While Saturday Night Live is constantly going after our current political circus, Colin Jost apparently had the jump on one ridiculous real-life moment.
The ‘Weekend Update’ co-host recently claimed that he had a rejected cold open joke as Pete Hegseth reciting Samuel L. Jackson’s fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction (1994) before the actual Secretary of Defense did just that at a prayer sermon he hosted last month at the Pentagon.
“We were talking in the writers room, we were pitching ideas for one of the cold opens like two months ago,” he recalled on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “And I was like, ‘Would it be funny if Hegseth just did that bible verse that they have in Pulp Fiction‘ … we talked about it, and we were like, ‘That would be too ridiculous, and it would take up all this time in the cold open—’”
Jost added, “And then, he for-real did it like two weeks later! And I was like, ‘Well, the good news is, I’m being surveilled. So, that’s a relief.’”
The 2x Emmy-winning comedian has flexed his Hegseth impersonation since debuting it in the Season 51 cold open back in October, and he’s likely to reprise it once again in the finale, which airs Saturday at 11:30pm ET on NBC.
During one of his controversial sermons held at the Pentagon, in which he prays and discusses the war in Iran, Hegseth almost verbatim recited a fake Bible verses Jackson’s Jules Winnfiled says during a violent scene in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino, sparking backlash and ridicule.
“The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” said Hegseth in a clip that’s since circulated on social media. “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 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee, and amen.”
In a statement from the Pentagon, spokesperson Sean Parnell accused critics of “peddling fake news and ignorant of reality,” claiming Hegseth recited “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.”
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