We are shocked!
The normally august Audie Cornish didn't go full Scarborough—someone known to drop f-bombs.
Still, it was surprising to hear Cornish, the mannerly host of CNN This Morning, utter something out of character today.
Mike Dubke, who served as White House Communications Director for three months during the first Trump term, suggested that one thing protecting Pete Hegseth from being fired is the difficulty that would be involved in the confirmation process for a replacement.
Responded Cornish:
"So, this is not a military term, but you're saying they're SOL. Basically, there's no other options out there."
Dubke responded that Hegseth's "death by 1,000 cuts" could eventually lead to his firing, but that "right now they're not there." Cornish didn't seem to ponder that no one in Biden's Department of Defense resigned over their disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and their subsequent drone attack on innocent civilians.
Cornish's "SOL" wasn't her only unusual utterance today. My working assumption has been that the liberal media considers Laura Loomer persona non grata--unfit for mention on its air. Yet Cornish took the initiative to raise her in the same segment today:
"I think it's interesting. You have people like Laura Loomer who are online saying like, hey, this Venezuela, like, what's going on here? And it has put the administration at odds with that faction of MAGA, which is always changing a little bit of people who are like, are we going to war? Because we said we're not doing foreign conflicts."
Perhaps Audie's fellow members of the liberal media will excuse her mention of She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, since Cornish did so for purposes of stirring the pot in MAGA/Trump land.
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
112/4/25
6:44 am ETAUDIE CORNISH: I think it's interesting, also you have people like Laura Loomer who are online saying like, hey, this Venezuela, like, what's going on here?
And it has put the administration at odds with that faction of MAGA, which is always changing a little bit, of people who are like, are we going to war? Because we said we're not doing foreign conflicts.MIKE DUBKE: Well, we're not nation-building is what was really --
CORNISH: You think that's the distinction? I thought it was just even doing stuff about it.
DUBKE: I actually think, well, maybe for Laura Loomer. But I think for MAGA et al., and for the Trump administration, it's nation-building. They see themselves as a differentiator from the neo-cons in that sense.
But going back to what Betsy was saying about being bombastic, I do think that that is part of the reason that Hegseth has the support of the administration right now.
I also think it's the dirty little secret of Senate confirmations. If you want to push through X, Y, and Z through the Senate, you do not have time for another round of Senate confirmation hearings for the Secretary of Defense, or Secretary of War, or whatever we're calling Hegseth at the moment.
That is a real distraction. And so this is what the administration's balance is.
CORNISH: I see. So this is not a military term, but you're saying they're SOL. Like, basically, there's no other options out there.
DUBKE: There are no better options at the moment. And depending on how all of these death by 1,000 cuts of Secretary Hegseth are going to mount up, at some point they may make that decision. Right now they're not there.
