Trump’s Liz Cheney Remarks Probed by AG as Possible ‘Death Threat’

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes on Friday said her office is investigating whether former President Donald Trump’s remarks about former Wyoming Liz Cheney having “guns trained on her face” broke the law.
“I have already asked my criminal division chief to start looking at that statement, analyzing it for whether it qualifies as a death threat under Arizona’s laws,” Mayes said to NBC affiliate 12News.
Mayes added: “I’m not prepared now to say whether it was or it wasn’t, but it is not helpful as we prepare for our election and as we try to make sure that we keep the peace at our polling places and in our state.”
Richie Taylor, the communications director for Maye’s office, told Newsweek via email late Friday afternoon: “The Arizona Attorney General’s Office is looking into whether Donald Trump’s comments about Liz Cheney violated Arizona law. The office has no additional comments to make at this time.”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, and Cheney’s staff via email late Friday afternoon.
During a sit-down interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson Thursday night Trump, the current Republican presidential nominee, called Cheney, one of the most vocal anti-Trump Republicans, “a radical war hawk.”
“Let’s put her with the rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her,” Trump said at the event in Glendale, Arizona. “OK, let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Trump then pointed the conversation toward Washington, D.C. politicians in general: “You know 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 right into the mouth of the enemy.”
Cheney wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in response to a clip of Trump’s comments, “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,” Cheney said Friday morning, adding, #Womenwillnotbesilenced #VoteKamala.”
Cheney, and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, have both endorsed Trump’s Democratic opponent Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 election.
In a Truth Social post on Friday afternoon, Trump said that he was simply saying that Cheney “wouldn’t have ‘the guts’ to fight herself.”
“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 former president wrote. “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!'”
Meanwhile, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a Washington Post article published Friday, “President Trump is 100 percent correct that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves.”
Update 11/1/24 4:51 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Mayes’ office and additional information.