GLENDALE, Ariz. – In a stage event dominated by broad ramblers and lowlifes attacks his opponents, former President Donald Trump – just four days later Election day – suggested one of them the best Republican critics he wouldn’t be such a “war hawk” if he pointed a gun at him.
Trump sits on a dais next to a right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson In what was billed as a live interview in an arena packed with thousands of supporters Thursday, he said President Joe Biden was a “stupid bastard” and that his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, was a “goody bag.”
He also said that would have allowed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, to “do whatever he wanted.” in his second administration on health policy, noted that his newfound political ally “wants to look at vaccines.”
“He really wants to deal with pesticides and, you know, different things. I said, he can do it,” Trump said about the former independent presidential candidate. “He can do whatever he wants. He wants to look into vaccinations. He wants – everything. I think it’s great,” Trump continued.
But the former president, no stranger to personal attacks, reserved his harshest comments for former Rep. Liz Cheney. They were the latest example Trump uses violent rhetoric against their perceived enemies.
In a long and uncompromising tirade about Cheney, Trump suggested that the former congresswoman would be less of a “war hawk” if she was at war with guns “trained on her face,” as Trump put it.
“He is a radical war hawk. Let’s put him there with a rifle and let him fire nine barrels at him,” Trump said. “Well, let’s see how he feels about it. You know when the guns are pointed in his face — you know when they’re sitting in a nice building in Washington they’re all war hawks,” Trump continued.
Relations between Trump and Cheney deteriorated after the attack on the US Capitol on January 6. Cheney and his father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the architects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, backed Harris, according to Trump.
“He’s a stupid man,” Trump said of the former Republican congressman on Thursday, calling him a “bad man” and a “very dumb individual.” Carlson called her Dick Cheney’s “nasty little girl.”
Trump bluntly told the Arizona crowd that he would only lose next Tuesday’s election if it was “rigged,” setting the stage to dispute a potential loss.
“Just keep cheating,” he said. “The only thing that can stop us is fraud. This is the only thing that can stop us.”
Liz Cheney recently campaigned with Harris and warned of Trump’s efforts to subvert the will of voters.
Cheney responded to Trump on social media on Friday morning.
“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” he wrote on Page X. “Those who speak against them are threatened with death. We cannot trust our country and our freedom to a man who wants to be a petty, vengeful, cruel, unstable, tyrant. #Women will not be silent #Vote for Kamal.”
During the election campaign, Trump suggested that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, deserved the death penalty. He also urged to shoot shoplifters on sight.
Trump’s disparaging comments about his perceived enemies come as polls show a consistent silence among many women against his candidacy — a gender gap that has given Harris a double-digit advantage in most polls nationally. Women also vote early at much higher rates than men so far.
Harris tried to emphasize this in the final stages of the race.
He He said this in an exclusive interview with NBC News Trump’s comments on Thursday about defending women “whether they like it or not” this week are another sign of how he is “devaluing” women.
Trump made the harsh remarks in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, which includes Phoenix. In 2020, voters driven by independents, women, and suburbanites turned away from Trump, causing the county to vote against a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in decades, costing Trump 11 of Arizona’s electoral votes.
From the stage, Trump also voiced what would amount to a surprising and consequential proposal: he said he would turn to Elon Musk to help cut the federal budget massively, potentially by as much as a third of current annual spending levels. Neither Trump nor Musk gave any specifics about what programs or even agencies they would eliminate to make such a staggering cut.
“He thinks he can save $2 trillion — in which case we don’t have a deficit,” Trump said. “By the way, two trillion dollars a year!”
After two earlier campaign rallies during the day — in New Mexico and Nevada — Trump ended his final stop into the wee hours of the night with derogatory name-calling and several minutes of semi-tangential comments.
Before Trump took the stage, Carlson gave a speech about manhood in which he mocked second-in-command Doug Emhoff and Gov. Tim Walz. [Harris] on the campaign trail.”
In the final days of his third presidential campaign, Trump hit the road without one-time GOP challengers like former Amb. Nikki Haley, Governor Ron DeSantis or Senator Tim Scott. He also hasn’t met Georgia’s popular GOP governor, Brian Kemp.
Instead, Trump chose to go after subversive figures like Charlie Kirk. he said Wives who secretly voted for Harris in the election this week will “axe their husbands” and Carlson fired by Fox News.