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Donald Trump has lashed out at Liz Cheney, his Republican critic, as a “radical war hawk” who should have “nine barrels shooting at her”, prompting immediate criticism of his “violent rhetoric” from the campaign of his Democratic rival Kamala Harris.
The Republican presidential nominee made the comments on Thursday night in Arizona at a campaign event with Tucker Carlson, the firebrand rightwing media host, with just days left before the US election next Tuesday.
“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?” Trump said. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
The comments sparked outrage from Harris’s campaign, which said Trump was “talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad”.
Speaking to reporters in Nevada later, Harris said: “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.”
Trump tried to defuse the furore over his words later on Friday.
“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,” he wrote on his social media platform. “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. That’s not what we want running our Country!”
Cheney, who is the daughter of former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, has endorsed Harris and campaigned with her in the final weeks of the race for the White House.
Cheney emerged as a central figure in the Republican opposition to Trump after co-chairing a congressional committee tasked with probing the January 6 2021 attacks on the US Capitol.
Cheney and her father, the principal architect of the Iraq war, are considered representative of the traditional hawkish wing of the Republican party and supportive of US military intervention abroad including military aid to Ukraine.
After losing her seat in the House of Representatives to a pro-Trump rival in her home state of Wyoming, Cheney has continued attacking Trump for being a threat to American democracy, the constitution and traditional conservative values.
In response to Trump’s comments in Arizona, she said 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.”
Harris said she had not spoken to Cheney since Trump’s comments but said she had “shown herself to be a true patriot at a very difficult time in our country”.
Trump has frequently vowed to seek retribution against the “enemy within” America, stoking fears that he will use the justice system as a tool to go after his political opponents. But the threat of violence against one of his prominent critics will exacerbate fears that the US will slide into authoritarianism if Trump defeats Harris on Tuesday.
The 2024 presidential campaign has been characterised by violence, including two attempted assassination attempts on Trump, as well as extreme rhetoric.
Republicans criticised President Joe Biden’s comment earlier this year that Trump should be “in the bullseye”. Trump’s campaign also recently seized on the president’s apparent description of Maga supporters as “garbage”, while Harris’s camp has highlighted racist comments made at Trump’s recent rally in New York.
Trump’s attack on Cheney comes as Harris is trying to gain ground among conservative voters who are opposed to the Republican nominee and many of whom voted for Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the UN, in the Republican primary earlier this year.
This article has been updated to more fully reflect Trump’s remarks
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