Did Trump threaten Liz Cheney with Firing Squad?

Transcript: “She’s a radical war hawk let’s put her with a rifle”

Summary:

Trump did not threaten Liz Cheney with a firing squad, although he did use violent rhetoric when portraying Cheney as a “Chicken/Warhawk” who is quick to send others into war, but avoids putting themselves at risk. 1

  • Trump’s narrative: She doesn’t like me because she is a warhawk, and being a warhawk is stupid.  It costs a lot and we don’t get to keep the oil.
  • Trump refuses to acknowledge that there are legitimate critics of J6 of whom Liz Cheney may be one.
  • Trump attacks her for her “stupid warhawk positions,” and there are legitimate arguments against warhawks like John McCain & Lindsay Graham, but the reason why Trump doesn’t like her is because she was on the J6 committee and even more importantly, as Tucker Points out at the beginning of this topic, Liz Cheney is campaigning with Kamala Harris, costing him real votes.
  • I would expect Trump to verbally oppose any former allies who visibly attack him, as Liz Cheney has done, using whatever criticisms that are readily available, whether or not he actually believes in the narrative.

Breakdown:

  • It starts with Tucker Carlson bringing up the Bush/Cheney families and the fact that Liz Cheney is campaigning with Kamala Harris
  • Trump immediately goes after Liz Cheney’s advocacy of staying in Iraq & Syria
  • Trump implies the fact that Cheney badly lost re-election shows she was wrong or at least a “loser”, which is the worst thing you can be for Trump.
  • Trump: fighting wars isn’t profitable.  You don’t get to keep the oil, and it kills large numbers of people
    • Trump might be a warhawk too if he thought it had a good payoff and the US was winning the wars:  (We don’t win anymore)
  • Trump: The Iraq War was bad for many reasons.  It helped Iran because it neutralized Iraq, which was there big rival.
  • Dick Cheney convinced Bush to go into Iraq, which was a horrible mistake:
  • It cost $9 Trillion and we got nothing but dead people
    • Notice he doesn’t go after Dick Cheney or John Bolton, but they didn’t attack him or campaign with his opponent.
    • I expect Trump would go after Dick Cheney and John Bolton personally if they was a more vocal public critics.
  • Scooter Libby had dirt on Bush and was prosecuted as an almost sacrificial lamb
  • Trump had the “courage” to grant Scooter a pardon, which shows how great Trump is and how Dick Cheney is in Trump’s debt
  • Trump gives Dick Cheney points for being “loyal” to Scooter Libby.  (The Mafia have a “code” of loyalty too)
  • Dick Cheney showed appreciation to Trump for the pardon and Trump respected Scooter for not “squealing” (my choice of words)
  • Trump returns to the subject of Liz Cheney being a radical warhawk/chicken hawk, which is an established line of attack
  • They’re all warhawks when they’re sitting in Washington
  • I had meetings with Liz Cheney and she always wanted to go to war with people.
  • Trump argues that the J6 committee put out false narratives about Trump using a choke hold against the Secret Service.  (But Trump mentions the thought that it might not be so objectionable to be portrayed as so tough and powerful to mix it up with the Secret Service)
  • One of Trump’s “tells” is that whenever the people in his story address him as “Sir”, he is lying.  (although he is lying other times too, but: “Sir” suggests that he is narrating a story for dramatic effect)
  • Trump makes the accusation that the Secret Service agents contradicted the story about him grabbing one of them by the neck (which he exaggerates by terming it a “choke hold”), so he’s not really disputing the actual allegation, but rather his own exaggeration.
  • Trump also alleges that J6 evidence was destroyed — this is something that could be verified or falsified, or at least we could learn what sort of grievance he is referring to.
  • Trump argues that The Democrats used lawfare against their political opponent (Trump), which is Banana Republic stuff.  I think Trump has a point about some of the cases, but the solution is not to engage in counter-lawfare — that’s really Banana Republic stuff.2
Of the two lines of attack, I think Trump cares much more about Cheney being on the J6 committee and campaigning against him than about her being a “war/chicken hawk”.
Notice the theme that both Trump and the Democrats refuse to acknowledge is that they might have legitimate critics.  I suppose that Trump thinks it is “disloyal” for Liz Cheney to have participated in the J6 committee and really disloyal to campaign with his opponent.

SELECTED TRANSCRIPT:

The Beginning of the Liz Cheney theme is several minutes before the “Let’s put her with a rifle” line.

.. the country can only take so much and then I won and so the point is that I never did it before right I’m president of the United States and I was never even a politician before and I picked some great people Lighthizer in trade and lot we had a lot of great people but what’s interesting is it’s all about the people you got to have the right people when you ran in 2016 the leaders and heroes of the Republican Party were the Bush and Cheney families and is it weird for you to see Liz Cheney that’d be Dick Cheney’s repulsive little daughter running  against you with Kamala Harris well I think it hurts Kamala a lot actually look she’s a deranged person the reason she doesn’t like me is that she wanted to stay in Iraq she wanted to stay she wants to you know tough tough person you know people get killed all of she’s real tough right they’re not the tough people don’t forget I went against her and in her state which is a great beautiful state she lost for congress with the highest number in history there has never been a congress person that lost by almost 40 points and the reason is because if they were ever in that situation they’d quit and she lost she was beaten by a tremendous person actually tremendous that I backed fully but the reason reason she couldn’t say me is that she always wanted to go to war with people I don’t want to go to war she wanted to go she wanted to stay in Syria I took them out she wanted to stay in Iraq I took them out I mean if it were up to her we’d we’d be in 50 different countries and you know number one it’s very dangerous number two a lot of people get killed and number three I mean it’s very very expensive that’s why we owe $ 36 trillion we go you know it used to be you go to war To the victor belong the spoils right in other words if you pat a country you own that country you take the oil you we go to war we bomb the crap out of it then we leave you know it’s almost like what are we doing what what’s going on we we bombed the whole Middle East and then we left what did we get we got nothing we destroyed I mean we bombed the hell out of everything you know when they went into when they took out Iraq for A Thousand Years with different names you had Iran and Iraq similar Powers they were the two big ones and for a thousand years they would fight each other this way this way this way then they’d rest this way this then they’d rest they were the a self-checkthen one day we go in and bomb the hell out of one we destroy one and then all of a sudden Iran has the whole Middle East to itself and by the way right now Iran has Iraq Iraq is like a subsidiary of Iran all right we did so many bad moves and her father was was it you know her father was I was very critical of her father for years I’d never met him but I’d say anybody that went into the Middle East I thought was stupid and he they say convinced Bush Bush oh he was just he was another Beauty but he supposedly convinced Bush to go in him Bolton and some other lightweights convinced them to go in let’s go into the Middle East and destroy the whole place and kill millions of people so they went in but I was never a fan of Cheney I was always very critical and when I announced that I very critical actually not personally but I said he made a horrible mistake what are these people doing they’re spending we spent 9 trillion trillion with a “T” not even with a “B.” Normally I say not million billion but now I say not billion trillion we spent 9 trillion do bombing the hell out of the Middle East and what the hell did we get other than lots of dead people all including our people we got nothing so I was very critical of him and then I announced I was running and I was shocked that he was one of the first people he endorsed me immediately I said that’s amazing but he had something that was very interesting he had scooter Liberty I mean these are little stories that are interesting in scooter Liberty was a man that could have done great destruction to Bush and they left him
(SKIP: Trump so great for pardoning the “loyal” Scotter Libby)
.. ..

Quote Context:  (More Immediately Before)

I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter but his daughter is a very dumb individual very dumb she’s a radical war hawk let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine Barrel shooting at her okay let’s see how she feels about it you know when the guns are trained on her face you know they’re all walk Hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying oh gee will let’s send uh let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy but she’s a stupid person and I used to have I’d have meetings with a lot of people and she always wanted to go to war with people so whether it’s her whether it’s I was surprised a little bit with Dick Cheney I didn’t know him at all I only had essentially the one or two phone

 

  1. Yes Trump avoided fighting in the Vietnam war. He claims he is less quick to initiate new military action. (more below)↩

  2. Crazy idea: If Trump were to issue pardons for those that engaged in lawfare, he could portray himself as “the better man.”↩