{"id":7999212,"date":"2026-04-13T15:20:59","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T22:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/?p=7999212"},"modified":"2026-04-13T15:21:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T22:21:05","slug":"megyn-kelly-pete-hegseth-jesus-talk-pentagon-briefings-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/media-platforms\/journalism\/megyn-kelly-pete-hegseth-jesus-talk-pentagon-briefings-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"Megyn Kelly Wishes Pete Hegseth Would &#8216;Cut the Jesus Talk&#8217; During His War Briefings: &#8216;It Feels Off&#8217; | Video"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p>Megyn Kelly is done with Pete Hegseth praying during his Pentagon briefings about the Iran War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Monday&#8217;s episode of &#8220;The Megyn Kelly Show,&#8221; the host had to air out her grievances with the way the Defense Secretary has been praying at the podium and mentioning Jesus while debriefing the press about the latest with the Iran War. Kelly thought it might be best not to invoke God before talking about Iranian civilians who died in attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It feels off that Pete Hegseth keeps praying at these briefings that he&#8217;s doing as if it&#8217;s all in the name of God,&#8221; Kelly said. &#8220;The bombing of Iran, in which, 170 young girls were killed, that was, that&#8217;s not in the name of God. Okay? Definitely not in the name of Jesus. I wish you would just check the Jesus talk, the God talk at the Pentagon briefings. All right?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Trump Posting Image Portraying Himself as Jesus Draws MASSIVE Backlash Before He Deletes It\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ME9BTk2TFLg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>She added: &#8220;It&#8217;s called the Department of War. I understand he has a job to do. It&#8217;s not appropriate there. You pray on Sunday, pray every morning on your knees to God, but while you&#8217;re updating us on the number you&#8217;ve killed, which necessarily has included some civilians, \u2013 don&#8217;t mention Jesus, don&#8217;t talk about God. Don&#8217;t act like he&#8217;s sanctioning what you&#8217;re doing.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was an odd weekend when it came to the White House and religion. On Sunday, Trump not only went after Pope Leo XIV for his comments against the war in Iran, but the president also posted a meme late that night of him as Jesus healing the sick. Kelly was unsurprised that Trump targeted the pope because he&#8217;s done it with everyone else critical of his war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;President Trump has picked up a new feud with Pope Leo XIV. Seems like a great time to start a feud with a Catholic Pope,&#8221; Kelly continued. &#8220;I will be the first to tell you, the Pope has been critical of this war \u2013 I&#8217;m Catholic, obviously \u2013 he&#8217;s been critical of this war, and as he&#8217;s been critical of it, it occurred to me that it was just a matter of time before President Trump would lash out at him, and he did. So it wasn&#8217;t great. It was predictable.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for the meme of Trump as Jesus? The president tried to spin it that he thought it was depicting him as a Red Cross working. The image itself showed Trump in robes holding his hands glowing with healing light over a sick man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross. There\u2019s a Red Cross worker, which we support, and only the fake news could come up with that one,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI just heard about it and I said, \u2018How did they come up with that?\u2019 It\u2019s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better and I do make people better. I make people a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-the-wrap-read-more\">\n\t<div class=\"the-wrap-read-more__container\">\n\t\t<a class=\"the-wrap-read-more__image\"\n\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/media-platforms\/journalism\/trump-tucker-carlson-megyn-kelly-maga-iran\/\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?fit=300%2C169&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"&quot;The Megyn Kelly Show&quot; (Credit: Sirius XM)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?w=1200&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=768%2C432&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=320%2C180&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=640%2C360&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=380%2C214&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 380w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=760%2C428&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 760w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=394%2C222&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 394w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=788%2C444&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 788w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=778%2C438&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 778w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=976%2C549&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 976w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TuckerCarlsonMegynKelly.jpg?resize=990%2C557&amp;quality=89&amp;ssl=1 990w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-portal-copyright=\"TheWrap\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<div class=\"the-wrap-read-more__headline\">\n\t\t\t<strong>Read Next<\/strong><br \/>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/media-platforms\/journalism\/trump-tucker-carlson-megyn-kelly-maga-iran\/\">Donald Trump Brushes Off Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly Criticism on Iran:  \u2018MAGA Is Trump\u2019<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t act like he is sanctioning what you&#8217;re doing,&#8221; the host adds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10218,"featured_media":7990521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"byline":{"profiles":[{"type":"byline_id","atts":{"term_id":508103,"post_id":7538011}}]},"_links_to":"","_links_to_type":0,"nb_breaking_email_type":"","nb_breaking_template":"","nb_breaking_from_name":"","nb_breaking_subject":"","nb_breaking_preview":"","nb_breaking_list":[],"nb_breaking_header_img":0,"nb_breaking_should_send":false,"nb_breaking_content":"","nb_newsletter_sent_breaking_post_id":[],"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-04-13T22:21:03Z","apple_news_api_id":"7638fdab-ff60-4a54-b89f-1ea74e944679","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-04-13T22:21:03Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Adjj9q_9gSlS4nx6nTpRGeQ","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"hide_featured_image":false,"the_wrap_post_enable_full_width_featured_image":false,"the_wrap_post_enable_featured_video":false,"the_wrap_post_featured_video":"","the_wrap_post_disable_read_more":false,"wp_curate_deduplication":false,"wp_curate_unique_pinned_posts":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[514391],"tags":[9136,349860],"tw_data_partners":[],"columns":[],"byline":[508103],"class_list":["post-7999212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journalism","tag-megyn_kelly","tag-pete-hegseth"],"newsletter_builder_byline":"Jacob Bryant","is_pro_article":false,"apple_news_notices":[],"eyebrow":{"link":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/media-platforms\/journalism\/","text":"Journalism"},"tw_schema_org_review":{"name":"","type":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7999212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7999212"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7999212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7999295,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7999212\/revisions\/7999295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7990521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7999212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7999212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7999212"},{"taxonomy":"tw_data_partners","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tw_data_partners?post=7999212"},{"taxonomy":"tw_column","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/columns?post=7999212"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=7999212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}