Trump draws outrage after saying Cheney should have guns ‘trained on her face’

Donald Trump suggested former US lawmaker Liz Cheney should face combat with guns trained on her, comments his campaign said intended to criticize her as a warmonger and which critics condemned as evidence he would target his enemies if he wins the presidential election.

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there, with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face,” Trump said at a campaign event in Arizona on Thursday.

Trump also criticized others in Washington who support US involvement in foreign conflicts.

“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,'” he said.

Cheney, a former top Republican in the US House of Representatives, is one of the most prominent Republicans to turn against Trump during his third consecutive bid for the presidency.

She has endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s election and has campaigned with her.

“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” Cheney said on social media on Friday, in response to Trump’s remarks. “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.”

“Donald Trump is so all-consumed by his grievances. The people who he disagrees with, and who he sees as opposing him politically, he treats as enemies,” Harris campaign spokesperson Ian Sams said on MSNBC. “And now he’s going after Liz Cheney with this dangerous, violent rhetoric.”

Trump’s campaign said his remark had been misinterpreted.

“President Trump is 100% correct that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves,” spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “This is the continuation of the latest fake media outrage days before the election in a blatant attempt to interfere on behalf of Kamala Harris.”