Colin Jost says Pete Hegseth managed to out-ridiculous Saturday Night Live

Jost was referring to a cold open for the sketch series he’d been working on with his fellow writers, when he pitched the idea of the performatively religious and belligerent—belligerous?—Hegseth trying to give a prayer and then having it devolve into the heavily altered “Ezekiel 25:17” Bible verse that Samuel L. Jackson delivers in Pulp Fiction. The idea was ultimately killed, both because it would have eaten a fair amount of the show’s running time, and because it would be “too ridiculous” for the audience to believe. Which made it a bit of a shock a few weeks later, when Hegseth held a prayer sermon at the Pentagon—already a very cool and normal sentence—and ended up delivering a very close riff on Jules’ monologue to his assembled warfighters. (Hegseth’s press people later stated that he was using a specialized prayer used by pilots, which itself was adapted from the Pulp Fiction dialogue; we assume Quentin Tarantino’s lawyers will eventually work out who owes them what for its use.)

The upshot is a reminder that it never pays to assume that the world of 2026 won’t descend to meet even the lowest of expectations. Also, in Jost’s words: “The good news is, I’m being surveilled. So, that’s a relief.’”