Newsmax host T.W. Shannon exploded at his guest Saturday after they rebuked his condemnation of those criticizing the Trump administration’s potentially illegal military orders, calling his guest’s remarks "outrageous."
“We're seeing the left now comparing our troops to Nazis!” Shannon proclaimed, pointing to remarks from Glenn Kirschner, an attorney and former U.S. Army prosecutor. Appearing recently on MS NOW, Kirschner spoke in support of the Democratic lawmakers who urged service members to defy unlawful orders.
“If you're committing offenses, and your defense is going to be 'I was just following orders,' you know, that didn't work out so well at Nuremberg,” Kirschner said, referring to the military tribunals held after World War II to prosecute high-ranking Nazi officials.
Following the clip, Shannon tried to get a consensus among his two guests – Joe Conason, editor-in-chief at National Memo, and Jeffrey Lord, columnist for The American Spectator – but failed to convince both of them.
“Now Joe, surely we're at a point where we can all agree that comparing United States service members to Nazis is over and beyond the pale?” Shannon asked.
“I don't think that's what he did, he clearly didn't do that if you listen to the clip,” Conason said. “The point is that if you follow illegal orders, you're imitating some of the worst figures in history, and we have a record with [President] Donald Trump of issuing illegal orders.”
Conason went on to argue that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth – who’s carried out a number of strikes in the Caribbean at the direction of Trump targeting suspected drug traffickers, strikes that have been called illegal “extrajudicial killings” – had already violated the law with his remarks condemning the Democratic lawmakers – specifically Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) – who urged service members to defy illegal orders.
“What's funny is that Hegseth clearly has no idea of what the legality of anything is!” Conason said. “He, by basically publicly convicting Mark Kelly in his remarks, violated the Uniform Code of Military Conduct himself!”
Shannon went on to call Conason’s remarks “outrageous,” and encouraged his other guest to rebuke them. Lord was happy to oblige, declaring there to be “nothing illegal” about the Trump administration’s strikes on suspected drug traffickers at sea.
Conason wasn’t done yet, however, and tore into Hegseth and the Trump administration for what he called their “real touch of evil.”
“The question is how do you stop illegal drug smuggling? Do you murder people in advance of any showing that they were doing anything like that, or would you arrest them on the high seas as we've done in the past?” Conason said.
“Or, do you just blow up boats and kill the survivors? I mean, that was the real touch of evil here. Apparently, Secretary Hegseth was informed that there were survivors of a strike and then told somebody to 'kill them all.'