Never-Trumpers and some in the establishment media condemned the Harris campaign’s suggestion that former President Donald Trump called for Liz Cheney to be executed.
The condemnation from Trump’s critics underscores the Harris campaign’s desperation to smear Trump before Tuesday’s election.
Rather than speaking about executing Cheney, Trump’s remarks citing Cheney as a war hawk were about the establishment’s willingness to send Americans to die in foreign wars.
“They’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying Oh gee, let’s send 10,000 troops into the mouths of the enemy,” Trump said. “Let’s put Liz Cheney with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it when the guns are trained on her face.”
Never-Trumpers and some in the establishment media condemned the hoax:
- Joe Walsh, former congressman: “Trump did NOT call for Liz Cheney to be executed. This is what’s so wrong with our politics today. … This short clip is so deceptive. Trump is NOT calling for Liz Cheney to be executed in front of a firing line. He’s not. Listen to the entirety of what he said. … [H]e’s trying to make a point about Cheney’s stance on war. But Aaron (who I like & respect), by posting ONLY this 11 second clip, makes it look like he’s calling for her to be executed. He’s not.”
- Zach Beauchamp,Vox Senior Correspondent: “Folks, Trump didn’t threaten to execute Liz Cheney. He actually was calling her a chickenhawk, something liberals said about her for ages. Look at the context — Trump is talking about giving her a weapon. Typically, people put in front of firing squads aren’t armed.”
- Kat Rosenfield, Free Press columnist : “…I also don’t support journalists lying to their audiences, and when he says (paraphrased) ‘these pro-war people wouldn’t be talking such a big game if they were on the front lines’ it is actually not the same thing as saying they should be shot”
The hoax was the second in two days. Vice President Kamala Harris accused Trump on Thursday of wanting to “control” women’s bodies “whether they like it or not.”
Trump’s full statement shows Trump said he would “protect” women from migrant crime and from foreign adversaries.
Trump’s statement was not in the context of abortion.
Harris suggested Trump’s remark was “very offensive to women in terms of not understanding their agency, their authorities, their right, their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies.”
Trump said in Wisconsin:
I said, ‘well, I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not.’ I’m going to protect them. I’m going to protect them from migrants coming in. I’m going to protect them from foreign countries that want to hit it, hit us with missiles and lots of other things.
Matt Boyle, Breitbart News’s Washington bureau chief, commented on the Harris campaign’s strategy to push out of context clips for political expediency:
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.