Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth slammed the “godless” left in a fiery anti-trans and anti-abortion speech in front of Christian broadcasters and an elite military band that was forced to watch his wild tirade.
Hegseth, 45, was keynote speaker at the National Religious Broadcasters Freedom 250 Celebration in Nashville on Thursday.
The ticketed event, which cost between $300 and $750 to attend, was not initially listed on Hegseth’s daily schedule, although the Department of Defense later shared the information.
The MAGAfication of the NRB event included Hegseth’s warm-up act: Alexis Wilkins, the country singer dating FBI Director Kash Patel, who sang the National Anthem before he took to the stage.
CNN reported that the NRB convention also included a ceremonial color guard from the band of the 101st Airborne Division. Ceremonial support by the military can be requested for civic, business, or community events, but some military groups say religious services or events are “detrimental to the interests or values of the armed forces” and are therefore not authorized for support.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon and the 101st Airborne Division for comment.
Hegseth began his speech by saying that he was bringing greetings from “a fighter for the people of faith, President Donald J. Trump.”
The twice-divorced former Fox News co-host was quick to brag about encouraging “spiritual health” in the military, which has included introducing monthly worship sessions, including one with his own controversial Christian nationalist pastor this week.
In his attack on diversity, equity and inclusion, Hegseth also claimed Trump was combating “anti-Christian bias” and “restoring biological truth” by rescinding “Biden era guidance on so-called gender-affirming care.”
“You see, we train our troops, we no longer trans our troops,” Hegseth said, the anti-trans statements being greeted by large applause at the Christian media convention.
One of Hegseth’s first actions as Pentagon chief last year was barring transgender troops from the military.
“Standing guard over our children rather than letting them be taught perverse sexual practices or sharing a locker room with men pretending to be women is not political, it’s biblical,” Hegseth said.
“Gone is godless and divisive DEI, gone is gender-bending equity and quotas, gone is climate change worship to a false god,” he added. “We are one military, one fighting force, one nation under God. We are not ‘In woke we trust,” we are ‘In God we trust.’”
As well as declaring that “protecting the life of an unborn baby is not political, it’s biblical,” Hegseth said Trump was “working every day to end taxpayer support of abortion” and that the president planned to end “abortion for illegal immigrants at Veterans’ Affairs hospitals and service member abortion-related travel expenses at the War Department.”
“No more of that,” Hegseth said, as the crowd applauded.
Hegseth’s speech saw him tell the audience “the other side is fueled by godless and toxic ideologies, foreign to the Western way of life, with tolerant hearts filled with rage and hate.”
Discussing his monthly prayer services, Hegseth said the “left wing shrieks, which means we’re right over the target.”
Christian nationalist Pastor Doug Wilson was invited by Hegseth to speak at the Pentagon on Tuesday.
Hegseth is a member of a church affiliated with Wilson’s Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).
Hegseth has made no secret of his support for Wilson and his extreme views. Last August, he shared a CNN profile on Wilson where he advocated for the return of laws against homosexuality and claimed that women’s priorities should be starting families and raising children.
“Women are the kind of people that people come out of,” Wilson said. “It doesn’t take any talent to simply reproduce biologically.”
The NRB’s website claims it is a “nonpartisan, international association of Christian communicators” who want to “protect the free speech rights” of their members to speak biblical truth by “advocating those rights” in governmental, corporate, and media sectors.
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