CNN's Cornish Knocks Hegseth for Not Joining the Hasan Firing Squad

Audie Cornish CNN This Morning 10-9-26

Guess what, Audie? President Obama was not on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Truman was not aboard the Enola Gay. Ordering something and carrying it out are different jobs. But on Friday's CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish held Pete Hegseth to a different standard.

The setup was Jonah Goldberg criticizing the way Hegseth had announced the public firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the Islamist terrorist who murdered 13 soldiers at Fort Hood: "Secretary Chesty McBroseph is just trying to show off how macho he is; a max-T thing."

Cornish then took her shot at Hegseth. "And he won't be doing it. He's going to draw from the pool. What soldiers are going to be signed up for this?" Translation: If Hegseth's so macho, why isn't he pulling the trigger? 

Legal analyst Elliot Williams calmed Cornish down: "It would be whoever would carry out an execution anyway. That's not alarming."

Cornish played clips from three TikTokers. And, surprise! All three were vehemently opposed to the execution. This is Cornish's modus operandi: cherry-picking voices that agree with CNN's liberal takes, as in here and here. Go online, and you'll find countless comments from people applauding the execution, with many eagerly volunteering for the firing squad. Somehow, Cornish didn't feature any of them. 

Corbin Trent, a former AOC and Bernie adviser, surprisingly agreed that the execution should be public. Spoiler alert: he only did so because he thinks watching it will turn people against capital punishment. 

Goldberg made an interesting observation: "The anti-death penalty lobby is one of the parties that is responsible for why Christa Pike's execution went so badly." Jonah presumably meant that the anti-capital punishment lobby has pushed lethal injection as a supposedly more humane form of capital punishment. 

Cornish closed by declaring: "This is the most depressing conversation I'll have today, and we're talking about a hurricane."  

So, Audie is more depressed by discussing the execution of an Islamic terrorist than by a hurricane that might injure or kill innocent Americans?

Here's the transcript. 

CNN This Morning 
10/9/26 
6:29 am EDT 

AUDIE CORNISH: So the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is bringing back the firing squad to execute the Fort Hood shooter. But here's the thing, he's vowing to livestream that execution so the nation can watch. 

PETE HEGSETH: Army major betrays his country, radical Islamist, kills a bunch of Americans at Fort Hood. Of course we're gonna do it at Fort Hood. Gonna do it on a Thursday, we're gonna do it at one o'clock, which is when he did it. And it's gonna be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad. It hadn't been since World War II since we've done that. Well, I kinda like the mentality we had in World War II, which was, win! 

CORNISH: Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on December 3rd. He was convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 shooting . . . A lot of people online are wondering why this is happening, in particular the livestream. I just wanna play some of them for you. 

TIKTOKER 1: Why would anybody want to live in a society that allows this? Hegseth needs to be impeached. One thousand percent. 

TIKTOKER 2: They wanna have a holy war happen. It serves his goals, it serves Trump's goals, it serves the Heritage Foundation's goals, and that's all this is. But it's also [bleeped] insane. Like, can we just have, like, a no, can we, can things be normal? 

TIKTOKER 3: These are the same people who think that watching a drag queen read to children will turn the kids gay. So I don't know what they think watching someone get shot to death will do. 

. . . 

HEGSETH: He's gonna get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be. And we'll make sure that people are able to, to watch it, that it's public. Because people need to understand that this is, there's serious consequences for these types of things. 

CORBIN TRENT: I couldn't agree more with that. I think absolutely, it needs to be. I was listening to the people responding to this, saying, who wants to live in a country that does this? 

I mean, I think we need to come to terms with what it is that we do. I mean, whether or not there's cameras there, we're still going to shoot that guy to death with guns, right? That's going to happen, just like we took the woman in Tennessee and injected her arm multiple times with drugs that eventually didn't even kill her. We did it twice. The execution before that in Tennessee didn't go well. 

I think if we'd had to watch that, if we'd had to see that process, that painful process that ultimately didn't result in her death, then I think it would be something that we're less comfortable doing. 

CORNISH: Meaning, supporting the death penalty. 

TRENT: Supporting the death penalty and doing that at all. 

CORNISH: [Turning to Jonah Goldberg] What are you thinking? 

JONAH GOLDBERG: Yeah, I mean, I have very complicated views on this. I think the anti-death penalty lobby is one of the parties that is responsible for why, like, Christa Pike's execution went so badly. 

I know people who are very much opposed to capital punishment who favor public executions. I know people very much against capital punishment. There, the, I think there are good arguments on both sides. I'm in favor of capital punishment when it's justified. My problem with this is that, you know, Secretary Chesty McBroseph is just trying to show off how macho he is. 

CORNISH: Did you say Chesty McBroseph? 

GOLDBERG: Yes. 

CORNISH: He is very online, I would say. 

GOLDBERG: He's very, you know, rush chairman, damn glad to meet you for, you know, kind of guy. 

TRENT: So you think it's just a max-t thing? 

GOLDBERG: I think it's a max-t thing. I think this is signaling, and I think it is feeding a constituency that Hegseth has, that he's vying, competing with Vance for, of the extremely online, extremely -- 

CORNISH: Male -- 

GOLDBERG: Male, look at what an alpha I am. And there's a difference between a public execution and a livestreamed execution. 

CORNISH: Right, right. And he won't be doing it. He's going to draw from the pool. What soldiers are going to be signed up for this? 

ELLIOT WILLIAMS: It would be whoever would carry out an execution anyway. That's not alarming. 

. . . 

CORNISH: This is the most depressing conversation I'll have today, and we're talking about a hurricane.