Trump attacks ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney with violent rhetoric

At a campaign event in Arizona on Thursday, Donald Trump continued his pattern of using violent rhetoric to attack his political rivals, criticizing former Rep. Liz Cheney’s aggressive stance on foreign policy and suggested she might not be a “war hawk” if “the guns are there.” trained on her face.”

“She is a radical war hawk,” Trump told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on stage, calling Cheney a “very stupid individual.”

“Let’s put her there with a gun while nine barrels shoot her, okay? Let’s see what she thinks about it. You know, when the guns are pointed in her face,” the Republican presidential candidate said said. “You know, they’re all war hawks when they sit in Washington in a nice building and say, ‘Oh, gee, let’s – let’s send 10,000 troops straight into the enemy’s mouth.’”

Trump has used increasingly crude and violent rhetoric to attack his opponents in recent weeks, as polls show he and Kamala Harris are deadlocked in this election. During Thursday’s event, he also called President Joe Biden a “stupid son of a bitch” and called Harris “a sleazebag.”

Trump has vowed to use the powers of the executive office to punish and prosecute his political rivals if he is elected to a second term — a scenario that former federal law enforcement officials and legal experts told NBC News would lead to chaos and division.

He has also named Cheney, who became one of his top targets for loudly criticizing his efforts to steal the 2020 election. In June, Trump shared an image on Truth Social calling for a televised military tribunal for Cheney.

She recently campaigned with Harris and called on her fellow anti-Trump Republicans to vote Democrat. Her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney – an architect of the Iraq War in the early 2000s – has also crossed party lines to support Harris in this election.

The younger Cheney responded early Friday to Trump’s comments, saying they amounted to a death threat.

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