Current:Home > ScamsHarris assails Trump for saying Liz Cheney should have rifles ‘shooting at her’ -RiskWatch
Harris assails Trump for saying Liz Cheney should have rifles ‘shooting at her’
View
Date:2025-04-17 23:20:24
Follow live: Updates from AP’s coverage of the presidential election.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Kamala Harris said Friday it was “disqualifying” for Donald Trump to say former Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the former president’s most prominent Republican critics, should have rifles “shooting at her” to see how she feels about sending troops to fight.
The Democratic vice president has campaigned extensively with Cheney, especially in the “blue wall” battleground states that make up her strongest path to victory on Tuesday, while Trump has been going after the former Wyoming congresswoman and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, over the Iraq war and U.S. military interventions abroad.
Speaking to reporters after arriving in Madison, Wisconsin, Harris asked voters to consider who they’d prefer sitting in the Oval Office, driving the message she’s been emphasizing in the campaign’s closing week. Harris called Cheney “a true patriot” and said Trump “has increased his violent rhetoric.”
“His enemies list has grown longer. His rhetoric has grown more extreme,” Harris said. “And he is even less focused than before on the needs and the concerns and the challenges facing the American people.”
Trump and his allies say his comments are being misconstrued. They say he was arguing that Cheney is a “war hawk” but would be less supportive of using the military if she had to fight in wars herself.
He doubled down Friday, repeating the same imagery that drove the backlash.
“If you gave Liz Cheney a gun and put her into battle, facing the other side with the guns pointing at her, she wouldn’t have the courage and the strength or the stamina to even look the enemy in the eye,” Trump said during a rally in Warren, Michigan.
The Republican presidential candidate has been using increasingly threatening rhetoric against his adversaries and talked of “enemies from within” undermining the country. Some of his former senior aides and Harris have labeled him a fascist in response.
Cheney, who broke with Trump after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, on Friday called the former president a “cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”
Trump has ramped up his critiques of the Cheneys in swing state Michigan, where he is competing with Harris for the votes of Arab Americans opposed to U.S. backing of Israel’s offensive in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and its subsequent invasion of Lebanon.
At an event late Thursday in Arizona with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Trump was asked whether it was strange to see Cheney campaign against him. The former congresswoman has vocally opposed Trump since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and endorsed Harris, joining the vice president at recent stops as they try to win over Republicans disaffected with Trump.
Trump called Cheney “a deranged person” and added: “But the reason she couldn’t stand me is that she always wanted to go to war with people. If it were up to her we’d be in 50 different countries.”
The former president continued: “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with the rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK, let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.
“You know 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,” Trump said.
What to know about the 2024 Election
- Today’s news: Follow live updates from the campaign trail from the AP.
- Elections, explained: We answer your election questions.
- Ground Game: Sign up for AP’s weekly politics newsletter to get it in your inbox every Monday.
- AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Learn more.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, is “looking into” whether Trump’s comments broke state law, her spokesperson, Richie Taylor, confirmed. Mayes told KPNX-TV on Friday that she’d asked her criminal division chief to analyze whether the comments qualify as a death threat.
Cheney responded Friday in a post on X: “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.”
One prominent Trump critic, former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, argued the former president’s comment had been taken out of context and that Trump was “NOT calling for Liz Cheney to be executed in front of a firing line.”
“In Trump’s typically stupid, ugly fashion, he’s trying to make a point about Cheney’s stance on war,” Walsh said on X.
Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, suggested that Trump was “talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad, and you have Vice President Harris talking about sending one to her Cabinet. This is the difference in this race.”
Trump said he was making a point about Cheney’s foreign policy record.
“She wanted to ... go to war with everybody because she, like Kamala, is a stupid person,” Trump said of Cheney in Michigan. “It’s easy for her to say she wants to start wars from the comfort of her nice home.”
Earlier, during a stop at a restaurant in nearby Dearborn, he called Cheney a “coward” and said “she’d be the first one to chicken out” if put on a battlefield. Women were not allowed to serve in direct combat roles until 2013, when Cheney was 47.
His spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, said his comments were being taken out of context, calling the controversy “the latest fake media outrage.”
Throughout his campaign, Trump has been fixated on the Americans he believes have wronged or betrayed him. He has portrayed them as worse than the United States’ foreign adversaries, referring to them as “enemies from within.”
He’s threatened to use the federal government, including the military, to go after them. And he has repeatedly threatened “long term prison sentences” for those “involved in unscrupulous behavior” this election, including political operatives, donors and elected officials.
He said people he labeled as “the enemy from within” should be “very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
Some of Trump’s supporters have said his talk of vengeance is either justified or hyperbole.
___
Gomez Licon reported from Dearborn, Michigan and Glendale, Arizona. Associated Press writer Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed.
veryGood! (5)
Related
- The FTC says 'gamified' online job scams by WhatsApp and text on the rise. What to know.
- In need of an iPhone 15 charging cable? Here's how to find the best USB-C charger cord
- Costco membership price increase 'a question of when, not if,' CFO says
- Cher accused of hiring four men to kidnap son Elijah Blue Allman, his estranged wife claims
- Juan Soto praise of Mets' future a tough sight for Yankees, but World Series goal remains
- Gang violence in Haiti is escalating and spreading with a significant increase in killings, UN says
- Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Leave No Blank Spaces Between Them in First PDA Photo
- Last samba in Paris: Gabriela Hearst exits Chloé dancing, not crying, with runway swan song
- Grammy nominee Teddy Swims on love, growth and embracing change
- Spanish police raid soccer federation as part of probe into Barcelona’s payments to referee official
Ranking
- 'Kraven the Hunter' spoilers! Let's dig into that twisty ending, supervillain reveal
- 'Good Samaritan' hospitalized after intervening on attack against 64-year-old woman: Police
- Proof Patrick Mahomes Was Enchanted to Meet Taylor Swift After Game With Travis Kelce
- Little Big Town's Red Carpet Looks May Be Your Next Style Crush
- The FBI should have done more to collect intelligence before the Capitol riot, watchdog finds
- Murder suspect mistakenly released captured after 2-week manhunt
- Ex-Lizzo staffer speaks out after filing lawsuit against singer
- 1000-Lb. Sisters' Tammy Slaton Shares New Glimpse at Weight Loss Transformation
Recommendation
Warm inflation data keep S&P 500, Dow, Nasdaq under wraps before Fed meeting next week
Scandal's Scott Foley Has the Best Response to Kerry Washington and Tony Goldwyn's #Olitz Reunion
At least 20 dead in gas station explosion in Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region as residents flee to Armenia
Blue Beetle tells story of Latino superhero and his family in first-of-its-kind live action film
Behind on your annual reading goal? Books under 200 pages to read before 2024 ends
Heist of $1.5 Million Buddha Statue Leads to Arrest in Los Angeles
Wildfires can make your California red taste like an ashtray. These scientists want to stop that
A fire breaks out for the second time at a car battery factory run by Iran’s Defense Ministry