Harris Condemns Trump’s Cheney Comments, Says ‘Disqualifying’

On November 2, 2024By Littum

Arizona’s attorney general opened an investigation into Trump’s comments, but some legal scholars said he clearly did not threaten Cheney.

WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday condemned former President Donald Trump’s comment that former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney should face armed conflict over her support for US wars abroad, saying it “must be disqualifying” for the presidency.

“He has increased his violent rhetoric — Donald Trump has — about political opponents and suggested in detail, in detail, that rifles should be trained on former Rep. Liz Cheney. This should be disqualifying,” she told reporters ahead of a rally in Wisconsin.

Harris’ criticism came as Arizona’s attorney general said she had opened a preliminary investigation into the comments — and which some legal scholars said were clearly not threats.

“There is no true threat here. No call to initiate imminent violence,” Georgia State University law professor Anthony Kreis said in a social media post. “His statement was vile, repugnant and corrosive to our politics, but it is protected speech.”

Trump made his remarks in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson at a campaign event in Glendale, Arizona, on Thursday.

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay?,” he said. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”

Harris said any candidate who uses that kind of “violent” rhetoric is “clearly disqualified and unqualified to be president.”

Trump later clarified: “All I’m saying about Liz Cheney is that she’s a war hawk, and a dumb one at that, but she wouldn’t have the ‘guts’ to fight herself,” he said on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Karoline Leavitt, a Trump spokeswoman, wrote Xearlier on Twitter that Trump’s words were taken “out of context.”

“President Trump CLEARLY explained that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go to war themselves,” Leavitt wrote.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said NBC affiliate 12News on Friday that her office will investigate whether Trump’s remarks about Cheney qualify as a death threat under state law.

National Security Counsel Bradley Moss said in a statement on X that it was clear Trump “did not make a death threat.” “Trump is disgusting and says disgusting things,” Moss added. “I want him to lose badly and face justice in his pending lawsuits. But come on.”

Cheney, one of Trump’s most vocal critics, endorsed Harris and has campaigned with her in recent weeks.

She was the former vice chair of the now-disbanded House Select Committee that investigated the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, and has condemned the former president’s actions that day.

In June, Trump stepped up social media posts calling for the impeachment of Cheney, a former State Department official and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney. by a military tribunal for treason. Treason is punishable by death.

Cast: Bart Jansen, Josh Meyer