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CHANG: Do we have any evidence that Hegseth feels any deep antipathy towards Islam?

YOUSEF: So I attempted to contact Hegseth for an interview, and I haven't heard back. But one group that has looked into this is the progressive watchdog group Media Matters for America. Now, they've highlighted his connections to David Horowitz, a prominent American Islamophobe. They've also highlighted passages from Hegseth's own books, where he complains about growing numbers and political representation of Muslims in the U.S. And Hegseth has also spoken about rebuilding the so-called third temple in Jerusalem, which would involve destroying the third-holiest site in Islam.

CHANG: Oh, interesting. OK. Well, what else have you found, Odette - anything that might shed light on Hegseth's religious beliefs or religious affiliations - anything?

YOUSEF: So scholars told me that Hegseth is what they would consider to be a Christian nationalist, you know, and, even within the spectrum of Christian nationalism, that he belongs to a movement that one religious scholar, Matthew Taylor, calls, quote, "the very militant end of the Christian nationalist spectrum." Now, this is called the Christian Reconstructionist movement, and it seeks to reestablish Biblical law - namely Old Testament Biblical law. Now, Ailsa, this movement has lately been finding more popularity, specifically with young men in the U.S. They're sometimes referred to as theo bros, in part because this is considered a very masculine expression of Christianity. Here's Julie Ingersoll of the University of North Florida.

JULIE INGERSOLL: This tradition is deeply patriarchal. Men are in charge, and women exist for the purpose of assisting their men in their exercise of dominion. And their roles are very limited to home and family.

YOUSEF: The leader of the denomination that Hegseth belongs to has established a kind of theocracy in Moscow, Idaho. And some within this movement speak quite openly of repealing the 19th Amendment - you know, the right for women to vote. And so, you know, I think this adds some context around what Hegseth has said in interviews about wanting to remove women from combat roles.