Arizona's top prosecutor investigates Trump's 'shooting' comments | News about the 2024 US election

Arizona's top prosecutor is investigating whether Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump violated state law by suggesting one of his most prominent critics should expect “gunfire” in the fight.

Trump was widely criticized for comments he made about former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney at a campaign rally in Arizona on Thursday.

“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said of Cheney. “Let’s put her there with a gun that shoots nine barrels, okay? Let’s see how she feels, you know, with the guns pointed at her face.”

On Friday, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said in an interview with a local television station that Trump may have violated state laws banning death threats.

“I have already asked my criminal division chief to begin reviewing this statement and analyzing it to determine whether it qualifies as a death threat under Arizona law,” Mayes told 12News.

Mayes said it was not yet clear whether Trump's comment constituted protected free speech or a criminal threat.

“That is the question of whether it has crossed the line. It’s deeply disturbing,” Mayes said. “Something like this upsets people and makes our situation in Arizona and other states more dangerous.”

Cheney supported the Democrats

Cheney, a former top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, has endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, calling the former president “a threat.”

Harris told reporters the comments were a sign that Trump was becoming increasingly unhinged.

“Anyone who wants to be president of the United States and uses this type of violent rhetoric is clearly disqualified and unfit to be president,” she said in Madison, Wisconsin.

Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said his comments had been misinterpreted.

“President Trump is 100 percent right that warmongers like Liz Cheney are quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them rather than go into battle themselves,” she said.

Trump is targeting the former vice president

At a rally in Warren, Michigan, earlier in the day, Trump attacked Harris and Cheney again, and this time he also referenced their father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, in his comments.

“They want the Arab American voice. They want to win the Muslim vote, so they pick Liz Cheney, whose father basically destroyed the Middle East,” he said.

He added: “It's easy for her to say that she wants to start wars from the comfort of her beautiful home or her father's lavish home that he got from destroying much of the Middle East.” You know that, don't you ? You know, he ran a company that was a big company, a big beneficiary of the wars.”

Cheney was vice president under President George W. Bush and played a key role in the so-called “War on Terror” – the US response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Before becoming vice president, Cheney was the former CEO of Halliburton, a multinational oil services company that won billion-dollar contracts with the U.S. military in Iraq.

Cheney also refused to support Trump's third presidential bid and supported Harris.

Both Harris and Trump campaigned Friday evening in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as part of a final campaign push in the crucial swing state.