Trump spurs backlash with Cheney guns ‘trained on her face’ remarks

Former President Trump is spurring backlash with his comments about former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in which he described her having guns "trained on her face" while criticizing her foreign policy.

Ian Sams, senior adviser for the Vice President Harris’s campaign, slammed Trump for “dangerous, violent rhetoric.”

"You have Donald Trump, who’s talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad. And you have Vice President Harris talking about sending one to her Cabinet,” Sams said Friday morning on MSNBC.

On MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" on Friday, host Joe Scarborough said Trump was "calling for Cheney being shot in the face by nine guns — nine rifles — the closing weekend of the campaign."

“Not only what it says about the Republican Party in 2024, but also what it must look like in London, in Paris, in Madrid, in Warsaw, across the world,” Scarborough said.

Trump made the comments about Cheney during a fireside chat with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in Arizona on Thursday evening, while criticizing Cheney's father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, for endorsing Harris.

“I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb,” Trump said Thursday.

“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said. “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine-barrel shooting at her, OK. Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face. You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, oh, gee, we’ll, let’s send — let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.”

Cheney has emerged as one of Trump's most vocal Republican opponents since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and has jumped into the race this cycle on behalf of Harris and a handful of downballot Democrats.

She responded to Trump's remarks, posting on the social platform X that it was akin to a death threat.

“This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death,” Cheney said.

Trump Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to the backlash by saying that said that Trump's words were being taken out of context.

“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. 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," Leavitt said.

Former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), who is running for Congress against Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), took a swipe at his opponent for supporting Trump in light of the comments.

“As Donald Trump calls for the murder of Liz Cheney, it is despicable and disqualifying that Mike Lawler continues to support him,” Jones posted on X.

Updated at 11:05 a.m.