Former Trump Senior Aide Blasts ‘Convicted Felon’ Over His Liz Cheney Gun Remarks: ‘Should Be Taken Into Custody’

(Photo by Bastiaan Slabbers/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Anthoney Scaramucci, the former White House Communications Director under former President Donald Trump, insisted that the former president be taken into custody following remarks about Liz Cheney.

At issue are comments made during an event hosted by Tucker Carlson, in which Trump blasted Cheney as “stupid” and a “Warhawk” but then insulted her, suggesting that she’d behave differently if there were guns “shooting at her.” Referring to Cheney as “a very dumb individual,” he then said:

She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrel shooting at her. Okay. Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.

Suggesting a scenario in which a political enemy is fired upon is a dangerous level of heated rhetoric. It has caused an early firestorm just days before the presidential election. Cheney did not take the comments lightly, posting her retort on social media. “This is how dictators destroy free nations,” she said. “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.”

Scaramucci, a former Trump media surrogate who served an 11-day term as his communications director, has since become a vocal critic of his former boss and supporter of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign for president. He jumped into the fray Friday morning in a social media post that reminded readers that Trump is a “convicted felon.” He suggested he should be “taken into custody” as he violated his bail conditions by “threatening someone’s life. He needs to be sent away.

While Trump’s comments are reasonably seen as dangerous and arguably deeply irresponsible, the takeaway that he “threatened someone’s life” does not line up with the context or specific words that he said to Tucker Carlson. He was making the point that as a member of Congress, Liz Cheney may have been less eager to send military troops into battle if she had had guns pointed at her and not enlisted soldiers.