Former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney has been called a war hawk many times throughout her career, and on Thursday night former President Donald Trump cued into that reputation while making a statement that’s being blow up by some in the media as a personal threat.
Trump made the argument that Cheney could understand how it feels to be put into a war-like setting by having a gun pointed at her.
“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?” Trump said at a campaign event in Arizona with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
"You know, they are all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building and they say, let’s send 10,000 troops into the mouth of the enemy,” he said.
“She always wanted to go to war with people,” he added.
A war hawk is generally known in political circles as someone who supports foreign military intervention and proactive military actions. Cheney’s father and former Vice President Dick Cheney also has been called a war hawk.
Trump’s comment has been met with outrage, and Cheney also issued a quick response on X (formerly Twitter).
“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” she posted. “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.”
During the Thursday rally, Trump also called Cheney “very dumb,” a “stupid person” and “the moron.”
In response to the public outrage over the war remark, the Trump campaign on Friday said that she might be less hawkish if she were the one doing the fighting.
“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,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said. “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.”
Neither Trump, the Cheneys or Harris have ever served in the military.
Rivals
Cheney has been a vocal critic of Trump since his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol Riot. She officially endorsed Harris’ campaign against Trump in September, a stunning reversal from Cheney’s previous role as one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress.
Trump made his comments when asked about Cheney’s father also supporting Harris’ campaign. Dick Cheney, like his daughter, was well known for his conservatism while in public office.
“I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter’s a very dumb individual — very dumb,” Trump said.
War Hawks
Cheney and her father have been criticized throughout their careers by Democrats and Republicans alike for readily supporting the deployment of American troops for various causes.
This has been one of Trump’s main critiques of the Cheneys. Trump has issued a more isolationist approach to foreign policy than the Cheneys with his “America First” agenda.
He claimed Thursday that when Liz Cheney was in House Republican leadership, “She always wanted to go to war with people.”
“You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building, saying … ‘Let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy,’” he said.
Dick Cheney is well known for being one of the main players in organizing support for the Iraq War, an eight-year affair.
The office of former President George W. Bush, in whose administration Dick Cheney served as vice president and Liz Cheney worked in the State Department, declined to comment about Trump’s remarks, according to CNN.
Many of Trump’s critics have accused him of using violent language against his political foes. In recent weeks, he has suggested cracking down on political opponents he has described as “the enemy within.”
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
