Snopes debunks Liz Cheney ‘execution’ hoax in fact-check of Kamala Harris campaign, MSNBC, CNN

Snopes wrote as its headline on the fact-check, "Despite violent rhetoric, Trump didn't threaten to have Liz Cheney shot," and called out several examples of pundits saying that the GOP nominee was making a death threat towards Cheney during a Thursday evening event with Tucker Carlson earlier this week in Arizona.

According to Snopes, "Albeit a potentially dangerous escalation of violent rhetoric and imagery on Trump's part, in context his words did not amount to an explicit threat against Cheney." However, pundits at different outlets and Harris’ campaign claimed that Trump was calling for the "execution" of Cheney. One such came from Drudge Report that read, "Trump calls for Cheney's execution."

Kamala Harris as well as her campaign has spread false claims about Trump, with Harris senior advisor Ian Sims claiming on MSNBC that Trump was talking about “sending a prominent Republican [Liz Cheney] to the firing squad."

Harris herself spread the hoax and told reporters that Trump “suggested rifles should be trained on former Representative Liz Cheney" when he made the comments.

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Friday insisted that his producers use the false Drudge Report headline on the screen as they were covering the story about the GOP nominee and Cheney, per Mediaite. CNN contributor Jonah Goldberg also had to walk back the comment that Trump called for her to be "executed by firing squad" that he made on a Friday morning panel.

Goldberg claimed at the time, "[Trump's] saying quite explicitly and unambiguously that Liz Cheney should be shot, should be executed by firing squad." He later recanted on X in a statement that he was "reacting in haste" to Trump's comments.

At the time on Thursday, Trump told Carlson that Cheney was "a very dumb individual" and a "radical war hawk." Then in an argument to convey that the US should not be sending thousands of citizens to war, the GOP said: "Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face."

Trump added, "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.' But she's a stupid person. And I used to have, I'd have meetings with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people."

David McCune a commentator and an Iraq veteran backed up the comments from Trump when Cheney falsely said that the GOP nominee was “threatening” her.

“I am one of those deployed to Iraq by your Father’s administration. You are not being threatened by Trump in this exchange. You are being challenged to assume some of the risks you would assign to others,” McCune posted.