Pete Hegseth's American crusade

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2026

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

It’s no secret that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has embraced the idea of crusading for American dominance — he published a book titled American Crusade and has several tattoos of crusader iconography. And that language has become a part of how Hegseth talks about the U.S. war with Iran. B.A. Parker talks to the religion scholar Matthew Taylor about Hegseth’s corner of Christianity and its connection with Christian nationalism.

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0:00.0	Hey there, you might have noticed that you're hearing us on Friday.
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0:12.7	So all you have to do is listen as usual.
0:18.8	Hey, everyone, you're listening to Code Switch from NPR.
0:22.2	I'm Bea Parker.
0:23.4	And I'm Gene Demby.
0:24.7	Jean, have you heard much about Rededicate 250?
0:29.8	Oh, yeah.
0:30.7	So that was the event that was held last month on the National Mall here in Washington, D.C., right?
0:35.5	Right.
0:35.8	And it's part of the celebrations around the United States' 250th birthday.
0:41.2	It was basically an all-day prayer gathering sponsored by the White House.
0:46.2	Are you watching us around this great nation?
0:48.9	We welcome you.
0:50.6	And we welcome Jesus into this house, amen?
0:53.4	I can hazard some guesses, but who all was there, Parker?
0:56.3	Well, it was the usual suspects that spoke.
0:58.8	So Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared in a pre-recorded video about how all of American history is steeped in Christianity.
1:08.1	From westward expansion to the moon landing, Rubio says scripture was at the heart of it.
1:14.9	It tells us to go forth and preach the gospel to the world as a witness unto all nations unto the
1:20.2	ends of the earth. From that command came America. And Pete Hegeseth, the Secretary of Defense, was making the same argument.
1:31.2	Now, he made a pre-recorded video about George Washington crossing the Delaware and how prayer
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