiceover): You made my enemies turn their backs to me and those who hated me I destroyed. They cried for help, but there was none to save. They cried to the Lord, but He did not answer them.And here’s Hegseth calling for God’s assistance against the enemy:Pete Hegseth (voiceover): Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.Sargent: Sarah, two things here. First, note how Hegseth says God didn’t answer the enemy, whereas he apparently does answer Hegseth. Second, note the express claim that God sanctions overwhelming violence. Your thoughts on all that?Posner: Hegseth is expressing an extreme version of Christian supremacy, where America—a Christian nation, in his view—is entitled, and in fact probably in his mind required by God, to smite America’s enemies, or to smite the enemies of Christianity even. I mean, when we talk about Christian nationalism, this is exactly what we’re talking about. But I think the important thing to remember with Hegseth, in contrast to other versions of Christian nationalism that we see more commonly in the Republican Party, is that his is a very extreme version of Christian supremacy where we Christians are entitled to go out and take dominion over the world, to vanquish enemies, and to do so violently—and even when they do so violently, with the express mandate from God.Sargent: Right. And he is an adherent of a theology called Christian Reconstructionism. He seems to see biblical law as supreme over the authority of the state. Can you explain what that belief system really is?Posner: Christian Reconstructionism holds that biblical law is superior to civil law and that the Bible—that biblical law—should govern every aspect of life: your personal life for sure, but also political life, military life. So to Hegseth, this biblical law—which of course, the interpretation of which would be contested by different scholars or adherents to the Bible—but his version of biblical law is superior to the Pentagon’s own internal military law, American civil law, and also, importantly, when we’re talking about Hegseth and the prosecution of this unjust, illegal war, that is superior to international law and the rules of engagement in war and military conflicts.Sargent: Well, I want to try to connect Hegseth’s conduct of the war to all this right now. Hegseth has been positively oozing with bloodlust and sadism in his public discussions of the war. He openly enthuses about raining, quote-unquote, “death and destruction” from the sky, about liberating the military from stupid rules of engagement, about unleashing maximum lethality, and even about killing, quote-unquote, “without hesitation”—which I translate as with no moral qualms whatsoever. So Sarah, linking all these things up, it seems like Hegseth sees his war as being in accordance with biblical law. So even U.S. law might not be binding on him. And of course international human rights law, which would be way at the very bottom of the totem pole for him, would certainly not be binding on him. Is that more or less the situation?Posner: That is more or less the situation. He sees in the biblical mandates that he reads in his Bible that violence against one’s enemies is not just necessary in the field of battle, but actually desired.

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