Washington — Former President Donald Trump attacked former Rep. Liz Cheney, one of his most ardent critics, on Thursday as a “war hawk” and suggested she be sent into the line of fire.
During a live interview with conservative personality Tucker Carlson in Glendale, Arizona, Trump insulted Cheney’s intelligence and suggested she would have different views if she had guns pointed at her.
Cheney, Trump said, “is a very dumb individual, very dumb. She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know when the guns are trained on her face.”
The Republican presidential nominee added, “They’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, gee, well let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.’ But she’s a stupid person, and I used to have —I’d have meetings with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people.
Cheney responded to Trump’s attacks on social media Friday, writing that his comments demonstrate the actions of a dictator.
“This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant,” she wrote, adding hashtags stating “women will not be silenced” and “vote Kamala.”
Cheney endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president and has appeared on the campaign trail with the Democratic nominee as they work to persuade Republican voters who have soured on Trump to back the vice president.
A spokesman for Harris’ campaign, Ian Sams, condemned Trump’s remarks and said the former president treats those who oppose him as enemies.
“He’s spent the last month talking about the ‘enemy from within’ the United States. And now, he’s going after Liz Cheney with this dangerous, violent rhetoric,” Sams said Friday in an interview on MSNBC. “I mean, think about the contrast between these two candidates. You have Donald Trump who is 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.”
The Trump campaign doubled down on the comments Friday and accused the media of stoking anger just before Election Day.
“President Trump is 100% correct that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign press secretary, said. “This is the continuation of the latest fake media outrage days before the election in a blatant attempt to interfere on behalf of Kamala Harris.”
Cheney was not the only Republican official who earned Trump’s ire during the event with Carlson. The former president called John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser, a “real dope” and “nut job.” Trump also lambasted former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, as a “total whack job,” and Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, as a “watermelon head.”
The former president also reiterated his claim that there is an “enemy from within,” who “would like to take down our country.”
Olivia Rinaldi and
contributed to this report.
