Former US President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump came under fire on Friday after appearing to suggest that former lawmaker Liz Cheney should face armed combat.
"She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there, with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face," Trump said at a campaign event in Arizona.
Trump also took aim at other Washington figures who back US involvement in foreign wars, adding, "They're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building, saying, 'Oh, gee, well, let's send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.'"
Cheney, a former Republican lawmaker and the daughter of former US Vice President Dick Cheney, has been a fierce critic of Trump. She was one of a handful of House Republicans who crossed party lines and voted to impeach Trump on charges of “inciting insurrection” following the US Capitol riots on January 6, 2021.
In the past, Cheney has accused Trump of "provoking an attack on the United States Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral votes.
In September, Cheney announced she would support Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president rather than Trump.
Responding to Trump’s remarks, Cheney wrote on social media on Friday, "This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant."
Vice President Harris’s spokesperson, Ian Sams, condemned Trump’s rhetoric as dangerous and violent, stating on MSNBC, "Donald Trump 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. And now he's going after Liz Cheney with this dangerous, violent rhetoric."
Trump’s campaign said the comments had been misconstrued. Campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt stated, "President Trump is 100% correct that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves," dismissing the reaction as "the latest fake media outrage days before the election in a blatant attempt to interfere on behalf of Kamala Harris."
Trump also clarified his remarks, posting on his Truth Social platform, "All I’m saying about Liz Cheney is that she is a War Hawk, and a dumb one at that, but she wouldn’t have ‘the guts’ to fight herself. It’s easy for her to talk, sitting far from where the death scenes take place, but put a gun in her hand, and let her go fight, and she’ll say, ‘No thanks!'"
"Her father decimated the Middle East, and other places, and got rich by doing so. He’s caused plenty of DEATH, and probably never even gave it a thought," added the Republican nominee.
Despite Trump’s clarification, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said on Friday that her office is investigating whether Trump’s remarks broke 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, a Democrat, said during a taping of “Sunday Square Off” on 12NEWS in Phoenix.
“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,” Mayes told the NBC affiliate.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)