On a recent episode of CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip, more colloquially known as the “Thunderdome”, we got to see a blatant double standard in how table bookings play out. Shermichael Singleton and Ana Navarro went back and forth over the recent conduct of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth during press briefings.
Watch the aforementioned segment, as aired on March 4th, 2026 (click “expand” to view transcript):
WATCH: @MrShermichael Singleton reminds the NewsNight panel criticizing Pete Hegseth’s remarks that he DID serve and is fully aware of the fact that war is hell.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON: Can I just make one point of objection to what Ana just said? You know, in politics, sometimes… pic.twitter.com/nWiEkDxSe0
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) March 5, 2026
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It’s incredible to me that we are, what, four, five days into this now, and there still hasn’t been a formal address to the nation by the president of the United States.
Look, I think, Donald Trump, and to a certain extent Hegseth as well, I think their psyche changed as a result of Venezuela. They are emboldened. Donald Trump realized he’s got the biggest, most powerful armed forces in the world, and he intends to use them whenever he wants and however he wants. He didn’t have to get permission for Congress to do the Maduro operation. And so now he thinks he can replicate it elsewhere.
Obviously, Iran and Venezuela are two completely different balls of wax. We had two completely different regimes with capacities. Venezuela did not have the capacity. Maduro did not have the capacity to inflict pain and war on America. Iran has much greater capacities.
I think — you know what I think is tragic, that Pete Hegseth refers to the death of six Americans as tragic things happen. Almost flippantly. And I think the bellicose and, you know, braggadocious narrative and rhetoric you’re hearing from him, that’s what happens when you pick an unqualified weekend Fox News host to be secretary of defense.
And I’m old enough to remember, and so are we around this table, 2003, when George W. Bush stood in a U.S. aircraft carrier and declared “Mission Accomplished.” And it was years of more fighting that ensued, and that was very premature.
So, him beating his chest and talking about all feels like not the right thing at the right time. And his focus should be on the loss of life.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON: Can I just make one point of objection to what Ana just said? You know, in politics, sometimes we make flippant remarks. If we could go back and do it over, we would. Pete Hegseth has served this country honorably- a tour in Afghanistan, a tour in Iraq. I never put on the uniform, but I certainly have a lot of damn respect for the people who do. He led his troops for about a year as a leader, and many of the generals and individuals who gave him a Bronze Star wrote admirably about his leadership position. So I don’t think that this is someone who doesn’t recognize the importance of war, the toll it takes on families, and that you might indeed pay the ultimate price. And so I think we shouldn’t forget that. We may dislike him. You may not like the comment that he made and we could critique maybe it wasn’t the right way to word it, but but this is someone who knows war more than anybody at this table that I’m familiar with, and we should keep that in mind.
ABBY PHILLIP: I mean, she was critiquing the comment that he made. She wasn’t- she wasn’t denigrating his service but she was- she was critiquing. She was critiquing his comment. I do think… (unint)
NAVARRO: Well, but Shermichael, let me remind you that this is the same guy that was on a chat group revealing all sorts of information that should not have revealed in that chat group to all sorts of people that should not have had that information, including a journalist, who he didn’t even know was on the chat group.
SINGLETON: And, Ana, I have no quarrels with this, with that at all. My point simply is this guy understands what happens when you go to war. He’s been to war. He’s seen people die. He’s been to combat. And, again, I would’ve phrased it differently, sure, we can have that argument.
NAVARRO: He was reading from prepared remarks.
SINGLETON: But to but to make the case that he doesn’t care? That soldiers lost their lives? I find that hard as hell to believe.
NAVARRO: I did not say he doesn’t care. I said that the way he phrased it as “tragic things happened” was a very unfortunate way to discuss the loss of six lives,
SINGLETON: Okay. Unfortunate, I’ll take that. I’ll take the unfortunate.
The first thing that jumps out at you here is that Ana Navarro enjoys the privilege of being able to spew all manner of invective at Hegseth, with arguments that go all over the place, without ever having to worry about being interrupted by host Abby Phillip. This speaks to the booking disparities at NewsNight, wherein you see all manner of incendiary commentators on the left who come on and offer up little more than bilious bombast. This stands in contrast to the conservatives booked on the show, who often have to cut through both this rhetorical wall just to then get cut off by Abby Phillip.
Shermichael Singleton immediately rebutted Navarro with a take that was thoughtful and well-reasoned- a contrast to Navarro’s bomb-throwing. Hegseth served in combat and is intimately familiar with death in service of one’s country, and it is terrible to suggest that he doesn’t care about his deployed troops.
It is at this point that Phillip cuts in, perhaps trying to buy Navarro a little bit of covering time so she can regroup. Navarro tries to get back into it, and goes back to flailing around, throwing around non sequiturs that do not address the substance of Singleton’s rebuttal. But time has run and now the segment’s over. NewsNight viewers see for themselves the guest disparity on display, and watch Phillip cut off yet another conservative. Again.
