Did Donald Trump Threaten to have Liz Cheney "Fired Upon"?
What Trump said might have been untactful and shocking, but no, he did not threaten Liz Cheney. Trump’s actual words and the meaning behind them merit real attention, though, as they highlight something important.
"She wanted to stay in Syria. I took them out. She wanted to stay in Iraq. I took them out," he said of Cheney. Then came the controversial part: "Let's put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrels shooting at her... Let's see how she feels about it when the guns are trained on her face."
Major news outlets pounced. CNN declared that Trump wanted Cheney "fired upon." Others painted it as a more general threat of violence. And Vice President Harris rushed to condemn Trump’s words.
But context matters.
Trump wasn't threatening to shoot Cheney or to have her shot by a firing squad. His point, however clumsily made, was about the gap between those who push for war and those who fight it. The implication is that Cheney finds it easy to support military action from the safety of Washington.
The former (and future) president's criticism illustrates the disconnect between policy makers and soldiers. War looks different from an office chair than it does from the battlefield. Cheney and company advocate for military intervention without having to face the consequences of their decisions.
The pattern of media interpretation following Trump’s statement reveals more about journalism than it does about Trump's intent. His words were raw and undiplomatic, which is typical for Trump. But transforming them into death threats requires deliberately missing his point.
The real story isn’t about Trump threatening Cheney. It’s about how easy it is for politicians to send others to fight their battles. Trump’s crude metaphor might offend, but his underlying criticism deserves more than manufactured outrage. While the mainstream media no longer seems capable of feeling shame, they deserve a whole heap of it for deliberately obscuring the point that Trump was trying to make.