Trump’s Attack on Liz Cheney Is Just as Malicious as It Appears. (David French, NY Times opinion column, November 1, 2024)

Nov. 1, 2024, 1:43 p.m. ET

David French

Opinion Columnist

Trump’s Attack on Liz Cheney Is Just as Malicious as It Appears

Once again, we confront a malicious Donald Trump word salad. On Thursday night, he called Liz Cheney “a very dumb individual” (which is typical Trump language), and then he said, “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”

He went on to say, “You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building, saying, ‘Oh, gee, well, let’s send, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.’”

MAGA is outraged that anyone would interpret his statement as calling for Cheney to face a firing squad. The reference to “nine barrels” was just a vague reference to facing hostile fire, they say. To MAGA, this was nothing but a classic chicken hawk attack.

Republicans used to hate the chicken hawk argument. It was often wielded against advocates of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and if you think about it for more than five seconds, you recognize its bad faith. We don’t live in some sort of science-fiction fascist regime in which only those who serve get a voice in military affairs. Where was Trump’s record of service when he ordered strikes on ISIS, attacked Syria or killed Qassim Suleimani?

I served in Iraq, yet I would never dream of arguing that only my fellow vets get a say in American military policy in the Middle East. The very idea is repugnant to the notion of civilian government.

Yet once again, Republicans have become what they used to hate, and they’ve done it in a way that is even worse than the original slur. In addition, this is not the first time that Trump has attacked Cheney in disturbing ways. In July he called for “televised military tribunals” for her, so it’s hardly strange or unreasonable to think that the reference to “nine barrels” could refer to a firing squad.

But even if he wanted his “very dumb” opponent — whom he wants to put in front of a military commission — to be at the receiving end of only hostile fire, we’re confronting inexcusably malicious political language. There is no benign explanation for Trump’s attack.