Trump apologist scrambles to defend Trump musing about guns pointed at Liz Cheney
A Republican strategist attempted to defend Donald Trump's ominous comments about Liz Cheney facing down "guns are trained on her face."
The former president appeared onstage Thursday night in Glendale, Arizona, for an interview with right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson, where he insulted president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris and mused at length about Cheney, one of his most prominent Republican critics, having guns pointed at her.
“She’s a radical war hawk," Trump said. "Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels 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 war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building."
While other panelists on "CNN This Morning" said there was no defending Trump's violent rhetoric, GOP strategist Brad Todd gave it a try.
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"I'm going to say this in the backwards order so I can get it all out," Todd said. "I don't think that all first of all, I agree with Liz Cheney on foreign policy more than I agree with Donald Trump on some of these questions, or at least historically I have. He was talking about their difference on foreign policy. Liz Cheney is a hawk. If you listen to the rest of the [soundbite] he says she always wanted to go to war with people, I don't want to go to war with people. He was saying if she was the one that had to go into infantry combat maybe she would see it differently. That's a critique Democrats have made about Dick Cheney and other hawks."
Host Kasie Hunt expressed skepticism, but Todd pressed forward.
"Yes, he's talking about her going to war," Todd insisted. "Now, let's go to Donald Trump's problem. This is why he's in a close race. He's ahead in every target state this morning, enough to get to 270. In the New York Times poll, which is not exactly a friendly poll to him, saying things like this in this way, he'd be ahead by six or seven [points] if he didn't do that, if he was talking about the economy this week, if he was talking about crime and the border and things that this administration has failed on. I mean, yes, he does not choose his words very well. No, he is not on message, but he's about to win. He's about to win it, despite the way he talks. That tells you how unpopular this administration is."
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