By james art GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Donald Trump suggests so former Congresswoman Liz Cheneyone of his most prominent Republican critics, should have guns “shot at her” to see how she feels about sending troops to fight. Cheney responded by calling the Republican presidential nominee “a cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”
The Republican presidential candidate has used increasingly threatening rhetoric against his opponents and has spoken of “enemies from within” undermining the country. Some of the his former senior aides and Vice President Kamala Harris have they defined him as a fascist in response.
Trump has also long accused Cheney and her father, former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, of promoting US military interventions abroad — including the Iraq War — and claims he has not started foreign wars during his presidency.
He stepped up his criticism of Cheney in Michigan, where he is competing with Harris for the vote of Arab Americans who oppose US support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attack and subsequent invasion of Lebanon.
At an event late Thursday in Arizona with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Trump was asked if it was strange to see Cheney campaigning against him. The former congresswoman from Wyoming spoke out against Trump following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. and endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris, joining the vice president in recent stops as they try to win over Republicans unhappy with Trump.
Trump called Cheney a “crazy man” and added: “But the reason she couldn’t stand me is she always wanted to go to war with people. If it were up to her, we’d be in 50 different countries.
The former president continued: “She is a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with the shotgun standing there with nine barrels firing at her. Well, let’s see how she feels. You know, when the guns are pointed at her face.
“You know they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building and they’re saying, gosh, okay, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy,” Trump said.
Cheney responded Friday in an X post: “This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten with death those who speak against them. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.
One prominent Trump critic, former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, argued that the former president’s comment was taken out of context and that Trump was “NOT calling for Liz Cheney to be executed at a firing line.”
“In typically stupid, ugly Trump fashion, he’s trying to push Cheney’s position on the war,” Walsh told X.
Ian Sams, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, suggested that Trump was “talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad, and Vice President Harris is talking about sending one to her cabinet. That’s the difference in this race.”
But Trump spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said the president was making a point about Cheney’s foreign policy record and that it was being taken out of context.
“President Trump is 100 percent correct that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them instead of going into battle themselves,” she said in an emailed statement. “This is a continuation of the latest fake media outrage days before the election in a blatant attempt to intervene on behalf of Kamala Harris.”
What to know about the 2024 election
Throughout his campaign, Trump has been focused on Americans he feels have wronged or betrayed him. He describes them as worse than the external adversaries of the United States, calling them “enemies within.”
He has threatened to use the federal government, including the military, to prosecute them. And he has repeatedly threatened “long prison terms” for those “engaged in unscrupulous conduct” in this election, including political operatives, donors and elected officials.
He said the people he called the “enemy within” should be “very easily handled by, if necessary, the National Guard or, if indeed necessary, the military.”
Some of Trump’s supporters said his talk of revenge was either justified or exaggerated.