In an administration full of SNL cold opens waiting to happen, Pete Hegseth really outdid himself this week — and Colin Jost wasn’t even in the room.

Caught quoting lines of a phony Bible passage from Pulp Fiction as scripture Wednesday during a Pentagon ceremony, the former Fox News host has become even more of a piñata to political foes than ever.

In full Donald Trump trolling mode, California’s Gavin Newsom may have taken the prize in roasting Hegseth today as the video of the face plant started to circulate. Sure, the post the Golden State governor and likely 2028 POTUS candidate put up mixed up characters from the Quentin Tarantino classic by portraying Hegseth as Uma Thurman rather than the Samuel L. Jackson character that the Defense Secretary was actually quoting, but the visual was still pretty striking.

In what would have likely been a career killer for the much-mocked Hegseth in any other administration, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell put up a spirited defense of the Defense Secretary, kinda.

Online this AM, as my colleague Ted Johnson reported, Parent wrote, “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. 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.”

Well, Tarantino and Jackson haven’t said anything, and maybe they never will about Hegseth’s religious recital.

On the other hand, Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, author Don Winslow, tennis legend Martina Navratilova, POTUS’ own niece (who has never been a fan) and Spinal Tap’s Michael McKean were all among the many who took Hegseth to town Thursday for, as The Fatal Score scribe Winslow wrote, being a “clown.”

Dear @SecWar Pete Hegseth,

YOU ARE A CLOWN.

YOU ARE THE WORST SECRETARY OF DEFENSE IN THE HISTORY OF THIS NATION.

A CHILD. A CLOWN. A GOOF.

— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) April 16, 2026

Who among us has not mistaken the holy words of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction for biblical scripture?

— Mary L Trump (@MaryLTrump) April 16, 2026

Getting very Pulp Fiction specific, as only a satirical genius and former fictional POTUS can, The Diplomat’s President Bill Rayburn AKA McKean quipped “should have done Walken’s watch story.”

Ouch.

Then again, with the possibility that someone on Hegseth’s staff is actually gaslighting him, former NBC News reporter Chuck Todd may have nailed it and Hegseth best. The ex-Meet The Press anchor wrote that Hegseth “clearly got the worst case of poser complex DC’s ever seen and that’s saying something.”

Poor Pete Hegseth, he’s clearly got the worst case of poser complex DC’s ever seen and that’s saying something.

— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) April 16, 2026

It really is — unless VP JD Vance decides to double down again on his own Pope Leo XIV slagging to impress Trump.

BTW, SNL isn’t back until the first week of May, so, at the rate the Trump crowd step in it, Hegseth’s fiasco will be too old to make the cold open cut.