Donald Trump's campaign said Friday even liberals and opponents of the former president are debunking news and social media reports that he called for former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who is campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris, to be executed.
The talk started growing on social media after Trump's interview Thursday with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, in which he called Cheney a "war hawk" and suggested she wouldn't be willing to send troops into war if she had guns pointed at her.
A snippet from the interview, when Trump referred to Cheney as a "radical war hawk" and said, "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," went viral, but not the rest of the interview.
Cheney weighed in on the controversy in a statement Friday on X.
"This is how dictators destroy free nations," she said. "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."
However, a news release from the Trump campaign Friday debunked the controversy and pointed out liberal sources and others who oppose his campaign said the snippet was taken out of context.
"Trump did NOT call for Liz Cheney to be executed," former Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., who vehemently opposes Trump's re-election, posted on X. "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 a** off to help get Kamala Harris elected, but this short clip is so deceptive."
Walsh added, "In Trump's typically stupid, ugly fashion, he’s trying to make a point about Cheney’s stance on war" but said the 11-second clip "makes it look like he's calling for her to be executed. He's not … the truth should always matter. And the truth is that Trump is not calling for Liz Cheney to be executed."
Vox's Zach Beauchamp also chimed in on X: "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."
In another comment, Kat Rosenfield of The Free Press posted on X that she doesn't "support Donald Trump but 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."
"Nowhere did President Trump suggest War Hawk Liz Cheney be put in front of a "firing squad," be "executed, or be "shot," the campaign said in its statement. "He was making the point that war hawks are quick to start endless foreign wars and send other Americans to fight, with zero regard for the human cost. … That's why Americans will reject Kamala Harris, Liz Cheney, and their alliance of War Hawk Losers who will plunge us into World War III."