Transcript: Trump Erupts as Pope’s Harsh Rebuke of Hegseth Hits Hard

So to Hegseth, this biblical law—which of course, the interpretation of which would be contested by different scholars or adherents to the Bible—but his version of biblical law is superior to the Pentagon’s own internal military law, American civil law, and also, importantly, when we’re talking about Hegseth and the prosecution of this unjust, illegal war, that is superior to international law and the rules of engagement in war and military conflicts.

Sargent: Well, I want to try to connect Hegseth’s conduct of the war to all this right now. Hegseth has been positively oozing with bloodlust and sadism in his public discussions of the war. He openly enthuses about raining, quote-unquote, “death and destruction” from the sky, about liberating the military from stupid rules of engagement, about unleashing maximum lethality, and even about killing, quote-unquote, “without hesitation”—which I translate as with no moral qualms whatsoever.

So Sarah, linking all these things up, it seems like Hegseth sees his war as being in accordance with biblical law. So even U.S. law might not be binding on him. And of course international human rights law, which would be way at the very bottom of the totem pole for him, would certainly not be binding on him. Is that more or less the situation?