Liz Cheney Says Trump's Gun-Filled Threat Is 'How Dictators Destroy Free Nations'

Former Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney is condemning comments Donald Trump made about imagining her getting shot at .  

During an appearance with Tucker Carlson in Glendale, Arizona, on Thursday night, Trump called Cheney a radical war hawk, and suggested putting her in a soldiers place, with a rifle, standing there, with nine barrels shooting at her.

He added: Lets see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.

Cheney responded to Trumps attack on Friday by noting its authoritarian bent.

This is how dictators destroy free nations, she said on X, formerly Twitter. 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.

Harris campaign spokesperson Ian Sams said that Trumps suggestion about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad was a clear and stark contrast with his Democratic opponent, who is considering adding a GOP member to her cabinet.

This is the difference in this race, he told the Associated Press.

Many of Trumps former allies and advisers also condemned Trumps statement, including Alyssa Farah Griffin, former Trump White House director of strategic communication and current panelist on The View.

Its unconscionable, Griffin told CNN Friday morning. I dont know how Republican leaders, many of whom served with Liz Cheney and at one point considered her a colleague and a friend, cannot denounce this.

Miles Taylor, former Homeland Security chief of staff, called Trumps comments sick and said on X that any fellow conservative of conscience should condemn this in the strongest terms.

But others, such as prominent Trump critic and former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, insisted that the former president did not call for Cheney to be executed in front of a firing line. 

Instead, he posted on X that in Trumps typically stupid, ugly fashion, hes trying to make a point about Cheneys stance on war.

Trump defended his comments Friday on his Truth Social platform. Its 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 shell say, No thanks! 

But Harris has latched on to the remark as disqualifying. On Friday, she described him as out for revenge and noted that his rhetoric has grown more extreme as the campaign comes to a close.