In context: what former President Donald Trump said about Liz Cheney facing a firing squad

Former President Donald Trump called former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney a “radical war hawk” and said she should see what it feels like to be confronted with guns “pointed at her face.”

Trump made the comments to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson during a campaign event on October 31 in Glendale, Arizona. Carlson asked Trump if it was “weird” for him to see Cheney, the daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, campaigning against him. Liz Cheney has vocally supported Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate; her father too said he would vote for it Harris.

Because Trump’s comments are widely interpreted, we’re using our In Context feature to let voters view his comments in their original context and draw their own conclusions.

Trump’s response to Carlson’s question lasted several minutes and focused on his feelings about former President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney; the pardon of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former aide to Dick Cheney; and the U.S. House of Representatives committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s comments about Liz Cheney and a firing squad attracted the most public attention.

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When asked about Liz Cheney’s campaign for Harris, Trump said, “Well, I think it hurts Kamala a lot. Actually. Look, (Cheney is) a crazy person. The reason she doesn’t like me is because she wanted to stay in my country.” Iraq.”

Trump covered many more topics and then said, “I don’t want to go to war. (Liz Cheney) wanted to go, she wanted to stay in Syria. I took (troops) out. She wanted to stay in Iraq. I mean, if it were up to her, we’d be in 50 different countries. And you know, number one, it’s very dangerous, I mean, it’s very, very expensive.”

Trump later added: “I don’t blame Dick Cheney for staying with his daughter, but his daughter is a very stupid individual, very stupid. She is a radical war hawk. Let’s put her there with a nine-barreled gun. shoot her, okay?

Liz Cheney replied to X on November 1: “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, vengeful, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.” Her post included the hashtags #Womenwillnotbesilenced and #VoteKamala.

Some people, including former Republican presidential candidate and Illinois Representative Joe Walsh, a Trump critic, said Trump’s main point was about Liz Cheney’s position on war.

Trump’s campaign defended his comments and released multiple statements:

Campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt wrote November 1 on X: “To any FAKE NEWS reporter who takes President Trump’s words out of context: President Trump CLEARLY explained that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than fighting the fight themselves to go.”
In a November 1st statement to the presswrote the Trump campaign: “The press shamefully reported these comments, saying President Trump suggested Liz Cheney should be put in front of a ‘firing squad.’ Are these reporters evil or stupid? President Trump clearly described a combat zone.”
In another November 1 statement to the presswrote the campaign: “President Trump never suggested that War Hawk Liz Cheney would be put in front of a “firing squad,” “executed” or “shot” – he made it clear that War Hawks will soon begin endlessly. foreign wars and send other Americans to fight without regard to the human cost.”

In 2002, Dick Cheney urged the George W. Bush administration to take preventive military action against Iraq, based on accusations about weapons of mass destruction. In 2007, the Institute for Defense Analyses, a nonprofit research arm of the Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command, completed an assessment of the Bush administration’s rationale, which based its conclusions on more than half a million seized Iraqi documents. That study “found no ‘smoking gun’ (i.e., a direct link) between Saddam’s Iraq and al-Qaeda.”

When Liz Cheney represented Wyoming as a Republican in Congress, she was supported Trump’s legislative agenda while he was president, but broke with him after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. She rejected Trump’s false claims of a fraudulent 2020 election and has blamed him for inciting the Capitol riot.

Cheney served on the U.S. House of Representatives select committee that held public hearings on the riot on January 6. She lost her re-election bid in 2022.