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Foreign. I went viral a month or two ago because I accurately called a lot of Bible thumpers religious addicts. And I went viral on the right among religious addicts who went nuts for me putting a mirror up to them. So I want you to think about how the United States of America right now, a lot of the talk is, oh, these are crazy religious freaks in Iran, and we have to go to save them, and we're going to go prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon that they don't even want and that we had an agreement for them not to have. So we have all these lies from these people who are so concerned about religious extremism. Listen right here to the Secretary of Defense. I refuse, out of spite and principle, to call him the Secretary of War. It's stupid. All right, play the clip.
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Same to every American who wants peace through strength. May almighty God continue to bless our troops in this fight. And again to the American people, please pray for them every day on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ.
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Jesus Christ is right. That is complete insanity. He is a religious fanatic. He is a religious addict who, personally, because he was grown up with so much religious indoctrination is not right with God. He thinks if he fights this holy war, he can still have his character defects, if you will, liking sex, probably lying, beating off whatever that fills his brain with shame that the religious indoctrination told him he couldn't do. So you have this completely broken addict right here, and he thinks, if I deliver the United States of America as a Christian nation, I'll be right with God and everything will be fine. Furthermore, the propaganda in there about getting on your hands and knees with your family and doing it at school. This is the Secretary of Defense. He is a radical Christian extremist, a rapture prepper, and an arrogant dipshit to go on the world stage to lecture other people about religious extremism.
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Here's the thing about Pete Hegseth. He is not alone in his. I'm such a. You know, I. I'm so great and I'm so strong. And I'm going to, you know, take back God or take back America for God. I know these people, okay? I know them. I've been around them. I'm set next to them. This is somebody who, in my opinion and my personal experience, is intellectually stunted. When I was super religious like that, I did not critically think those critical thinking and indoctrination, they can't live together. This man is in so far over his head. And I will just say what else reminds me about this man with the people that I knew. And no is bad behavior, terrible actions over and over and over again with no accountability. I can pray it away. And it's all good. And that in my opinion is such damage that we're doing because no accountability for Pete Hexeth and his myriad, myriad of issues with women. Not only in his personal life, he brings the pastor that doesn't think women should come vote to the Pentagon. So this man is a nut. He should be nowhere near anybody. And to have him sit there and lecture other people about religion is so ridiculously hypocritical. I honestly when I saw that I wanted to throw up in my mouth.
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And the fact of the matter is this. All of these religious extremists think they're so unique and they're all the same. Yeah. A radical Muslim, a radical Christian, a radical Zionist, a radical Mormon. To me as a secular person, it's all the same shit. It's all the same iron age thinking, authoritarian ruling, divorce from reality bullshit. And so the arrogance and the hubris that comes with that, that they think they are these chosen people and messengers for God and it's. They're all the exact same broken person. You just switch around which iron age book they study from. Okay, and then next up here we have Pete hag said just pathologically straight up lying and making up conversations that never happened. Play the clip.
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My 13 year old son popped into my office last night while I was editing these remarks. He asked about the war and the families I met at Dover. And I looked at him and I said they died for you son. So that your generation doesn't have to deal with a nuclear Iran. It's the truth.
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No it's not. It never fucking happened. Never happened. Everybody knows who's watching this that that didn't happen. Everybody knows that your son didn't come into the room. I just, I would bet everything in me that that didn't fucking happen. And then what kind of narcissistic extension is that via parenting? They died for you. Give me a break. Who would say that to their kid? Why would you burden your kid with such trauma? These kid, these, these young guys, 20 something ladies die and you tell your 13 year old kid, well they died for you. Shut the up. They died for these neocons and Benjamin Netanyahu and his far right Israeli government that are die hard warmonger, terrorist exploiters, liars. And Pete Heth is nothing more than a puppet for the darker, more nefarious people. And they let him trot out to the American public to Christian signal to the aforementioned people that Pumps was talking about. Because if they hear him say that, oh, I everybody get on their hands and knees and pray for the troops. That's it. It's performative. There's nothing behind it. Nothing. Republicans have proven time and time again that they have utter disdain for the troops. Utter disdain. All they do is stand up at a baseball game or at a basketball game. We'd like to welcome the veterans here. Nobody's, oh, stand up, clap and they do the, you know, national anthem, take their hats off. And it's all this performative. Do they ever vote for these broken people that come back to fight the wars of war mongering billionaires? Do they ever think beyond it other than just that performative moment? So everybody at the game thinks, God, what a. These are good people, right? We, everybody that came with that game, those are, those are good people. No, they're not. Constantly voting for the accumulation of wealth at expense of humanity. And to tell your child they died for you as an extra layer of fucked upness that that kid is going to be dealing with at rehab very shortly.
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Well, here's the thing. You know why it just rolled off the tongue like that? Because when you grow up an evangelical Christian, you're told over and over and over again you carry the burden that Jesus died for you. So if you don't reciprocate, and here's the thing about that, like, I know more about Pete Hexa than I want to, okay? I have gone down the rabbit hole because I hate him so much. And I can 100% guarantee that this nut, his bad behavior is longer than my arm. He is the grossest, the absolute gross. I think he has like seven kids. They all homeschool, naturally.
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Yeah. It's just, this is just generational, generational handed down Christian narcissism. And it's just pumps. I think you make a really brilliant point of the Jesus died for you. So it's just this natural thing to say, all of that narcissism, okay? And then here we have. How is the DOD with this guy when he's not on his hands and knees praying with all seven kids while he homeschools and then telling, you know, I'll tell you what, son, they died for you. So you and your kids don't have to worry about Iran. The kids probably. Where the is Iran? Give me a break. All right? And so here's what the DOD says they're doing to sell the war to the American public. You're going to die. Pumps. Megan Messerly says, what's the White House's wartime comm strategy? And they say, we're over here just grinding away on banger memes, dude. A senior White House official said, great reporting from. And this is basically from Politico. You can go read it there. Leave that up for a second. We're just grinding away on banger memes. And we've seen this, we've seen the banger memes. Here's the thing within the Death Star, it is when you have to just realize, and I'm just going to say it very bluntly, for people to see Donald Trump for the 11 years that we've seen him on the national stage and to have triple trumped. We're not talking about the sharpest, the brightest, and the best of us. These people clearly are lacking a lot of skills in the brain, deduction skills, you know, piecing things together, skills sniffing out a liar, spotting a liar, spotting contradictory statements within the same speech, and on and on and on again. And so in that world, that's. That's how. That's how they think is through memes. There's no meaning. These people believe in nothing. If we make Donald Trump look like Superman and we Photoshop his gut off of him, if we level out the orange skin, if we give him pectoral muscles, if we give him a full, thick head of hair, if we remove the cankles, if we remove the bruised hands and we make him look like he's a badass, I'm buying that all day long. It's weird. That's what they think they're projecting. It's such a tell. Because they're projecting what would convince them. Right?
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Yeah. Well. And I also read right before we hopped on here, they're gonna start sending messages through SpongeBob SquarePants. I was like, what? What? We're not a serious country. You know, you see all over the world, everybody's sitting there going, miscalculation. They have screwed the pooch. This is a disaster. I read an article earlier, you know, Financial Times, Armageddon, with all of this oil and all of this shit, and they're worried about the memes. That's who's in charge. Because we don't like experts anymore. We want Facebook doctors instead of scientific experts.
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It just.
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It's unbelievable that we're here yet it's absolutely on brand.
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Yeah. And just remember that every single time a Republican person tells you, I vote my pocketbook and I'm fiscally conservative. They are a. And a liar who willfully lies to themselves. And they are incapable of looking at the historical body of evidence that every single Republican administration has produced, which is this. The only thing different about Trump and the others is he did it in record time. He got hit the ground running. I read a report this morning pumps zero economic growth in the United States. Yes, Zero. Zero growth. So all of these, well, I'm a fiscal conservative. You know, I'm in business. I'm a business. Well, my husband. My husband's in business. So we have to vote Republican because he's fiscally conservative. Fuck off. All right, and then next up, this is how stupid, stupid, stupid America is right now. Pop this up. Breaking Al Jazeera. The US May unsanction Iranian oil to ease pressure from US Israeli war, roiling energy markets. And Aaron Bastani says this is literally the dumbest war in human history. No hyperbole. So here's. Here's how it goes, you guys. We attack Iran. We are supposed to be on the side of Ukraine oil crisis because Pentagon said, hey, buddy, don't poke the bear. You're going to break everything around the world. Trump moved them out of the room and put Kushner, Witkoff, Rubio, the brain trust of dipshits in the room. He decided, I'm going to bomb them anyway. And then he's like, nobody told us about the Straits of Hormuze. And it's like, yeah, we have a Pentagon that has ran every possible calculation. It's been over there for decades. For decades, they've known about the Strait of Hormu, but he does it anyway. So then he unsanctions Russia, who is also sending information to Iran about how to attack American bases in the Middle East. And now we're unsanctioning Iran. So who are we fighting the war for? Russia and Iran? Somebody tell me. Because Trump in one hand says, we're not at war. We won the war. The war is going to go in a long time. The war's over. I mean, I don't know why they're controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Because we won. I mean, this is just. It's so insane and it makes me so mad that so many people in government right now that they just continue to allow this and this dip shittery and this abject stupidity and ignorance, willful ignorance, to go on and on. And America deserves all the criticism in the world. And listener, do not let one person tell you that you cannot criticize Benjamin Netanyahu or the country of Israel. That is the most anti democratic propaganda that's being perpetrated on us right now. All right, like subscribe, comment. We'll be back with some more really shitty news later.
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Hosts: Jennifer Welch & Angie “Pumps” Sullivan
Date: March 20, 2026
In this fiery and irreverent episode, Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan take aim at the rise of religious extremism among America's political elite—specifically targeting Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Through pointed critique and sharp humor, the hosts dissect Hegseth’s recent public statements, dissect the intersection of performative patriotism and religious dogma, and lambast the shallow media strategies employed by the US government amid an unpopular war. The show provides both trenchant political criticism and cathartic rants—underscored by comedic banter—making the episode a cathartic yet critical listen for progressive audiences.
Jennifer starts by reflecting on the viral moment when she called certain Americans "religious addicts," going on to draw parallels between American religious extremism and that of US adversaries.
She plays a clip (00:56) of Pete Hegseth, now Secretary of Defense, urging Americans to pray for troops “in the name of Jesus Christ,” which triggers a heated critique.
Angie (Pumps) underlines the hypocrisy, referencing Hegseth’s alleged record of personal misconduct and lack of accountability.
Jennifer asserts that all religious extremists, regardless of creed, exhibit the same behaviors: “It’s all the same iron age thinking, authoritarian ruling, divorce from reality bullshit.” (04:05)
The hosts dissect Hegseth’s claim that he told his son that Americans died to protect him from a nuclear Iran—a story they call a fabrication and narcissistic projection.
Angie connects this “sacrifice rhetoric” to evangelical upbringing, noting its psychological impact and generational perpetuation.
Jennifer and Angie skewer the Biden (and Trump-era) administration’s reliance on memes and pop culture (“banger memes” and allegedly even SpongeBob SquarePants) to shape public opinion on the war.
The hosts ridicule America’s move away from expertise and fact-based decision-making, lamenting the nation’s reliance on “Facebook doctors” rather than scientists and professionals.
Jennifer rebuts the “fiscally conservative” Republican trope by citing recent reports on stagnant US economic growth.
The show ends with a discussion of contradictory war strategies, such as the US unsanctioning Iranian oil to ease global pressures while simultaneously maintaining an adversarial stance toward Iran and Russia.
Jennifer urges listeners not to be cowed into silence on issues like US support for Netanyahu’s Israel and criticizes the chilling of open democratic discourse.
The hosts blend sharp, unfiltered political critique with biting humor and a personal, confessional tone. Their conversations are laced with sarcasm, f-bombs, and moments of cathartic laughter, making for a raw and entertaining yet incisive breakdown of current events and media failures.
Summary prepared for listeners seeking the core argument, key moments, and the distinct voice of IHIP News, without sifting through the full show.