Liz Cheney reacts to Donald Trump saying guns should be fired at her

Liz Cheney has responded to Donald Trump’s statement that guns should be fired at her, describing him as a “cruel, unstable man”.

Cheney, the former Wyoming Republican congresswoman, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, saying: “This is how dictators destroy free nations.

“We cannot leave our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

Trump stepped up his criticism of Cheney late Thursday, branding her a “war hawk” and questioning her commitment to sending troops into battle.

Speaking to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in Glendale, Arizona, he said: “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with the rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK, let’s see how she’s got it. You know when the guns are trained on her face.”

He also suggested that if it were up to Cheney, the United States would be involved in conflicts across multiple countries. “If it were up to her, we’d be in 50 different countries,” Trump claimed.

Trump framed the discussion as a criticism of politicians who favor military intervention from the security of Washington, DC

He added: “You know they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, oh, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the enemy’s mouth.”

Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment outside regular business hours.

In response to backlash over Trump’s comments, his campaign said the former president criticized Cheney’s willingness to send U.S. troops into combat while he himself had not served in the military.

Cheney has endorsed Trump’s presidential opponent Kamala Harris, appearing with the Democratic nominee at three events in battleground states in recent weeks.

She also previously revealed that her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, would also vote for Harris in November.

In a statement released in September, the former vice president said: “In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election by using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him, he can never be trusted with power again.”

The former congresswoman became one of Trump’s fiercest critics after the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, blaming him for inciting the violence.

She was one of only two Republicans on the House Select Committee that investigated the Capitol riot and supported impeachment of Trump over it.

Cheney was elected as Wyoming’s representative in 2016, but she lost the 2022 Republican primary to a pro-Trump candidate. She had run on a platform focused on opposing Trump.