CNN pundit Jonah Goldberg has backtracked after saying live on air that Trump was calling for Liz Cheney’s “execution.”
On Friday, during a panel discussion, Goldberg suggested Trump, who condemned Liz Cheney for her advocacy of “endless wars” at an event with Tucker Carlson, was actually suggesting she should be lined up and executed.
“He’s saying quite explicitly and unambiguously that Liz Chenney should be shot, should be executed by a firing squad. That is appalling. It is a small facet of the reasons why he’s unfit for office, and the Republican Party has made a disastrous mistake renominating him,” Goldberg said.
Later in the day, after a furious backlash, Goldberg posted a long retraction on Twitter.
“I need to make a statement.
“This morning on CNN I referred to Trump’s ‘rifles’ quote as him advocating a ‘firing squad’ for Liz Cheney. I was reacting in haste to what were objectively appalling and irresponsible comments that had been framed in the set-up piece in the context of previous statements Trump made about shooting protestors and having generals ‘executed.’ Still, I was wrong to say he was calling for a firing squad execution.
“After I said that, my co-panelist, Brad Todd made the case that I was wrong. Brad was right and, again, I was wrong. Trump was making – albeit in his customary fashion – a different argument about Cheney’s alleged foreign policy views and the use of force. I let my disgust at Trump’s comments get the better of me as this was the first time I’d heard them.
“In fact, at the end of the program, having thought about it, I said as much (though I could have been clearer). A fact that has been left out in a lot of the criticism of me since this morning.
“In other words, I voluntarily conceded the point, unprompted, before any of this subsequent criticism came my way.
“I regret the initial comment because it was inaccurate and contributed to the kind of overheated environment Trump thrives on.
“Trump’s words were bad enough.
“But it’s worth noting that a lot of the criticism about my inaccuracy is itself somewhat inaccurate, or at least incomplete, given my correction.”
Goldberg is one of the founding editors of National Review Online, and is the author of Liberal Fascism (2008). He resigned from Fox News in 2021 after Tucker Carlson’s documentary Patriot Purge was released. He described the documentary as “a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery, and damning omissions.”
On Wednesday, in an op-ed for The Dispatch he indicated his willingness to vote for Kamala Harris.
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