Panelists on "CNN This Morning" were flabbergasted by unearthed criticism of Donald Trump by Pete Hegseth from nearly a decade ago.
Hegseth, now the secretary of defense, insisted as a Fox News host in 2016 that then-candidate Trump was wrong for suggesting that military lawyers and commanders would violate the laws of war if he ordered them to kill the families of terrorists or revive banned forms of torture.
“They won’t refuse,” Trump told Fox News anchor Bret Baier when asked about the topic during a Republican presidential debate. “They’re not going to refuse me — believe me.”
Hegseth at the time cast doubt on whether Trump would back up his commanders if they followed those orders, and noted the campaign pivoted to what he considered an unrealistic position.
"The military is not going to follow illegal orders, and so the Trump campaign was forced to change their position and say, we're going to try to change the law so that the military can operate within the law," Hegseth said at the time. "That's a tall order also."
Panelists were momentarily silent after hearing Hegseth's comments, which they agreed was eerily prescient in light of the current scandal over Hegseth's alleged "double-tap" order against survivors of a missile strike off the coast of Venezuela — and a furor surrounding a video featuring Democrats reminding service members that they had no duty to follow illegal orders.
"That's fascinating," said Democratic strategist Maria Cardona. "That is fascinating."
"Very relevant to the moment, I think," agreed host Audie Cornish.
"I think it also underscores what so many Democrats' concerns were when Hegseth was going through his confirmation hearings, which is his lack of experience," Cardona continued. "Not his lack of experience on TV."
"Well, obviously this is going to be played a lot over the next year," added Republican strategist Ashley Davis. "But, I mean, obviously it's going to be different situations. I just don't know. Going back to the midterm, though, I just want to [say] I don't know if this is what's going to change anyone's mind. It's going to be the economy, it's going to be the kitchen table. But it is a constant conversation."
CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere disagreed, saying the issue was more important to voters than Davis suggested.
"What it comes down to is fundamental question of who can the government just decide to kill, and based on what?" Dovere said. "Which are on these sorts of questions in a lot of people's minds, who can the government just decide to arrest and take away? These are things that Donald Trump is changing our conceptions of ... and that's why it's beyond the the legal justification stuff and the political, and these are people were killed and we don't know why they were killed, and the government hasn't explained it."
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