Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost has revealed that one of his sketch ideas, involving Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, was brushed off for being “too ridiculous.” Two weeks later, the scenario played out in real life.
Jost, 43, recalled the bizarre moment during Thursday’s segment of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “We were pitching ideas for one of the cold opens, like, two months ago,” he explained. “And I was like, ‘Would it be funny if Hegseth just did that Bible verse that they have in Pulp Fiction?’ Remember, they’re like, from Ezekiel...”
Host Fallon chimed in, acknowledging: “Yeah, Samuel L. Jackson, 12:17.”
“Yeah, we talked about it, and we were like, ‘That would be too ridiculous,’” Jost continued. “And it would take up all this time in the cold open. It would seem like we wouldn’t.
“And then he for real did it! Like two weeks later!” he exclaimed, quipping that the “good news is I’m being surveilled.”
Last month, Hegseth, 45, made headlines for delivering a sermon in which he appeared to paraphrase a speech from the cult-classic movie Pulp Fiction rather than scripture.
During the April worship service at the Pentagon, Hegseth said the prayer, “CSAR 25:17,” which stands for “Combat Search and Rescue,” is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17. He then urged his audience to pray with him.
“The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil man. Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children,” the Republican said.
“And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee. Amen.”
The actual Ezekiel 25:17 passage reads: “And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”
Instead of the scripture Hegseth mentioned, his prayer seemed to mirror the fictional Ezekiel 25:17 that Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Jules Winnfield, delivered before killing a character in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 crime thriller.
“There’s a passage I got memorized, seems appropriate for this situation: Ezekiel 25:17,” Jackson’s character said.
“The path of righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.”
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