Fact Check: Harris Campaign Twists Trump Comment on Liz Cheney to Claim He Called for Her Execution
CLAIM: Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign implied former President Donald Trump called for Liz Cheney to be put before a firing squad.
FACT CHECK: False. Trump’s comments on “guns trained on her face” were about Cheney stoking foreign wars without being willing to fight in their front lines.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign took former President Donald Trump’s words out of context, to suggest that he was calling for Liz Cheney to be put before a firing squad.
Her campaign posted a video of Trump speaking to Tucker Carlson on X/Twitter, with a caption that paraphrased him:
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
Rather than suggesting she be executed, Trump was speaking about how neoconservatives are quick to send young Americans to fight overseas in war — which Trump has long opposed, particularly the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars championed by Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Trump had also said: “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.”
Karoline Leavitt, Trump Campaign National Press Secretary, blasted the Harris-Walz campaign:
President Trump is 100% correct that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves. This is the continuation of the latest fake media outrage days before the election in a blatant attempt to interfere on behalf of Kamala Harris.
Cheney herself tried to spread the lie, posting on X:
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. #Womenwillnotbesilenced #VoteKamala
As Democrat operatives tired to spread the false claim, even Trump critic former Rep. Joe Walsh said Trump did not call for her to be put before a firing squad.
He posted on X:
Trump did NOT call for Liz Cheney to be executed.
This is what’s so wrong with our politics today. Look, you know how I feel about Trump, and I’ve been out there every day for 2-3 months campaigning my ass off to help get @KamalaHarris elected, but 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. In Trump’s typically stupid, ugly fashion, he’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. He’s an utterly horrible human being who’s utterly unfit for office, but the truth should always matter. And the truth is that Trump is not calling for Liz Cheney to be executed. But…this 11 second clip will have a gazillion views, and the truth will have just a handful of views.
Both former Vice President Cheney and former Wyoming Republican Rep. Cheney has endorsed Harris, with the younger Cheney even campaigning on the trail for her.
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