by Chris Enloe
Donald Trump did not say that he wants to shoot Liz Cheney.
On Friday, the legacy media suggested that Trump engaged in “violent” rhetoric against Cheney, a former congresswoman who endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. They used it as evidence to scaremonger voters into believing their narrative that Trump is a fascist and wannabe dictator.
- Daily Beast: “Trump Fantasizes About Shooting Female Rival in the Face”
- CNN: “Trump says ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should be fired upon in escalation of violent rhetoric against his opponents”
- NPR: “Trump, using violent language, attacks ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney”
- The Washington Post: “Trump suggests ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should have guns ‘trained on her face’”
- The New York Times: “Trump Attacks Liz Cheney Using Violent War Imagery”
- Axios: “Trump suggests Liz Cheney should have guns ‘trained on her face'”
The Harris campaign even claimed in a statement that Trump suggested he wants Cheney to “face the firing squad.”
The problem, of course, is that Trump did not say what the media and Harris’ campaign claim.
Speaking with Tucker Carlson in Arizona on Thursday, Trump was discussing Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney when he criticized the former congresswoman for being a “radical war hawk.”
“I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter,” Trump said of the former Republican vice president. “But his daughter’s 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,” he continued. “You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, gee, well, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.’ But she’s a stupid person. I’d have meetings with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people.”
The context is clear: Trump is criticizing Cheney as a “war hawk” and suggesting that she would not flippantly support sending Americans to die in war if she had firsthand combat experience.
Trump did not threaten Cheney, nor did he “fantasize” about shooting her in the face, nor did he say he wants Cheney “fired upon,” nor did he say he wants Cheney to stand before a firing squad. He simply suggested that it’s easy to send other people to die in war when you yourself will never face and have never faced the physical or life-ending consequences of war.
Trump is saying that firsthand combat experience would give American leaders a different perspective about being pro-war.
American political discourse, in fact, has invented a term to describe such individuals: chicken hawks, or people who support war but refuse to have any skin in the game.
For her part, Cheney claimed Trump essentially issued a death threat against her.
“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 said.
Trump, of course, is no dictator — as his first four years as president proved — and he did not threaten death against anyone.
And war mongers like Liz were just waiting, hoping for what happened this month in Ukraine:
North Korea has sent troops to aid Russia there.
NATO, the EU and the USA (under joe/kamala) have all promised this “escalation” will result in a wider war.
Ever notice how 99.999% of the things the left has gone apoplectic about Trump “saying” all involve comments taken totally out of context or made up altogether? It is, literally, an entire campaign based on nothing but lies.
Worse than these gutless cowards constantly on the lookout for excuses to send our military into harm’s way (what the F**K are we doing in Syria?) but when they do, they then put oppressive rules of engagement on them that guarantee we will see our soldiers come back in metal caskets.