Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former President Donald Trump’s remark that former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney should face military combat for supporting U.S. wars abroad, saying it “must be disqualifying” for the presidency.
“He has increased his violent rhetoric − Donald Trump has − about political opponents and in great detail, in great detail, suggested rifles should be trained on former Rep. Liz Cheney. This must be disqualifying,” she told reporters ahead of a rally in Wisconsin.
Harris’ critcism came as Arizona’s attorney general said she had opened a preliminary probe into the comments − and as some legal scholars said they clearly weren’t threats.
“There’s no true threat here. No call to commence imminent violence,” Anthony Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, said in a social media post. “His statement was vile, repugnant, and corrosive to our politics, but it is protected speech.”
Trump made the comments during an interview with former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson at a campaign event in Glendale, Arizona, on Thursday.
“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?,” he said. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Harris said that any candidate using that kind of “violent” rhetoric is “clearly disqualified and unqualified to be president.”
Later, Trump clarified: “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,” he said on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Karoline Leavitt, a Trump spokesperson, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Trump’s words were being taken “out of context.”
“President Trump was CLEARLY explaining that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves,” Leavitt wrote.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, told NBC station 12News on Friday that her office will investigate whether Trump’s remarks about Cheney constitute a death threat under state law.
Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer, wrote on X that it was evident Trump “did not make a death threat.””Trump is vile and says disgusting things,” Moss added. “I want him to lose badly and face justice in his pending court cases. But c’mon.”
Cheney, one of Trump’s most outspoken detractors, endorsed Harris and has been campaigning with her in recent weeks.
She formerly served as vice chair of the now-defunct House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, and has decried the former president’s actions that day.
In June, Trump increased the number of social media posts calling for Cheney, a former State Department official and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, to be tried publicly for treason by a military tribunal. Treason is punishable by death.
