Trump suggests ‘very dumb’ ex-Rep. face gun barrels
Source: X
Donald Trump has stoked a new fire on the campaign trail with a searing attack on former congresswoman Liz Cheney, slammed by his rival Kamala Harris as violent rhetoric.
The former president called the Republican former Wyoming representative a “war hawk” and suggested she might not be as willing to send troops to fight if she had guns pointed at her.
During an event in Glendale, Arizona, with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the Republican presidential candidate was asked if it is weird to see Cheney campaign against him.
Cheney has vocally opposed Trump since the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and has become a surrogate for his Democratic opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Republican former congresswoman Liz Cheney has been a vocal opponent of Donald Trump. Photo: AAP
Trump called Cheney “a deranged person”, then added: “But the reason she couldn’t stand me is that she always wanted to go to war with people. If it were up to her we’d be in 50 different countries.”
After calling Cheney “a very dumb individual”, he said: “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with the 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.
“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’.”
Vice President Kamala Harris has responded by saying Donald Trump has increased his violent rhetoric, is increasingly unstable and unhinged, and is unfit to be president.
Cheney fired back on social media, saying “This is how dictators destroy free nations”.
After Harris’s campaign and other Trump critics on social media pounced on the quote, Trump’s campaign responded that he “was talking about how Liz Cheney wants to send America’s sons and daughters to fight in wars despite never being in a war herself”.
Milwaukee duel for candidates
Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are headed to Milwaukee to press the flesh with voters amid the final countdown to poll day.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will host duelling rallies within 11km of one another in the Milwaukee area as part of a final push for votes in the US swing-state Wisconsin.
Milwaukee is home to the most Democratic votes in Wisconsin, but its conservative suburbs are where most Republicans live and are a critical area for Trump as he tries to reclaim the state he narrowly won in 2016 and lost in 2020.
One reason for his defeat was a drop in support in those Milwaukee suburbs and an increase in Democratic votes in the city.
“Both candidates recognise that the road to the White House runs directly through Milwaukee County,” said Hilario Deleon, chair of the county’s Republican Party.
The duelling rallies — Trump is in downtown Milwaukee and Harris is in a suburb — may be the candidates’ last appearances in battleground Wisconsin before election day.
Both sides say the race is once again razor tight for the state’s 10 electoral votes.
Four of the past six presidential elections in Wisconsin have been decided by less than a point, or fewer than 23,000 votes.
It was absentee votes from Milwaukee, which typically are reported early in the morning after election day, that tipped Wisconsin for President Joe Biden in 2020.
Democrats know they must turn out voters in Milwaukee, also home to the state’s largest black population, to counter Trump’s support in the suburbs and rural areas.
Harris is hoping to replicate, and exceed, turnout from 2020 in the city, which voted 79 per cent for Biden that year.
Trump is trying to cut into the Democrats’ margin.
Deleon called it a “lose by less” mentality.
A lot of Democrats are “anxious and cautiously optimistic,” said Angela Lang, founder and executive director of Black Leaders Organising for Communities in Milwaukee.
“Especially given 2016 when there wasn’t the same amount of energy, I think it’s clear Dems learned lessons about the importance of Milwaukee and Wisconsin as a whole,” she said.
In another late outreach effort targeting black voters, former President Bill Clinton campaigned with local faith leaders on Thursday night at a centre for celebrating African American music and arts in Milwaukee.
Hillary Clinton did not campaign in Wisconsin in 2016 after her primary loss, a mistake that Harris is not repeating.
The Friday stop will be her ninth in the state as a presidential candidate and her fifth to Milwaukee or its suburbs.
It will be Trump’s tenth stop in Wisconsin, not counting the Republican National Convention, which was held in Milwaukee, and his third visit to the Milwaukee area.
Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Brian Schimming said that Harris having to return to the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee shows she is on defence while Trump is on offence.
The Milwaukee Election Commission estimated on Thursday that it expects to receive more than 100,000 ballots by election day.
“The question no one knows the answer to is who those voters are voting for,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler.
“My feeling is that there may be some pleasant surprises for Harris.”
Lang, the Milwaukee organiser, said it is a tradition for many voters her group contacts to cast their ballots on election day. And if they don’t?
“Then we’re in a world of trouble,” said Mandela Barnes, a former lieutenant governor and president of Power to the Polls, a group that’s been working to boost turnout.
Trump’s rally is being staged in the same arena where the Republican convention took place three months ago.
The Harris rally, to be held at the state fair park in West Allis, will include the rapper Cardi B, who is slated only to speak, and performances by GloRilla, Flo Milli, MC Lyte, The Isley Brothers and DJ GEMINI GILLY.
—with AAP