Trump says Liz Cheney might not be a “war hawk” if guns were shooting at her

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Kamala Harris said Friday it was “disqualifying” for Donald Trump to say to the former MP. Liz Cheneyone of the former president's most prominent Republican critics should have guns “shot at her” to see what she thinks about sending troops into battle.

The Democratic Vice President has campaigned extensively with Cheney, particularly in the battleground “Blue Wall” states that represent her strongest path to victory on Tuesday, as Trump pursues the former Wyoming congresswoman and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, over the Iraq War and foreign militaries Interventions.

Speaking to reporters after arriving in Madison, Wisconsin, Harris urged voters to think about who they would rather have sitting in the Oval Office, echoing the message she emphasized in the final week of the campaign. Harris called Cheney “a true patriot” and said Trump had “increased his violent rhetoric.”

“His list of enemies has grown longer. His rhetoric has become more extreme,” Harris said. “And he is even less focused than before on the needs, concerns and challenges facing the American people.”

Trump and his allies say his comments are being misinterpreted. They say he argued that Cheney was a “war hawk” but would be less supportive of the use of the military because she has had to fight in wars herself.

On Friday, he doubled down on his statement, calling Cheney a “disaster” during a stop at a restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan. “She wouldn't fight, she's a coward,” he said, adding that if she were ever sent to a battlefield, “she would be the first to get her act together.”

But the Republican presidential candidate increasingly used threatening rhetoric against his opponents and spoke of “enemies from within” who would undermine the country. Some of them his former senior assistants and Harris have called him a fascist in response.

Cheney, who broke with Trump after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, called the former president on Friday a “cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

Trump has sharpened his criticism of the Cheneys in the swing state of Michigan, where he is competing with Harris for the votes of Arab Americans who opposed U.S. support for Israel's offensive in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and subsequent invasion of Lebanon Gaza are.

At an event late Thursday in Arizona with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Trump was asked if it was strange to see Cheney campaigning against him. The former congresswoman has been vocal against Trump and has supported Harris since the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. She joined the vice president at his recent stops to win over Republicans dissatisfied with Trump.

Trump called Cheney “a crazy person” and added: “But the reason she couldn't stand me is because she always wanted to go to war with people.” If she had her way, we would be in 50 different countries .”

The former president continued: “She is a radical war hawk. Let's put her there with the gun firing at her with nine barrels. Okay, let's see what she thinks. You know, when the guns are pointed at their faces.

“You know they're all war hawks when they sit in a nice building in Washington and say, Oh man, let's send 10,000 troops right into the enemy's mouth,” Trump said.

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

A prominent Trump critic, former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, argued that the former president's comment was taken out of context and that Trump was “NOT calling for Liz Cheney to be executed in front of a firing line.”

“In Trump's typical stupid, ugly way, he's trying to make clear Cheney's stance on the war,” Walsh said on X.

Ian Sams, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, suggested that Trump “is talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad, and Vice President Harris is talking about sending one to her Cabinet. That's the difference in this race.”

Trump said he was making it clear about Cheney's foreign policy record.

“She’s a war hawk,” he said in Michigan. “If she had to do it herself and face the consequences of a fight, she wouldn't do it. So it’s easy for her to talk, but she wouldn’t do it.”

His spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said his comments were taken out of context and called the controversy “the latest outrage over fake media.”

Throughout his campaign, Trump has been fixated on Americans he believes have wronged or betrayed him. He has portrayed them as worse than the United States' foreign adversaries, calling them “enemies from within.”

He has threatened to use the federal government, including the military, to take action against them. And he has repeatedly threatened “long term prison sentences” for those “engaged in unscrupulous behavior” in this election, including political activists, donors and elected officials.

He said people he referred to him as “the enemy from within” should be able to be handled “very easily by the National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.”

Some of Trump's supporters said his talk of revenge was either justified or exaggerated.

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Gomez Licon reported from Dearborn, Michigan and Glendale, Arizona. Associated Press writer Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed.