Cheney slams Trump after he suggests she should have ‘guns trained on her’

Donald Trump says Liz Cheney might not be such a ‘war hawk’ if she had guns pointed at her, prompting response by ex-Republican lawmaker.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has attacked Liz Cheney, suggesting the former lawmaker who has endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris in the race to the White House should face combat with guns trained on her for her policy stance.

“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said on Thursday at a campaign event with ex-Fox News television host Tucker Carlson in Glendale, Arizona, also calling Cheney “a deranged person” and “a very dumb individual”.

“Let’s put her with a 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 to her face,” he added, noting that she and her father, former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, refused to back his third presidential run.

Trump has repeatedly promised to investigate or prosecute his political rivals, including Cheney, as well as election workers, journalists and left-wing Americans, among others. The former president has also said the military could be used against what he calls “radical left lunatics” if there is unrest on Election Day.

In response, Cheney on Friday called Trump a “vindictive, cruel” dictator.

“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,” Cheney responded in a post on X on Friday, adding “#Womenwillnotbesilenced.”

One of the most high-profile Republicans to turn against Trump, Cheney has endorsed Harris in the November 5 election, saying she crossed party lines to put the country before politics and calling Trump a “danger”.

Once one of the party’s top leaders in the US House of Representatives, Cheney lost her seat in Congress after backing Trump’s second impeachment for his role in his supporters’ January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol and then helping to lead the investigation into the attack.

In recent weeks, Cheney has campaigned with Harris, including in Michigan, a crucial battleground state with large Arab and Muslim populations who the Democrats are trying to win over.

Her father has long been pilloried by Democrats for his central role in pushing for – and executing – the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 on grounds that turned out to be fake. Cheney has embraced her father’s neoconservative legacy throughout her career, leading to questions where Cheney’s support could help Harris win votes in the knife-edge race or end up hurting her prospects.

“When you have surrogates like Liz Cheney campaigning across the state of Michigan, talking about how even Dick Cheney – the war criminal – is supporting Vice President Harris, is that supposed to be a welcoming message to this community?” Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, home to the largest per capita Muslim population in the US, told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies