CNN pundit Jonah Goldberg walks back comment claiming Trump wants Liz Cheney to be 'executed by firing squad'

In a Friday morning CNN panel, Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief at The Dispatch, claimed that 2024 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments about "war hawk" Liz Cheney meant that he was calling for Cheney to be "executed by firing squad." Goldberg has now walked these comments back, saying he "was reacting in haste."

"He's saying quite explicitly and unambiguously that Liz Cheney should be shot, should be executed by firing squad," Goldberg said Friday morning in response to Trump saying at a Thursday evening event in Arizona. Trump said that Cheney would be less inclined to send American troops off to war if she were the one having to face enemy fire. "Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face," he said, calling Cheney a "war hawk." 

"I need to make a statement," Goldberg wrote on X Friday afternoon. "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," he added.

Goldberg said that "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."

Goldberg referenced his comments made later in the morning segment, in which he said "I've been sitting here mulling Brad's defense of the statement, and I think you got a better point than I granted at the beginning. I still think what he said was outrageous and grotesque, but that's part of the problem, right?"

Goldberg concluded in his post, "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."

On Friday morning, Kamala Harris and her campaign have spread the hoax that Trump wants Cheney executed, and the Arizona attorney general has launched a probe into whether Trump’s comments qualify as a death threat under Arizona's laws.