Trump says ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should be fired in escalating violent rhetoric against her opponents

CNN
—

Donald Trump said former Rep. Liz Cheney is a “war hawk” who should be shot, as he lashed out at one of his most prominent party critics while campaigning Thursday night in Arizona.

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay?” the former president said at a campaign event in Glendale with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, with the guns trained on her face.”

Trump also hurled insults at Cheney, once the third-ranking Republican in the House leadership, calling her “very stupid,” a “stupid person” and the “idiot.”

Trump’s proposal to fire Cheney represents an escalation of the violent language he has used to target his political enemies. And it comes days before an election in which the former president — who never accepted his loss in 2020 — has already undermined public confidence. In recent weeks, he has also proposed a military crackdown on political opponents he has described as “the enemy within.”

Cheney is perhaps the most vocal Republican critic of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots by his supporters at the US Capitol. She played a leading role on the House committee that investigated the attack and was later ousted from her deep-red Wyoming House seat by a Trump-backed 2022 primary opponent.

Responding to Trump’s comments overnight, Cheney said: “This is how dictators destroy free nations.”

In one post on Xthe former congresswoman goes on to say, “They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot leave our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

In recent weeks, Cheney has campaigned alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, urging Republicans to put aside partisan differences to support the Democrat and reject a candidate she says poses a threat to democracy.

Trump said Thursday he was surprised that former Vice President Dick Cheney also endorsed Harris because he had pardoned Cheney’s former chief of staff Scooter Libby, who was convicted of perjury in 2007.

“I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very stupid person — very stupid,” Trump said.

Trump said Cheney is a “stupid person” and claimed that when the Wyoming Republican was in the House Republican leadership, “she always wanted to go to war with people.”

“You know they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying … ‘Let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy,'” he said.

Trump’s use of violent language dates back to his first presidential campaign, in 2015 and 2016, when he suggested an army deserved to be “fired up” and said he would like to punch another in the face.

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper wrote in his memoirs that Trump, while in office, raised the idea of ​​shooting protesters who walked the streets around the White House after the killing of George Floyd in 2020.

“Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” Trump asked, according to Esper.

He began his bid for the 2024 Republican nomination by telling the Conservative Political Action Conference: “I am your retribution.” Days later, he said at a rally in Waco, Texas, that the 2024 election would be “the final battle.”

And throughout his campaign, he has described those convicted of their actions during the Capitol riot as “hostages.”

Harris has pointed to Trump’s actions and rhetoric — including in a speech she gave this week from the Ellipse in Washington, the same place where Trump gave his speech on Jan. 6, 2021 — as she tries to court independents and moderate Republicans.

“Donald Trump intends to use the United States military against American citizens who simply disagree with him. People he calls ‘the enemy from within.’ This is not a presidential candidate who thinks about how to make your life better,” said Harris in his remarks Tuesday night. “This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed by grievances and out for unchecked power.”

This story has been updated with additional details.