Colin Jost Says SNL Rejected Hegseth ‘Pulp Fiction’ Joke as ‘Too Ridiculous’ — Then It Actually Happened

Sometimes the writers’ room just can’t keep up with real life. Colin Jost stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday and shared a story that pretty much broke his brain — the time Saturday Night Live rejected one of his Pete Hegseth sketch ideas as too far-fetched, only for the actual Secretary of Defense to go ahead and do it anyway.

“We were pitching ideas for one of the cold opens like two months ago,” Jost told 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.”

Then came the kicker.

“And then he for real did it! Like two weeks later!” Jost said. “I was like, the good news is I’m being surveilled, so that’s a relief.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sk5ABAy38fk%3Fstart%3D130%26feature%3Doembed

Fallon, clearly delighted, played along — even filling in the fake scripture citation himself: “Samuel L. Jackson, 12:17.” Which is not a real book of the Bible, for the record, but at this point nothing feels off-limits.

What Hegseth Actually Said at the Pentagon

The moment in question happened on April 16, when Hegseth delivered what he framed as a combat prayer during a Pentagon service honoring a military rescue mission in Iran. He introduced the passage as “CSAR 25:17” — a riff on the biblical verse Ezekiel 25:17 — and asked the audience to “pray with me please” before launching into a monologue about vengeance, brotherhood, and tyranny.

“The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” Hegseth recited. “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.”

Anyone who’s seen Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 classic recognized it immediately. The passage is almost verbatim the speech Samuel L. Jackson’s character Jules Winnfield delivers before a killing — itself a fictionalized riff on Ezekiel 25:17, as noted by religion-focused Substack A Public Witness. Hegseth swapped “the righteous man” for “the downed aviator” and added the Sandy 1 call sign at the end, but the bones of the Tarantino monologue were unmistakable.

The clip ricocheted across social media and late-night television almost instantly, with critics questioning how a piece of Hollywood dialogue ended up being solemnly delivered by the sitting Secretary of Defense at an official Pentagon ceremony.

The Pentagon pushed back. Spokesperson Sean Parnell accused critics of “peddling fake news and ignorant of reality,” saying Hegseth had 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.”

Obviously inspired. Sure.

Jost’s Hegseth Era Isn’t Over Yet

Jost has been playing Hegseth in SNL‘s cold opens since he debuted the impression in the Season 51 premiere back in October, and Fallon praised him for “crushing it” in the role. Jost admitted he’d initially worried about being recast when he first fell into the part — which, given how the real Hegseth keeps outdoing any sketch writers could dream up, seems less like a concern now and more like job security.

The season finale airs this Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC, with Will Ferrell hosting and Paul McCartney performing as musical guest. Whether Jost gets one more crack at Hegseth before the summer hiatus is the question — though at the rate things are going, the writers might just want to leave the cameras running on C-SPAN and call it a cold open.