Liz Cheney hits back at Trump’s violent rhetoric: ‘This is how dictators destroy free nations’

Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney is firing back at Donald Trump after the former president darkly suggested Cheney be put in the firing line when he criticized her as a “war hawk.”

“This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death,” Cheney wrote on Friday the X. “We cannot leave our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man , who wants to be a tyrant.”

Trump attacked Cheney at an event with Tucker Carlson on the battlefield in Arizona on Thursday night.

“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said of the former Wyoming congresswoman as he went after her and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.

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

Trump continued: “You know they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, geez, let’s send a — let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.'”

The Harris campaign called Trump, saying “nine barrels” a reference to a traditional nine-gun “firepower.”

Cheney, a Republican but a vocal critic of Trump over his conduct after the 2020 and January 6, 2021 elections, has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

While campaigning with Harris, Cheney cast Trump as a danger to democracy and the Constitution.

“We see it on a daily basis, someone who was willing to use violence to try to seize power, to stay in power, someone who represents an irreparable disaster, frankly, in my opinion, and we have to to do everything to make sure he’s not re-elected,” Cheney told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week” earlier this fall after publicly endorsing Harris.

Trump’s remarks against Cheney are the latest in a string of increasingly dark and violent campaign rhetoric.

The former president doubled down on his “enemy from within” language after previously suggesting that Democrats are more of a threat to the United States than top foreign enemies like China and Russia when it comes to the 2024 election.

“We have an enemy from within,” he told Carlson on Thursday. “We have some very bad people, and those people are also very dangerous. They want to take down our country. They want our country to be a nice communist country or a fascist in any way they can. And we have to take care of it.”

Harris campaign senior adviser Ian Sams responded to Trump’s comments during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Friday, calling the former president “absorbed by his grievances.”

“I mean, think about the contrast between these two candidates,” Sams said. “You have Donald Trump talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad, and you have Vice President Harris talking about sending one to her cabinet. This is the difference in this race.”

Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s spokeswoman, claimed Friday that Trump’s words were taken out of context.

“President Trump made it clear 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 on X.

ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim, Kelsey Walsh and Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.