Fox & Friends came to Donald Trump’s defense Friday morning amid the blowback after he asked how Liz Cheney would cope with guns aimed at her face.
The show’s co-hosts claimed the way the quote was interpreted was “totally irresponsible” and that she knew better than to suggest the former president wanted her killed.
The Republican presidential nominee faced a backlash after saying of the former GOP congresswoman: “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.”
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“There’s a ton of Americans that support this point of view,” said co-host Lawrence Jones. “I do think that is ironic right now when the Democratic Party is dealing with all these comments from the surrogates that they’re trying to grasp for something from the former president to say he’s calling for the assassination of Liz Cheney, I don’t think anyone really believes so.”
“So he was just talking about how she is a war hawk,” said Brian Kilmeade. “And would you have the same point of view if she was actually at war?”
After reading out the former president’s full quote from an event on Thursday hosted by Tucker Carlson, Kilmeade continued: “So to me, I get totally the context of that. Tucker had an event. He joined Tucker’s event. Tucker is doing live shows all across the country, and he was asked about one of his chief critics who’s campaigning against him.
“So people are portraying it as if he’s saying she should be in front of a firing squad, assassinate, be shot or assassinated. Obviously, you can understand Trump. You understand the context. That is not the story.”
After Trump made the remarks, Cheney posted a response on X, formerly known as Twitter, that read: “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.”
“She knows better,” Kiilmeade said of Cheney. “So they’re going to try to make the most of this.”
He said a Drudge Report headline, “Trump Calls for Cheney’s Execution” was “totally irresponsible.”
“Little did I know it was going to be abused like that,” he added.
