Colin Jost might've manifested Pete Hegseth quoting “Pulp Fiction” in a scrapped “SNL” cold open

Marina WattsFri, May 15, 2026 at 3:36 PM UTC

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Colin Jost; Pete Hegseth
Credit: Getty(2)Key Points -

Colin Jost revealed that a scrapped Saturday Night Live cold open involving Pete Hegseth wound up happening in real life.

During a Pentagon prayer service, Hegseth evoked the Bible — along with the gospel from the book of Quentin Tarantino.

Jost said the writers' room pitched it but deemed it "too ridiculous" for the show.

Colin Jost might've manifested Pete Hegseth quoting Pulp Fiction during a prayer service.

The Saturday Night Livestar revealed that weeks before the Secretary of Defense quoted Samuel L. Jackson's Bible verse monologue during a Pentagon prayer service, it was pitched as a cold open on the show but scrapped for being too outrageous.

"We were talking in the writers' room, we were pitching ideas for one of the cold opens, like, two months ago, and I was like, 'Would it be funny if Hegseth just did that Bible verse that they have in Pulp Fiction?'" Jost said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

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"We talked about it, and we were like, 'That would be too ridiculous,'" Jost, who has appeared on the sketch show as Hegseth, continued. "And it would take up all this time in the cold open...And then he for real did it! Like, two weeks later!"

Colin Jost as Pete Hegseth on 'Saturday Night Live'
Credit: Lloyd Bishop/NBC

Jost concluded that the good news to come out of this coincidence was that "I'm being surveilled." "So, that's a relief."

On April 15 during a Pentagon worship service led by Hegseth, he spoke about a prayer that the lead planner of the Combat Search and Rescue operation told him, following a U.S. Air Force airman rescue mission in Iran. The prayer, called CSAR 25:17, drew from the Bible verse Ezekiel 25:17.

Ezekiel 25:17 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." While quoting the Bible, however, Hegseth also wound up quoting a monologue made by Samuel L. Jackson's Jules Winnfield in the 1994 film right before he executes another character.

Reading from CSAR 25:17, Hegseth said, "The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherd the lost 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 capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign is Sandy One when I lay my vengeance upon thee. And amen."

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Hegseth had changed the Bible verse by swapping "I am the Lord" for "my call sign is Sandy One."

In the monologue from Pulp Fiction, meanwhile, Jackson's character only quotes the Bible at the very end of his speech. "There's this passage I got memorized. Seems appropriate for this situation," Jules says before launching into his version of the Bible verse.

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men," Jules proclaims.

"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."

Pete Hegseth conducts a prayer as President Donald Trump listens on Feb. 21, 2026
Credit: AFP/Getty

After the similarities between the gospel according to Quentin Tarantino and Ezekiel 25:17, the Pentagon defended Hegseth's use of the monologue.

"Secretary Hegseth on Wednesday shared a custom prayer, referenced as the CSAR prayer, used by the brave warfighters of Sandy-1, who led the daylight rescue mission of Dude 44 Alpha out of Iran, which was obviously inspired by dialogue in Pulp Fiction," Sean Parnell, assistant to the secretary of war for public affairs and chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement on X.

He continued, "However, both the CSAR prayer and the dialogue in Pulp Fiction were reflections of the verse Ezekiel 25:17, as Secretary Hegseth clearly said in his remarks at the prayer service. Anyone saying the Secretary misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is peddling fake news and ignorant of reality."

See Jost's full appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon below.

on Entertainment Weekly

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