Hegseth lashes out at press, accuses them of acting like ‘Pharisees’ in New Testament

In a bitter verbal attack at a Pentagon briefing, US Defense Secretary compares members of the media to “Pharisees” in a New Testament story who condemn Jesus for performing a miracle in a synagogue on the Sabbath.

The Pharisees, a Jewish sect in the first century, are considered to have included the rabbis of the Talmud and to be the ideological predecessors of mainstream traditional Jewish practice today.

The story Hegseth recounts, which he says he heard on Sunday in church, is found in the New Testament Gospel of Mark. It details Jesus entering a synagogue on the Sabbath and healing a man with a shriveled hand. The text says some of the Pharisees “were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.”

After Jesus defies the Pharisees and proceeds to heal the man, the text says that “the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.”

Hegseth, in his own take on the passage, says, “You see, the Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report. But their hearts were hardened. Even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter.”

He continues, “I sat there in church and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees. Not all of you. Not all of you. But the legacy, Trump-hating press.”