Arizona's top prosecutor is investigating Trump's 'gun shooting' comments | 2024 US Election News

Arizona's top prosecutor is investigating whether Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump broke state law by suggesting that one of his most vocal critics should face a “firing” in the military.

Trump has come under fire for his comments about former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney at a campaign event in Arizona on Thursday.

“He's a powerful hawk,” Trump said of Cheney. “Let's have him standing there with a gun, and nine barrels shooting at him, OK? Let's see how he feels about it, you know, when guns are trained on his face.”

On Friday, speaking to a local television station, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said that Trump may have violated state laws against death threats.

“I've already asked my chief of the criminal division to start looking at that statement, and evaluate whether it qualifies as a death threat under Arizona law,” Mayes told 12News.

Mayes said it was not clear whether Trump's comments were free speech or a criminal threat.

“That is the question, did he cross the line. It's very worrying,” said Mayes. “This is the kind of thing that makes people angry, and that makes our situation in Arizona and other states very dangerous.”

Cheney endorsed the Democrats

Cheney, a former Republican leader in the US House of Representatives, has endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and called the former president “dangerous”.

Harris told reporters that the comments are a sign that Trump is becoming more careless.

“Anyone who wants to be president of the United States who uses that kind of violent rhetoric is clearly unfit and unfit to be president,” he said in Madison, Wisconsin.

Trump spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said his words were misinterpreted.

“President Trump is 100 percent right that extremists like Liz Cheney are quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go to war themselves,” he said.

Trump is going after former VP

At a rally in Warren, Michigan, earlier in the day, Trump again attacked Harris and Cheney, and this time his comments included his father – former Vice President Dick Cheney.

“They want the Arab American vote. “They want to get Muslim votes, so they choose Liz Cheney whose father destroyed the Middle East,” he said.

He added: “It is easy for him to say that he wants to start wars from the comfort of his beautiful home, or his father's luxurious home, which he got by killing a large part of the Middle East.” You know that, right? You know that he founded a company, which was a big company, that profited a lot from the wars. “

Cheney was vice president under President George W Bush and played a major role in the so-called “war on terror” – the US response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Before serving as vice president, Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, a multinational oil services company that won multibillion-dollar contracts with the US military in Iraq.

Cheney has also refused to support Trump's third run and has endorsed Harris.

Both Harris and Trump held evening rallies in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Friday as part of the final vote campaign in this key state.