Former US congresswoman Liz Cheney on Friday called Donald Trump a petty and vindictive would-be tyrant after he used a bizarre metaphor about her being shot at.
Her comments came after Mr Trump called Ms Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, a “radical war hawk” and suggested she would cower if confronted by danger.
She “is a very dumb individual, very dumb. She's a radical war hawk. 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 on her face?” Mr Trump said to laughter and applause at a presidential campaign event in Arizona with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Thursday night.
Arizona's attorney general told 12News that she is investigating whether Mr Trump violated state law with his comments.
Mr Trump is furious with Ms Cheney, a Republican, for her endorsement of his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. Ms Cheney has been in his crosshairs since she participated in the House investigation into Mr Trump's actions during the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
In a post on X, Ms Cheney suggested that Mr Trump had threatened her with death.
“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,” she wrote.
Mr Trump said he “didn't blame” Ms Cheney's father for standing by his daughter. Mr Cheney, 83, a key architect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is also voting for Ms Harris. Mr Cheney in September said Mr Trump “can never be trusted with power again”.
“As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,” he said in a statement.
Ms Harris on Friday said Mr Trump's comments about shooting at Ms Cheney were “disqualifying”.
“His enemies list has grown longer. His rhetoric has grown more extreme,” Ms Harris said. “And he is even less focused than before on the needs and the concerns and the challenges facing the American people.”
Critics of Mr Trump were quick to claim he had been directly threatening Ms Cheney, but the full quote suggests he was using a metaphor about how hawkish lawmakers are less aggressive when they faced with personal danger.
Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he was making a point about Ms Cheney's foreign policy record.
“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,” Mr Trump wrote. “It’s easy for her to talk, sitting far from where the death scenes take place, but put a gun in her hand, and let her go fight, and she’ll say, 'No thanks!'”
His spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said his comments were being taken out of context, calling the controversy “the latest fake media outrage".
Still, the inflammatory language is the latest instance of Mr Trump using violent rhetoric. He has called opponents “the enemy within”, has said police should be allowed “one really violent day” to tackle retail crime and says journalists are the “enemy of the people”.
