Vice President Harris said Trump’s remarks should be “disqualifying.”
Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney is firing back at Donald Trump after the former president darkly suggested Cheney be put in the line of fire as he criticized her as a “war hawk.”
“This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death,” Cheney posted Friday on X. “We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”
Trump attacked Cheney at an event with Tucker Carlson in battleground Arizona on Thursday night.
“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said of the former Wyoming congresswoman as he went after her and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.
“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay?” Trump said. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Trump continued, “You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, gee, well, let’s send a — let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.'”
The Harris campaign called Trump saying “nine barrels” a reference to a traditional nine-gun “firing squad.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, responding directly to the comments later Friday, said they should be “disqualifying.”
“Anyone who wants to be president of the United States, who uses that kind of violent rhetoric, is clearly disqualified and unqualified to be president,” Harris said. “Representative Cheney is a true patriot who has shown extraordinary courage in putting country above part. Trump is increasingly, however, someone who considers his political opponents the enemy, is permanently out for revenge and is increasingly unstable and unhinged.”
Cheney, a Republican but a vocal critic of Trump over his behavior after the 2020 election and on Jan. 6, 2021, has endorsed Harris in the 2024 election.