Far-left Democrat Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island was put in his place with a fiery retort by the overt and unashamed Christian Secretary of War Pete Hegseth after the former attacked the latter for his faith on the grounds that it produced discrimination in the military for women and non-whites.
For context, Pete Hegseth was testifying in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator Reed’s five minutes were an exercise in woke virtue signaling, replete with an attack on Hegseth’s faith despite having campaigned for decades as a Catholic. Reed demanded Hegseth walk back his faith in public and as a leader of the Pentagon, to which Hegseth fired back saying he was tired of being smeared for his beliefs.
At one point in the heated exchange, Reed claimed that Hegseth was purging the military of officers who were not white men without any evidence or even a logical position from which to start. “I think that direction from your behavior is an intense interest in Christianity, in nationalism, and in not recognizing the talents of women and non-white gentlemen. And that’s the wrong direction,” he stated.
As the back and forth continued, including a renunciation of the claims over discrimination – discrimination, by the way, that Reed and his ilk never complain about when DEI explicitly refuses opportunities to white men – Hegseth snapped back and declared he would not be apologizing for his faith in Jesus Christ just because it makes leftist hacks like the senator upset or uncomfortable. He said, “I don’t know what you’re insinuating, senator, but I am not ashamed of my faith in Jesus Christ.”
Reed started to interject, saying, “Well, you shouldn’t be ashamed.” But Hegseth kept going and further snapped at him, “If you want to shame me for it, go ahead.” Reed ignored the correction from hegseth, instead pivoting to the next line of his narrow-minded agenda by pretending Hegseth didn’t treat other religions fairly. “I’m not shaming you, but are you critical of other faiths?” he absurdly asked.
Hegseth shot back, “I am a believer; I’m quite open in that.” He continued, “And our department allows for a multitude of faiths. So I don’t know what you’re suggesting. I’ve heard the likes of things that people like you suggest to try to smear my character, and I won’t give in to it,” he said of the obvious practical applications in the Department of War.
Watch that wild exchange below:
The hearing coincided with the Trump DOJ releasing a report in which it exposed how much the Biden Administration discriminated against faithful Christians. “The Biden Administration’s policies regularly clashed with a Christian worldview and burdened traditional religious practices. These conflicts frequently arose over abortion, gender ideology, and sexual orientation. Ultimately, the Biden Administration penalized Christians who lived in accordance with their beliefs,” the report said at one point.
It continued, revealing that the Biden administration through its weaponized DOJ actively intervened against Christians in an overt display of prejudice and discrimination, something Senator Reed never spoke about. “The Biden DOJ pursued aggressive prosecutions against non-violent, prolife, Christian demonstrators under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act but responded less aggressively to violent attacks against pregnancy resource centers” and “The Biden Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated, monitored, tracked, and scrutinized traditional Catholics who had engaged in no criminal misconduct.”
Reed’s supposed Catholicism has also been called out before. Again during the Biden years, woke Democrats tried advancing what was called the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would essentially have codified extreme abortion rights across the United States. Christianity generally recognizes the right to life for the unborn as all creation is made in the image of God and that people are holy as a result of their divine creation.
Nevertheless, Reed signed off with the far-left measure, something even opposed by woke Pope Francis of Argentina, preferring to exalt his secular religion over that of his Christian one.
“Their support of the defeated bill, called the Women’s Health Protection Act, placed them sharply at odds with the clear teaching of their Catholic faith, which strictly prohibits abortion and condemns efforts to promote it. Church leaders and Catholic pro-life advocates were quick to criticize the senators’ votes after the measure was defeated on Feb. 28,” Catholic World Report said in 2022 after the bill was thankfully defeated.