CNN
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President Donald Trump lashed out at one of his party’s most prominent critics, calling former Rep. Liz Cheney a “war hawk” who should be shot while campaigning in Arizona Thursday night. Ta.
“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s give her a rifle and stand there and fire nine barrels at her, okay?” the former president said at a campaign event in Glendale. He spoke with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “Let’s see how she feels when a gun is pointed at her face.”
Trump also insulted Cheney, once the No. 3 Republican in House leadership, calling her “very stupid,” “stupid human being” and “stupid.”
President Trump’s proposal to shoot Cheney represents an escalation of the violent language he has used to target political opponents. And it took place just days before an election in which the former president, who never accepted his 2020 defeat, had already eroded public trust. In recent weeks, he has also hinted at a military crackdown on his political opponents, whom he calls “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 riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol. . She played a leading role on the House select committee investigating the attack, but was later ousted from her deep-red Wyoming House seat in 2022 by the Trump-backed primary opposition party.
In recent weeks, Cheney has been campaigning alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, challenging Republicans to put aside partisan differences and support Democrats, candidates she says pose a threat to democracy. I am appealing to you to refuse.
President Trump said Thursday that he was surprised that former Vice President Dick Cheney also supported Harris, since he pardoned former Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby, who was convicted of perjury in 2007.
“I don’t blame him for being so fixated on his daughter, but she’s a very stupid person, very stupid,” Trump said.
President Trump said Cheney was a “stupid person” and claimed that “she always wanted to go to war with people” when the Wyoming Republican was in the House Republican leadership.
“You know, when you’re sitting in a nice building in Washington and saying, ‘Let’s put 10,000 troops into the enemy’s mouth,’ they’re all war hawks,” he said. .
Trump’s use of violent language dates back to his first presidential campaign in 2015 and 2016. At the time, Trump suggested that hecklers deserved “violence” and said he wanted to punch another person in the face.
Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper wrote in his memoir that while Trump was in office, he floated the idea of shooting protesters who took to the streets around the White House after the 2020 killing of George Floyd. are.
“Can you shoot me? Just shoot me in the leg or something?” Esper said Trump asked.
He began his bid for the 2024 Republican nomination at a Conservative Political Action Conference rally by saying, “I’m paying you back.” Days later, he told a rally in Waco, Texas, that the 2024 election would be the “last fight.”
And throughout the campaign, he has referred to those convicted of actions during the Capitol riot as “hostages.”
Harris has been trying to curry favor with independents and moderate Republicans, including in a speech this week from the Ellipse in Washington, the same venue where Trump gave a speech on January 6, 2021. pointed out the actions and rhetoric of
“Donald Trump intends to use the U.S. military against American citizens who simply disagree with him, people he calls the ‘enemy from within.’ This is not a presidential candidate thinking about how to improve his life,” Harris said in remarks Tuesday night. “This is a man who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, obsessed with grievances, and seeking unchecked power.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
