Jon Stewart thinks Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth might have some wires crossed when it comes to aggression and arousal.

The mock pundit said he found something perverse about the way the former Fox News host talks about war while chatting with British journalist Alastair Campbell on Wednesday’s episode of “The Weekly Show” podcast.

Knocking the self-styled “Secretary of War” over his “vile” comments glorifying violence and “domination,” Stewart wondered if there was something twisted going on inside Hegseth’s mind.

“It’s almost sexual for him,” he said. “It almost feels as though it’s erotic.”

Mortified, Campbell replied, “That is a horrible thought that I’ve never had before.”

Telling his guest to really think about what Hegseth’s no-mercy mindset might reveal, the political commentator said, “You gotta watch him. You, you gotta watch it more. There’s a reveling in it. There is a reveling that’s stunning.”

“He came out the other day, ‘No quarter, no mercy, no…’ Just blatantly saying, ’You know those things that we came up with after World War II to try and prevent the horrors? Yeah, we’re getting rid of all that. We’re just going in. Might makes right.”

Hegseth certainly appears to have some hangups when it comes to the military and masculinity.

He seemed fixated on soldiers’ appearances while addressing 800 of the U.S.’s top-ranking military officials in Quantico last fall, where he complained about “fat” generals and issued strict new grooming standards for service members.

Someone who regularly rails against “wokeness” and DEI, the Iraq War veteran also ordered the Pentagon to launch an official review into whether women are fit to serve in combat earlier this year.

Catch Stewart’s comments around the 16:30 mark here.

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