Pete Hegseth’s Holy War
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
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Summary
The Washington Roundtable considers how the ideological commitments of Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, are at play in the conflict with Iran. Their guest, the journalist Katherine Stewart, has covered the MAGA right and is the author of “Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy.” The panel discusses how Christian nationalism has moved from the fringes of the culture to the center of American military power, with Hegseth driving the shift. “This is a movement that at its core has never believed in democracy,” Stewart says. “It rejects the principles of equality and pluralism, and, frankly, the rule of law that represents the best of the American promise.”
This week’s reading:
- “The War Trump Doesn’t Want to Talk About,” by Susan B. Glasser
- “Trump’s Inexcusable Unpreparedness for the Iranian Oil Crisis,” by John Cassidy
- “What the Selection of Iran’s New Leader Might Mean for the War,” by Robin Wright
- “War in the Age of the Online ‘Information Bomb,’ ” by Kyle Chayka
- “How Putin Views Trump’s War on Iran,” by Joshua Yaffa
- “The Limits of Iran’s Proxy Empire,” by Sudarsan Raghavan
The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week.
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| 0:00.0 | there's a viral photograph of Marco Rubio that really tells it all. |
| 0:05.2 | These floor-shyme shoes that Donald Trump has apparently become enamored with, |
| 0:09.4 | that he has taken, according to the Wall Street Journal, |
| 0:12.2 | to guessing the shoe size of his visitors, |
| 0:16.2 | and then sending them shoes, |
| 0:19.9 | which now then you have this incredible photograph of all the cabinet |
| 0:24.0 | members wearing their matching shoes because they're afraid not to wear them. |
| 0:28.1 | To me also really funny that he doesn't just even ask them what size is the proper size. |
| 0:34.0 | They have to wear the shoe size that he's picked for them, even when it's the wrong size. |
| 0:39.6 | So you see Marco Rubio with like an inch behind his heels of gap there. |
| 0:44.6 | What kind of a man, you know, wears the wrong size shoes because the boss decreed. |
| 0:51.6 | I'll tell you what kind of math. |
| 0:53.6 | Marco Rubio. Does that really screw future president to you, by the way? It's not a legal. to place the boss. I'll tell you what kind of man. Marco Ruth. |
| 0:54.5 | Does that really screw future president to you, by the way? |
| 0:57.5 | It's not a leadership moment. |
| 0:59.0 | Maybe he did it on purpose to show how little little Marco is. |
| 1:02.5 | I'm sure he did. |
| 1:03.6 | This is not, this is a gift with a fish hook in it. |
| 1:08.0 | Props to the Wall Street Journal, okay? |
| 1:09.7 | Because this is illuminating about life and, you know, what we sometimes referred to as Pyongyang on the Potomac. |
| 1:15.9 | Thank God we can still laugh here because, boy, this was not a week full of a lot of laughs. |
| 1:20.3 | Honestly, it's been really shocking and disturbing to watch the news unfold. |
... |
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