In the final days of the presidential election, Donald Trump and his running mate are launching public attacks on the foreign policy hawks who have opposed his candidacy.
At a Thursday campaign event, the former president called former Congresswoman Liz Cheney a “radical war hawk” and suggested that, as a supporter of foreign wars, she should serve in one. “Let’s see how she feels about it when the guns are trained on her face,” he said. “You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, gee, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.”
In response, Cheney characterised the comments as a death threat, writing, “This is how dictators destroy free nations.” Cheney, a former Republican, has been a fixture in Kamala Harris’ campaign.
Trump also mentioned Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who recently endorsed Kamala Harris alongside his daughter. “I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual,” Trump said.
Some of Trump’s most prominent allies-turned-enemies have been Republicans, and former Republicans, who oppose his foreign policy. As a candidate in 2016, Trump became one of the first national Republicans to express that the Iraq war was a mistake, and he frequently touts the fact that there were no new wars involving the US started while he was in office. Since Trump left office, the GOP has been divided over US support for the war in Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, the war in Gaza.
At the same Thursday event, Trump mocked John Bolton, the former national security advisor who has become a vocal critic of the former president. “If somebody shot down a little, tiny, crappy drone that cost about $15, he’d want to go to war with Russia,” Trump said. “He was great for me though for a period… I took this moron with me and he never said anything, but when Kim Jong Un saw him, he said, ‘Oh shit, I think the guy wants to go to war.'”
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