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

Former President Donald Trump called former US Republican Liz Cheney a “radical war hawk” and said she should see what it feels like to come face to face with a gun “pointed at her face”.

Trump shared the remarks with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson at a campaign event on October 31 in Glendale, Arizona. Carlson asked Trump if it was “weird” to him to see Cheney, the daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, campaigning against him. Liz Cheney has been a vocal supporter of Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate; her father too he said he would vote in favour Harris.

Because Trump’s comments are widely interpreted, we use In Context to allow voters to check his comments in their original context and draw their own conclusions.

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

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

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Asked about Liz Cheney’s campaign for Harris, Trump replied: “Well, I think it hurts Kamala a lot. Actually. Look, (Cheney is) a deranged person. She doesn’t like me because she wanted to stay in Iraq.”

Trump discussed many other topics before saying, “I don’t want to go to war. (Liz Cheney) wanted to go, wanted to stay in Syria. I brought out (the troops). She wanted to stay in Iraq. I mean, if it were up to her, we’d be in 50 different countries. First of all, it is very dangerous. Secondly, many people die. Thirdly, I mean, it’s very, very expensive.”

Later, Trump added: “I don’t blame (Dick Cheney) for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very stupid person, very stupid. He is a radical warhawk. Let’s put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see what she thinks about it. You know when guns are pointed at her face.

Liz Cheney replied to X on November 1: “This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten to kill those who speak against them. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unbalanced man who wants to be a tyrant.” Her post included the hashtags #Womenwillnotbesilenced and #VoteKamala.

Some people, including former Republican presidential candidate and Illinois state representative Joe Walsh, Trump critic he said Trump’s main thought was about Liz Cheney position on the war.

The Trump campaign defended his remarks, releasing numerous statements:

Campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt wrote on November 1 on X: “To every FAKE NEWS reporter taking President Trump’s words out of context: President Trump has CLEARLY explained that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them instead of getting into the fight themselves.”
On November 1 statement to the pressThe Trump campaign wrote: “The press shamefully covered up these comments by claiming that President Trump had suggested putting Liz Cheney before a ‘firing squad.’ Are these reporters malicious or stupid? “President Trump was clearly describing a war zone.”
In another November 1st statement to the pressthe campaign wrote: “President Trump nowhere suggested putting Liz Cheney’s War Hawk in front of a ‘firing squad,’ ‘execution,’ or ‘shooting’ — he emphasized that War Hawks are quickly moving into endless foreign wars and sending other Americans into combat regardless at human costs.”

In 2002, Dick Cheney presented the case to the George W. Bush administration for pre-emptive military action against Iraq based on allegations of weapons of mass destruction. In 2007, the Institute for Defense Analysis, the nonprofit research arm of the Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command, completed the assessment the Bush administration’s justification, basing its conclusions on more than half a million seized Iraqi documents. This study “found no ‘smoking gun’ (i.e., direct link) between Saddam’s Iraq and al-Qaeda.”

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

Cheney served on the U.S. House Select Committee on January 6, which held public hearings on the riots. In 2022, she lost her re-election bid.