(CNN)- Donald Trump spoke out angrily against one of his most prominent critics within his own party while campaigning in Arizona on Thursday night, calling former Rep. Liz Cheney a “war hawk” who should be shot.
“He is a radical war supporter. “Let’s put him up there with a nine-barreled rifle, OK?” the former president said at a campaign event in Glendale with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “Let’s see how he feels about it, you know, when guns are pointed in his face.”
In politics the term “war hawk” refers to a person who chooses armed conflict rather than the path of negotiation.
Trump also insulted Cheney, once the third-highest ranking Republican in House leadership, calling her “very stupid”, “stupid” and a “fool”.
Trump’s suggestion that Cheney be shot represents an escalation of the violent language he has used to attack his political enemies. And it comes just days before an election in which the former president, who never acknowledged his 2020 defeat, has already eroded public confidence. In recent weeks, he has also suggested military action against political opponents, whom he has described as 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 riot by his supporters at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. He played a leading role on the House select committee investigating the attack, and was later ousted from his House seat in the deep red state of Wyoming by a Trump-backed 2022 primary rival.
Cheney responded to Trump’s comments last night, saying, “This is how dictators destroy free nations.”
In a post on X, the former congresswoman adds: “He threatened to kill anyone who spoke against him. “We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a mean, vindictive, cruel and unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”
In recent weeks, Cheney has campaigned alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, urging Republicans to set aside partisan differences to support the Democrat and reject a candidate she describes as a threat to democracy.
Following outrage over the remarks, the Trump campaign released a statement Friday in defense of the former president, which it later expanded upon.
“President Trump is absolutely right that war supporters like Liz Cheney are too quick to start a war and send other Americans to fight rather than go to war themselves. Trump campaign spokeswoman Carolyn Leavitt said, “This is a continuation of the latest false media outrage in a blatant attempt to interfere on Kamala Harris’s behalf just days before the election.”
Trump said Thursday he was surprised that former Vice President Dick Cheney also supported Harris because he pardoned Cheney’s former chief of staff Scooter Libby, who was convicted of perjury in 2007.
“I don’t blame him for clinging to his daughter, but his daughter is a very stupid, very stupid person,” Trump said.
Trump called Cheney a “stupid person” and claimed that when Wyoming Republicans were in the House Republican leadership, “she always wanted to go to war with people.”
“You know, they’re all pro-war, when they’re sitting in a nice building in Washington, saying… ‘Let’s send 10,000 troops straight into the mouth of the enemy,'” he said.
The office of former President George W. Bush, in whose administration Dick Cheney served as vice president and Liz Cheney worked at the State Department, declined to comment on Trump’s comments.
Trump’s use of violent language dates back to his first presidential campaign, in 2015 and 2016, when he suggested that one protester deserved to be “punched up” and said he would like to punch another in the face.
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper wrote in his memoirs that while in office, Trump floated the idea of shooting protesters who took to the streets around the White House after the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
“Can’t you shoot them? According to Esper, Trump asked, just shoot them in the legs or something?
He launched his campaign for the 2024 Republican nomination by saying at a Conservative Political Action Conference meeting: “I am their antithesis.” A few days later, he said at a rally in Waco, Texas that the 2024 election would be “the final battle.”
And throughout his campaign, he has described those convicted for their actions during the Capitol riot as “hostages.”
Harris has condemned Trump’s actions and rhetoric, including a speech she delivered this week from the Ellipse in Washington, where Trump gave his speech on January 6, 2021, as she attempts to woo independents and moderate Republicans. Was doing.
“Donald Trump intends to use the United States military against American citizens who disagree with him. He calls people the ‘enemy within’. “This is not a presidential candidate who is thinking about making his life better,” Harris said in remarks Tuesday night. “He is an unstable individual, prone to revenge, grudges and a quest for unchecked power.”
With reporting from CNN’s Jamie Gangel, Kristen Holmes and Kate Sullivan