Pete Hegseth’s deeply disturbing past is darker than most realize

The President of the United States issued a 48-hour military ultimatum against Iran on Truth Social on Easter weekend, signing it with "Glory be to God." The rhetorical framework mirrors language used by Osama bin Laden after September 11th. Trump has not appeared before the public or taken questions from reporters in three consecutive days while a U.S. service member remains missing in hostile territory with bounties on his head. He was supposed to fly to Mar-a-Lago this weekend. Instead, he locked himself inside the White House.

The Breakdown:

Trump posted a 48-hour military ultimatum against Iran on Truth Social, signing it with "Glory be to God"

The rhetorical structure of Trump's post mirrors Osama bin Laden's October 2001 statement celebrating the September 11th attacks

Trump has not appeared before the press or taken questions in three consecutive days

A U.S. service member remains missing in action in Iran with bounties placed on his head

Trump posted "Third World" rhetoric on Easter morning, using language that ranks people by where they come from

Stephen Miller continues to shape the administration's Christian nationalist messaging from the White House

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has a "Deus Vult" tattoo, the battle cry of the First Crusade, on his bicep

A National Guard anti-terrorism team flagged Hegseth as a potential insider threat in January 2021 due to his tattoos

Hegseth was deemed too dangerous to stand guard at Biden's inauguration but now runs the Pentagon

At a Pentagon worship service, Hegseth prayed for "overwhelming violence" and for God to "break the teeth of the ungodly"

NPR reported Hegseth has used the phrase "no quarter" in the context of the Iran war, which constitutes a war crime

Hegseth fired Army Chief of Staff General Randy George after George pushed back on blocking Black and female officers from promotions

Hegseth has blocked or delayed promotions for more than a dozen Black and female senior officers across all four branches

His own mother wrote in 2018 calling him "an abuser of women" who "belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women"

He was reported chanting "Kill All Muslims" at a bar in Ohio in 2015 while on official business, entered into the Congressional Record

Doug Wilson, a self-described Christian nationalist who says women should not vote, was invited to preach at a Pentagon worship service

Polymarket bets on U.S. ground forces entering Iran by end of April are trading at 85 percent

Blockchain analysts found six accounts that made 1.2 million dollars betting on the exact date of the February 28 strikes

The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 continue pushing toward a Christian nationalist state

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I'm Heather Tlaney Reese, and you're listening to Hope for America, where every day I bring you the truth about our politics, our country, and the forces trying to destroy them. Together, we cut through the noise, expose the lies, and stay focused on what really matters, fighting for the survival of our country. At 11.08 in the morning on Saturday, April 4th, White House pool reporter Hugo Lowell of The Guardian filed a short and unexpected dispatch from inside the White House. The press was abruptly being sent home. The president would not be seen for the rest of the day. As Lowell noted, Trump was in Washington that weekend, but there had still been no formal news briefing on the situation of the then missing Ammon in Iran. The sudden and unexpected shift marked the third consecutive day since the president of the United States had appeared before the public or taken in-person questions from reporters. The last time Donald J. Trump had been seen by the American people was during his troubling primetime address to the nation, that last Wednesday night. Soon after the reporters were asked to leave, reports started swirling that he had experienced a medical emergency and was being transported by ambulance to Walter Reed Hospital in the Bethesda, Maryland area. As of recording, those reports appeared to be rumors with no merit behind them. With CBS news reporter Emma Nicholson noting a Marine Stry was still standing guard outside of the West Wing as of 1.50 p.m. that day, suggesting he was still in the White House. There is so much we don't know right now, and still much that we do. And we must continue to base our resistance on facts, evidence, and the truth above all else. And until we learn differently, the reality we are faced with is that the president of the United States is facing a crisis unlike any he has faced before, with his leadership position and his power, but just maybe not the crisis in the ways so many think he was. His ratings continue to drop. His illegal and dangerous war is escalating. Now, on a typical weekend, Donald Trump would have flown down to Mar-a-Lago. He would have gaggled with the press and spent his days golfing and his nights at elaborate dinner parties. This past weekend, though, he continued to lock himself away in the White House and post Christian nationalist dog whistle threats and battle cries on True Social. Trump's disturbing behavior started at 7.05 that morning when he posted this. Remember when I gave Iran 10 days to, and he used capitals throughout this, make a deal or open up the Hormuz Strait. Time is running out. 48 hours before all hell will rain down on them. And he misspelled rain. Glory be to God. That's how he ended his threat. The President of the United States issued a 48-hour military ultimatum against a sovereign nation and signed it with a prayer. Not a prayer for peace or a prayer for the safe return of our missing service members. A prayer of conquest, a blessing over a bomb threat. And if those words sound familiar, they should. On October 7, 2001, just weeks after the September 11th attacks, Osama bin Laden appeared on Al Jazeera and delivered a statement celebrating the destruction of the Twin Towers. He described America as having been struck by God Almighty, thanked God for the horror inflicted on our country, and closed with these words, God is the greatest and glory be to Islam. The structure is almost identical. Both statements open with a description of destruction being visited upon an enemy. Both frame it as divinely ordained, both close by giving glory to God. Both use the invocation of the divine, not as a prayer, but as a punctuation mark on a threat. And both position the speaker not as a political leader making a political decision, but as an instrument of holy will carrying out a sacred mission. The President of the United States is using the rhetoric framework of the most notorious terrorist statement of the 21st century to announce military action against a Muslim country on social media. And remember, that was the morning before Easter and during Passover. And then five hours later at noon, he posted again. And then in capitals, he said, and that's not going to happen to the United States of America as long as I am president. And then he signed it president, and then in capitals, Donald J. Trump. He dug deeper in this one with more dangerously troubling language, using the term third world to signal a worldview in which people are sorted, ranked, and judged by where they came from, where some are seen as worthy of dignity and others are not. And when that kind of language is used by the leader of the free world, it gives others permission to see and treat the world the same way. These two posts, taken together, tell the story of a presidency in turmoil with a president willing to say or do anything to stay in power, including launching a holy war abroad and elevating white nationalism at home. He might be the one helping to shape and approve these messages, but it is doubtful that Trump wrote these, because this is not his theology. Nor did he come up with the idea to post this. He's not a religious man. He doesn't go to church willingly, he doesn't read scripture, he cosplays religion the way he cosplays leadership, borrowing the language and the posture without any of the substance behind it whenever he thinks it will benefit him. Whoever is feeding him this crusader rhetoric knows exactly what they're doing. They're showing him highlight reels of his war, convincing him the imagery would be powerful if framed as a battle for God. And as his cognitive abilities continue to decline, it is easier to convince or encourage him to use this kind of dangerous language. And that brings us to the people who are actually running this. Stephen Miller sits in the White House as deputy chief of staff, the ideological architect of this administration's darkest impulses. He is the voice of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's blueprint for dismantling American democracy and rebuilding it as a white Christian nationalist state. Miller has been the driving force behind the immigration crackdowns, the Muslim bans, the family separations, and now the framing of an illegal war as a religious crusade. He is the one shaping the language, building the narrative, and ensuring that every action this administration takes serves the larger project of consolidating power around a very specific vision of who belongs in America and who doesn't. And then there is the man running the war, Pete Kegsbrath. Sorry, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, who is not just unqualified for the position, but is actively dangerous in it. And I make jokes, none of this is funny, but humor is what gets me through the days sometimes. This is a man who has Deus Fault, I hope I got that right, tattooed on his bicep. The phrase means God wills it. And it was the battle cry of the first crusade in 1095 AD when European armies marched on Jerusalem and slaughtered tens of thousands of Muslims and Jews. Medieval historians are unequivocal about what this phrase means. One put it plainly, there is no version that means anything other than crusader fanboy. Another said it's a call to religious violence expressly linked to a pretty horrific episode in history. There isn't another way of reading it. He also has a Jerusalem cross covering his chest and the Arabic word kafir, meaning infidel, tattooed below the Deus Volt. He wrote a book called American Crusade and ended it with the words See you on the battlefield. Together with God's help, we will save America. Deus Volt. This is not a man who stumbled into religious imagery. He is a man who branded his body with the symbols of a holy war and then was handed the most powerful military on earth. And the military itself flagged him before any of this happened. In January of 2021, a National Guard anti-terrorism team member reviewed Hegeseth's tattoo and reported him as a potential insider threat, noting that the Deus Fault tattoo is associated with extremist groups. His orders to serve at Biden's inauguration were revoked. The United States military looked at Pete Hegseth and concluded he was too dangerous to stand guard at a ceremony. And four years later, he is running the Pentagon. At a Pentagon worship service last week, the first since the Iran War began, Heggseth stood before military personnel and civilian employees and prayed these words 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. He prayed for God to break the teeth of the ungodly, and for justice to be executed swiftly and without remorse, that evil may be driven back, and wicked souls delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for the. He prayed all of this in the name of Jesus Christ from a podium at the Pentagon during a war against a Muslim country. NPR reported that Haggseth has also used the phrase no quarter in the context of this war. These words have a specific legal meaning. Giving no quarter means taking no prisoners, and that is a war crime. And Heggseth has publicly and incorrectly said that Islam is not a religion of peace. He belongs to the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a small conservative denomination co-founded by Doug Wilson, a self-described Christian nationalist who has said that women should not have the right to vote. Wilson was invited to preach at Hegseth's Pentagon worship service in February. These are the men shaping the spiritual life of the American military during a war in the Middle East. And this is not a man whose personal history suggests the character, discipline, or moral foundation that the job demands. His own mother wrote him in 2018 and she said, You are an abuser of women. That is the ugly truth. And I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, sheets, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man, and you have been for years. And as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that. But it is the sad, sad truth. She said she was writing on behalf of all the women, and I know it's many you have abused in some way. She later said she wrote the letter in anger and apologized to her son. But the words are in the record. He ran two veteran nonprofits into the ground. Donors had to devise a plan to strip him of control and merge the organization with another just to save it. At Concerned Veterans of America, a whistleblower report detailed a pattern of drunken behavior at work events, sexual pursuit of female staffers, and financial mismanagement. He was even carried out of a Memorial Day event. He passed out on a party bus. He was so intoxicated at a strip club in Louisiana that he tried to climb on the stage with the performers. At a bar in Ohio in May of 2015, while on official business, he reportedly chanted, Kill all Muslims, kill all Muslims, in what was described as a drunk and violent manner. That incident was entered into the congressional record during his confirmation process. This is the man praying for overwhelming violence against Muslims from the podium at the Pentagon. The line between the bar stool in Ohio and the briefing room in Arlington is straight and unbroken. And just last week, Hegseth fired Army Chief of Staff General Randy George after George pushed back on two black and two female officers from a promotion list. Nine U.S. officials told reporters that Heggseth had blocked or delayed promotions for more than a dozen black and female senior officers across all four branches of the military. He has banned photographers from press briefings because he didn't like how he looked and published photos. He brought his wife to bilateral meetings with foreign defense officials. He installed his brother as a senior advisor at the Pentagon. He snaps at reporters who ask basic questions about the war, calling their inquiries gotcha questions, while only taking questions from handpicked pro-Trump outlets. This is the man running a war. A man who couldn't manage a nonprofit, a man whose own colleagues said he should never be in charge of anything. A man whose mother called him an abuser. A man who chanted about killing Muslims and then was given the power to do it. And he is doing it under the banner of a holy crusade now, with tattoos of the crusaders on his body and the battle cry of the first crusade on his arm. And here is the part the history books will write first. The crusaders lost. The first crusade captured Jerusalem, but the kingdoms they built collapsed. The cities they conquered were retaken. Every game was temporary. The men who marched under the banner of Deus' vault left behind nothing but a cautionary tale about what happens when leaders convince themselves and their followers that God wants them to kill. A thousand years later, what remains is not victory but a warning. Hegseth's tattoos, the motto of a failed holy war on his body, he just hasn't read far enough in history to know how this story is going to end. But the history books will be writing about it. And while we talk about so many positions filled with failed humans in the White House and in Trump's cabinet specifically, we can't lose sight of who they are harming. The people behind the numbers, the civilians in Iran who thought the United States was coming to free them from their evil leadership, and instead they are being assaulted by us. Our military members who deserve better too. And as we have seen, they are being put in extraordinary danger. And the man responsible for sending them there is praying for overwhelming violence, while the man who ordered the mission is hiding from the press. There is growing talk about Trump removing and replacing more of the original members of his cabinet, and we should be paying close attention to that, because what's replacing them is not better. Every change moves this authoritarian closer to what the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 have been building for decades. A Christian nationalist state where women are reduced to what men decide they're worth, where little girls are taught to prepare for husbands instead of careers, where black and brown communities are pushed backwards into second-class citizenship, and where white nationalism and Christian nationalism merge into a single governing doctrine. It feels like it's happening slowly until you look back at where we were a year ago and realize how fast the ground has shifted beneath us. It compounds every single day. And yet I look outside and it's gorgeous. Here in San Diego, we're deep into spring. There are no bombs going off in our front yards. And when we are reminded something is wrong, it's normally when we go to fill up our gas tank or when the grocery bill hits a little harder than it used to be. Because the mainstream news isn't covering this in any meaningful way. And most people have no idea how bad it actually is. I talk to people in real life and tell them what's happening, and they're shocked. And that's one of the most concerning things I hear from readers. Why am I not getting this information from anywhere else? We are hitting a wall with this information and it's on purpose because not enough people understand why we're at war. The Trump administration has been deliberately vague about it because they can't explain it in any way that would justify what we are doing. So Trump is staying quiet, hiding from the press and the American people. And on the other side of the world, the cost of that silence is measured in lives. How many members of our military are we going to lose? How many more Iranian civilians? How many more people outside our borders have to suffer with the energy crisis, the rising cost of everything, and the threat of further wars and further unrest? How much more suffering are we going to allow because we have an evil leader who is hiding from the press while the man put in charge of the war prays for overwhelming violence from a Pentagon podium? We are still stuck in that frustrating middle. Everything is deteriorating around us. We are still months away from the midterms and any meaningful way to stop Trump and his enabler's assault on our country and world. It is a deeply troubling time where we bounce from hope to disbelief. And the only way to the other side is through these troubling days. We must stay focused on the end game to rid our country of this authoritarian takeover. And there are multiple steps we need to focus on all at once. Starting with, we cannot eat our own. I've seen too many purity tests happening ahead of the primaries. We need to remember we are not picking a life partner. We are voting for the best options that will carry us to a government rooted back in democratic norms. There are a lot of mistakes made by the Democrats that got us here. That is true. But there is no place for throwing imperfect people under a bus when the other option is a full fascist takeover. There will be time once we get this sorted that we can start tackling the other issues that are very real. Secondly, we have to push back in every way possible against Trump's voter suppression initiatives. If your state governments are not part of the resistance to this, demand they join. Write letters, call them, protest outside their offices. This is an all hands-on-deck situation. And then we must continue to protect the truth at all costs. There is a lot of noise online. So stay focused on what matters. Pick a handful of causes that are the most important to you and share them with your friends and family. Think of what issues others in your life are concerned with. And if the opportunity arises, share how they too are or will be affected by Trump's actions. Because here's what I know to be true. And we can break that. We don't have to let that keep happening. There is a way to do that very simply, and that's with kindness. Because every act of kindness is a thread that keeps someone connected to the real world. Every moment of genuine human warth is inoculation against the loneliness that makes people vulnerable to radicalization. If we can bring that kindness back, not as a slogan, but as a daily practice, we could pull people out of this darkness. We could make it harder for Trump and the next strong man to find an audience and to keep the one he has. This is something each one of us can put into practice today. We can remind ourselves and each other that most people are good and kind, and that as long as that is true, they haven't won. That is why I self-hope for America. And you should too. And remember, no matter how dark the days get, I will be here every single day. And together we will always have hope for America. I'll see you tomorrow.