Just days before the presidential election, Donald Trump is threatening his detractors with violence.
Comments the former president made about Liz Cheney are currently going viral, with Trump being accused of advocating for violence against the former Republican representative, who has backed his opposition. Here's everything to know about what Trump said and how the political world is responding.
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Liz Cheney is an attorney and former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Wyoming as a Republican from 2017 to 2023. She is the daughter of Republican Dick Cheney, former Vice President under George W. Bush, who is often referred to as an "architect" of the war on Iraq.
Trump said during an onstage discussion with disgraced Fox News host Tucker Carlson that Cheney would not be a "war hawk" if "guns are trained on her face." He called her "a stupid person," “a bad person," and a “very dumb individual."
“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said. “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it. You know when the guns are trained on her face — you know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building."
Cheney, a Republican, has recently been a vocal critic of Trump's and instead endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election, which Carlson and the former president were discussing when Trump issued his threats. Cheney stated at an October rally in Wisconsin that “I have never voted for a Democrat, but this year, I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris." Her father has also endorsed Harris for president.
“Donald Trump was willing to sacrifice our Capitol, to allow law enforcement officers to be beaten and brutalized in his name, and to violate the law and the Constitution in order to seize power for himself,” she said at the time. “I don’t care if you are a Democrat or Republican or an independent, that is depravity and we must never become numb to it.”
Cheney interpreted Trump's "war hawk" comments as a direct threat, referring to him as a "dictator" and "tyrant" who levies violence against his critics to intimidate them into silence.
“This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death," she wrote. "We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant. #Womenwillnotbesilenced #VoteKamala.”
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Trump has not apologized for his comments about Cheney, and his campaign has indicated that he does not intend to, instead defending his remarks. Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement via NBC: “President Trump was clearly explaining that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign spokesperson, Ian Sims, condemned Trump's "war hark" comments, saying in a statement that the former president “is so all-consumed by his grievances, the people who he disagrees with and who he sees as opposing him politically, he treats as enemies."
It isn't just Cheney who viewed Trump's comments as a direct threat — several other lawmakers have condemned his "war hawk" remark as a direct instigation of violence. Gabby Giffords, a former Democratic representative from Arizona who survived an assassination attempt in 2011, also viewed the comments as advocating for violence and called on Republicans to rebuke him.
"Declaring that a person should be shot and killed simply for supporting a different candidate is un-American," Giffords said. "Any Republican who claims to respect the constitution and rule of law has a responsibility to speak out against Donald Trump's dangerous comments immediately."
It's possible that Trump's remarks about Cheney will land him in legal trouble — Kris Mayes, Attorney General of Arizona, where Trump made the comments, said that her office will be investigating if he violated the law.
“I have already asked my criminal division chief to start looking at that statement, analyzing it for whether it qualifies as a death threat under Arizona’s laws,” Mayes said during a taping for a local show affiliated with NBC. “I’m not prepared now to say whether it was or it wasn’t, but it is not helpful as we prepare for our election and as we try to make sure that we keep the peace at our polling places and in our state."
