Newsletter also covered CNN press suit, Daily Wire film, Crew-12 return
The Guardian’s First Thing newsletter today led with two Pentagon and White House announcements that it grouped in adjacent items under separate subheads: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s pledge to livestream next month’s execution of Nidal Hasan by firing squad, and President Donald Trump’s promise that the United States will not attack Iran before November’s midterm elections.
Hegseth said the broadcast would show “serious consequences” for Hasan’s role in the November 5, 2009, Fort Hood shooting, in which the gunman killed 13 people and wounded dozens at a medical processing center. The Guardian described the planned broadcast as “a radical departure from the previous norm” and quoted Hegseth as saying: “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.” The newsletter did not specify how the livestream would be carried out, which platforms would distribute it, or whether the broadcast would be subject to delays or editorial controls. A military jury sentenced Hasan to death in 2013, and the Guardian reported the last known case of a U.S. military firing squad was in November 1945. Hasan has been held at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas since his conviction.
The Democratic senator Chris Murphy told the Guardian that Hegseth was “determined to hide the cost and the consequences of this war from the American public.” Murphy claimed the Pentagon blocked him from visiting a military base in Qatar and that an Iranian strike on the U.S. embassy in Riyadh was “far worse than the public were led to believe.” The Guardian did not provide additional sourcing for the Qatar and Riyadh allegations beyond Murphy’s statements.
The newsletter then reported the second item — Trump’s promise that the United States will not attack Iran before November’s midterm elections, outlining a pause on the protracted war that has continued for almost eight months. The Guardian cited a Reuters/Ipsos survey from late September that found only about a third of Americans approved the strikes on Iran.
Beyond those two paired items, the same edition of First Thing covered a range of other stories. Billionaires are spending large sums to support California’s Proposition 39, a ballot measure that would require voters to show identification before casting ballots, the Guardian reported; the measure is being promoted amid a nationwide Trump administration push to restrict voting, and California Republicans have long sought to advance a voter-ID initiative in the state. Various out-of-state conservative donors have given millions of dollars in support.
Voters in Missouri are calling the state’s elections “dizzying and embarrassing” because of a protracted legal battle over a Republican effort to redraw the congressional map, the Guardian reported. Some voters are no longer sure which congressional district they live in or who will be on their ballot paper for the midterms.
The Guardian’s midterm-debate roundup, written by Rachel Leingang, George Chidi and Auzzy Byrdsell, summarized key takeaways from debates in the battleground states of Michigan, Georgia and Maine.
On press access, a lawyer who has represented multiple media companies suing the Trump administration told a court that Trump’s own words — as he made clear in a recent Time magazine interview — are among the strongest parts of their case. The president told Time he chose to bar three news organizations because of their critical coverage of him. U.S. district court judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, said he would extend a temporary restraining order he had issued on September 24 requiring the White House to lift the ban; the order runs until the following Tuesday and will keep CNN, MS Now and Politico journalists in the building in the meantime.
The Guardian reported that a Daily Wire film production that appears to re-enact elements of Renee Good’s killing has been allowed to continue filming in a rural Montana town. The project reportedly stars Danny Trejo and Harvey Keitel and follows an ICE agent’s effort to escape a mob seeking to free an immigrant he has detained, according to its logline. In video of the shoot that surfaced online, a female actor portraying a protester can be seen driving a beat-up car into a flock of law enforcement agents, knocking one officer down, as another fires his weapon; the car then abruptly lurches back. The Guardian said the scene drew backlash — and real protesters — over its resemblance to the fatal ICE-agent shooting of Good in January.
Four astronauts have returned to Earth from the International Space Station after a medical relief mission that began when an astronaut fell ill in space eight months ago, the Guardian reported, citing SpaceX Crew-12. Separately, the Department of Justice is seeking to charge Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump aide who gave key testimony on the January 6 attack on the Capitol; she has said she was told that Trump lunged for the steering wheel of an SUV to try to join the mob.
The newsletter reported that an ICE agent shot and injured a man in New York City during an enforcement operation, according to federal officials. It also reported that President Trump said he is considering asking the FBI to investigate the death of Nolan Wells; Wells’s cause and manner of death remain undetermined, and a Jackson county grand jury declined to indict anyone in his case.
Thousands of people turned out to greet the USS Abraham Lincoln on its return to San Diego after an extended deployment, the Guardian reported. The carrier left San Diego last November and had been expected to return in the spring until the United States and Israel launched the war with Iran.
On culture, the Guardian recommended a review by Benjamin Lee of the movie Matchbox — who wrote that “John Cena and Jessica Biel collect paychecks in a soulless and synthetic slab of corporate product” — and a separate interview with the director Sofia Coppola. A separate piece marked the celebration of the newly announced Nobel laureate in literature, Anne Carson, by the Handmaid’s Tale author, joined by Emily Wilson, Ocean Vuong and the Booker-shortlisted writer Rebecca Perry.
The newsletter also reported conservation plans for a critically endangered large water-lily species whose leaves are large enough to be seen from space; Jeremiah Harris’s Instagram pictures brought the species to the attention of waterlily expert Carlos Magdalena. Millions of people from Louisiana to Florida were under hurricane warnings as Hurricane Isaias headed toward the U.S. Gulf coast, the Guardian reported; storm-surge warnings were in effect from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Suwanee River in Florida, and weather experts called the expected landfall the “biggest test” for FEMA since the Trump-imposed cuts on the agency. The edition closed with a brief noting that scientists have detected a fast radio burst that traveled for more than 10 billion years before reaching Earth, believed to be the farthest yet detected, more than double the previous distance record; the source of such bursts is unknown.