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Seemingly admitting Trump Derangement Syndrome, one pundit was called out over his non-apology peddling a narrative about the former president, Liz Cheney and “rifles.”

The closing days of the 2024 presidential election were proving to stretch the extent of hyperbole with an apparent last-ditch effort to scare voters into supporting Vice President Kamala Harris. This included claiming former President Donald Trump wanted to see the former Wyoming congresswoman put in front of a firing squad, for which Jonah Goldberg’s own participation found him retracting his commentary.

On X Friday, the editor-in-chief of The Dispatch posted, “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 protesters and having generals ‘executed.’”

“Trump was making — albeit in his customary fashion — a different argument about Cheney’s alleged foreign policy views and the use of force,” continued the carefully crafted explanation. “I let my disgust at Trump’s comments get the better of me as this was the first time I’d heard them. 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.”

As had been reported, while speaking with Tucker Carlson in Arizona, the president had said, “Dick Cheney’s daughter is a very dumb individual.”

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it when the guns are trained on her face,” added Trump. “They’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh gee, let’s send 10,000 troops into the mouths of the enemy.’ But she’s a stupid person. And I used to have meetings with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people.”

Messaging from the left quickly coordinated to assert the GOP leader wanted to see Cheney executed when the remarks spelled out her actively participating in the wars she has backed throughout the years, and Cheney herself had tried, “This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

Among those slamming Goldberg, once celebrated for his book, “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning,” The Federalist editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway called out, “Now try apologizing for real, where you don’t blame the victim of your lies.”

In response, Goldberg resorted to ranting as he posted, “LOL. Okay Mollie, because you demanded it, and your moral and ethical authority is just so compelling. I sincerely apologize to Donald Trump for thinking it might have been possible that his lurid fantasizing about Liz Cheney being in the crosshairs of a bunch of soldiers might have been more ominous than it was.”

“I guess I let myself be unduly influenced by his past statements about how he said that Mark Milley deserved to be executed for (entirely properly and with authorization) reassuring China that Trump’s attempt to steal the election (which you still slavishly defend, as far as I know) wouldn’t succeed. Not to mention his incessant talk about using the military against ‘the enemy within,’ his calls for military tribunals for Cheney and other members of the January 6 Committee, and his stated belief that the Constitution should be suspended to reinstall him to power,” he wrote. “I apologize to the vicim for letting him give me a false impression of his intent when he said, ‘Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.’”

“Again,” added Goldberg, “I didn’t lie. I made a mistake, corrected it well before you and your ilk went nuts, and I showed more fidelity to the truth in that one moment than you have for the last 8 years. Now we can go back to ignoring each other. Or at least I will.”

Reacting to the narrative that built up around the president’s remark, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt had said in a statement, “President Trump is 100% correct that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves. This is the continuation of the latest fake media outrage days before the election in a blatant attempt to interfere on behalf of Kamala Harris.”

As the commentator sought to move on, social media wasn’t so accommodating as users on X ripped the initial take, retraction and screed that followed.

Kevin Haggerty
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