With just four days to go from Election Day, former President Donald Trump spoke out at an on-stage event dominated by large-scale rambling and disparaging attacks on his opponents, one of the Republican Party’s top critics. Had he done so, he suggested, he would not have become such a “war hawk.” The gun was “pointed at her face.”
President Trump sat in a chair next to right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson in what was billed as a live interview event and told an arena filled with thousands of supporters Thursday that President Joe Biden is a “stupid bastard.” , said his Democratic opponent, the vice president. Kamala Harris was a “sneaky bag.”
He also told vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that he intended to “let him do whatever he wanted” related to health care policy in the second administration, and that his new political ally “We would like to consider vaccines,” he said.
“He really wants to use pesticides and all that stuff. I said, he can do it,” Trump said of the former independent presidential candidate. “He can do whatever he wants. He wants to look into vaccines. He wants everything. I think that’s great,” Trump continued.
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But the former president, no stranger to personal attacks, limited his most violent remarks to former Rep. Liz Cheney. These were the latest examples of President Trump’s violent rhetoric against perceived opponents.
In a lengthy and uncompromising excuse for Cheney, President Trump said that if she herself had gone to war with “a gun pointed at her face,” the former congresswoman (as Trump put it) He seemed to be hinting that he would no longer be a “war hawk.”
“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s stand her up with a rifle and shoot her with nine barrels,” President Trump said. “Okay, let’s see how she feels about it. When you have a gun pointed at her face and you’re sitting in a nice building in Washington, you’re all hawks,” Trump said. continued.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Levitt said in a statement Friday: “President Trump believes that warmongers like Liz Cheney are quick to start wars and attack other Americans rather than engage in combat themselves. He clearly explained that he would be sent to war.”
In an updated statement late Friday morning, Levitt said Trump’s comments were “100% correct,” and that the backlash against his comments was “a blatant attempt to interfere on behalf of Kamala Harris just days before the election.” “This is the latest outrage by fake media.”
In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, relations between Trump and Cheney soured. Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the masterminds of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, support Harris over Trump.
“She’s a stupid person,” President Trump said Thursday night of the former Republican congresswoman, also calling her a “bad person” and a “very stupid person.” Carlson called her Dick Cheney’s “hideous little daughter.”
Trump told a crowd in Arizona that he would only lose if there was “fraud” in next Tuesday’s election, preparing to contest his possible loss.
“Stop cheating,” he said. “The only thing that can stop us is cheating. That’s the only thing that can stop us.”
Liz Cheney recently appeared on the campaign trail with Harris, warning of Trump’s efforts to subvert the will of voters.
Cheney responded to Trump on social media early Friday morning.
“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” she posted on X. “Dictators threaten with death those who oppose them. We cannot entrust our country and freedom to a narrow-minded, vindictive, cruel and unstable man who seeks to become a tyrant. # Women will not be silenced #voteKamala.”
Campaign spokesman Ian Sams slammed Trump’s comments in a statement, saying the former president was “preoccupied with his own grievances, his differences, and those he views as political opponents.” “They are treating us like the enemy.” ”
Former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), who survived a 2011 assassination attempt, called on other Republicans to condemn Trump’s comments in a statement posted to He urged voters to reject “calls for violence and retribution.” Her gun violence prevention organization.
“It’s un-American to declare that someone should be shot just because they supported another candidate,” she said. “Republicans who claim to respect the Constitution and the rule of law have a responsibility to take immediate action against Donald Trump’s dangerous statements.”
In another example, President Trump suggested during the campaign that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley deserved the death penalty. He also called for shoplifters to be shot if found.
President Trump’s humiliating comments about his perceived enemies come at a time when polls show many women are consistently reluctant to support his candidacy. Most national polls show a gender gap of more than double digits in favor of Harris. Additionally, women have so far voted significantly more early than men.
Harris tried to emphasize this late in the race.
She said in an exclusive interview with NBC News on Thursday that President Trump’s comments this week about protecting women “whether you like it or not” are another sign of how much he “disrespects” women. He said it was a sign.
President Trump delivered harsh remarks in important Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, which includes Phoenix. In 2020, voter defections from President Trump among independents, women, and suburban voters led the county to vote against a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in decades, costing Trump 11 electoral votes in Arizona. Ta.
From the podium, President Trump also made a surprising and consequential proposal to work with Elon Musk to cut deep cuts to the federal budget, possibly even a third of current annual spending levels. The corresponding content was advertised. Neither Trump nor Musk have given any specifics about what programs or agencies they would eliminate to achieve these staggering cuts.
“He thinks he can save $2 trillion, so we don’t have a budget deficit,” Trump said. “By the way, that’s $2 trillion a year!”
After two campaign rallies that day in New Mexico and Nevada, President Trump ended his final trip with several minutes of humiliating slurs and semi-tangential comments late into the night in the West.
Before President Trump took the stage, Carlson gave a speech on masculinity in which he mocked Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Gov. Tim Walz, calling them “follower creeps.” [Harris] During the election campaign. ”
In the final stages of his third presidential campaign, Mr. Trump began campaigning without his former Republican rivals, such as the former congressman. Nikki Haley, Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Sen. Tim Scott. He is also not aligned with Georgia’s popular Republican governor, Brian Kemp.
Instead, Trump has joined provocative figures like Charlie Kirk, who said this week that wives who secretly vote for Harris in the election “hurt their husbands,” and Carlson, who was fired from Fox News. I chose to match.
Max Burman contributed to this article.
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