Trump clarifies he meant Cheney wouldn't have 'guts' to fight a war with rifle comment after Dem backlash

"All I'm saying about Liz Cheney is that she is a War Hawk, and a dumb one at that, but she wouldn't have 'the guts' to fight herself," the Republican presidential nominee wrote on Truth Social. "It's easy for her to talk, sitting far from where the death scenes take place, but put a gun in her hand, and let her go fight, and she'll say, 'No thanks!' Her father decimated the Middle East, and other places, and got rich by doing so. He's caused plenty of DEATH, and probably never even gave it a thought. That's not what we want running our Country!"

Trump caused controversy when he called Cheney a "radical war hawk" at an event in Arizona on Thursday, adding, "Let's put her with a 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. 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 into the mouths of the enemies,' but she's a stupid person and I used to have meetings with a lot of people and she always wanted to go to war with people." 

Trump also told reporters at a campaign stop in Dearborn, Michigan, on Friday: "Even in my administration, she was pushing that we go to war with everybody, and I said if you ever gave her a rifle and let her do the fighting, if you ever do that, she wouldn't be doing too well, I will tell you right now. But she's a war hawk. She wants to go kill people unnecessarily. 

The remarks prompted accusations from liberals of violent rhetoric and that Trump was suggesting Cheney should face a firing squad. 

Cheney, a Republican, endorsed Harris for president in September and has been campaigning with the Democratic nominee. 

Cheney responded to Trump's Thursday remarks on X Friday, writing, "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." 

She added the hashtags "#Womenwillnotbesilenced" and "#VoteKamala."

Republicans have also accused Democrats of increasing the possibility of violence against Trump with rhetoric accusing him of being "fascist" and a "threat to democracy."