Trump calls ex-congresswoman Liz Cheney ‘war hawk’

During a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, Donald Trump labeled former Rep. Liz Cheney a “war hawk” and suggested violent imagery against her as he vented about one of his most notable intra-party critics.

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?” the former president said at a campaign event in Glendale with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face,” News.Az reports, citing CNN.

Trump also hurled insults at Cheney, once the third-ranking Republican in House leadership, calling her “very dumb,” a “stupid person” and “the moron.”

Trump’s suggestion that Cheney be fired upon represents an escalation of the violent language he has used to target his political foes. And it comes days before an election in which the former president — who never accepted his 2020 loss — has already undermined public confidence. In recent weeks, he has also suggested a military crackdown on political opponents 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 his supporters’ January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. She played a leading role on the House select committee that investigated the attack, and later was ousted from her deep-red Wyoming House seat by a Trump-backed primary opponent in 2022.

In recent weeks, Cheney has campaigned alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, urging Republicans to set aside party differences to back the Democrat and reject a candidate she says poses a threat to democracy.

Trump said Thursday he was surprised former Vice President Dick Cheney also endorsed Harris, because he had pardoned Cheney’s former chief of staff Scooter Libby, who was convicted of perjury in 2007.

“I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter’s a very dumb individual — very dumb,” Trump said.

Trump said Cheney is a “stupid person” and claimed that when the Wyoming Republican was in House Republican leadership, “she always wanted to go to war with people.”

“You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building, saying … ‘Let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy,’” he said.

News.Az