Donald Trump's comments about Liz Cheney during a sit-down interview with Tucker Carlson in Arizona on Thursday sparked backlash from some of his former administration officials, who found the rhetoric “dangerous and escalating.”

Trump sat with Carlson in Glendale, Arizona, as the former president tried to shore up support in one of seven swing states that could decide the election. Trump also held a rally, but it was his comments during his meeting with Carlson that caused a stir.

Cheney remains one of the most vocal anti-Trump Republicans, which has caused no small amount of trouble for the former president. During his interview, he took aim at her, calling her “a radical war hawk.”

“Let’s stand them up with that gun sitting there shooting at them with nine barrels,” Trump said. “Okay, let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are pointed at their faces.”

Trump tried to frame his discussion as a criticism of politicians in Washington, D.C. who advocate military intervention, adding: “You know they're all war hawks when they sit in a nice building in Washington and say: Well, well, let’s send 10,000 soldiers straight into the enemy’s mouth.”

But his comments about Cheney caught the attention of former allies and advisers, who spared no time in condemning the comments and calling on others to do the same.

“It’s incomprehensible,” Alyssa Farah Griffin, former director of strategic communications in the Trump White House, said during an appearance on CNN Newsroom on Friday morning. “I don’t know how Republican leaders, many of whom worked with Liz Cheney and once considered her a colleague and friend, can not denounce this.”

“It’s dangerous and it’s escalating,” Griffin said, noting that Trump has already talked about setting up “tribunals against them” if he regains the presidency.

“It is so unpresidential, reckless and dangerous and must be universally condemned,” Griffin added. She later posted on the social media platform

Johnson is the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives. Stefanik succeeded Cheney as chair of the House Republican Conference after voters in Wyoming ousted Cheney after she condemned Trump and attended the Jan. 6 House committee. Cheney also voted to impeach Trump over the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said: Newsweek in an email statement: “President Trump is 100 percent right that warmongers like Liz Cheney are quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them rather than go into battle themselves.”

“This is a continuation of the recent fake media outrage days before the election in a blatant attempt to interfere on behalf of Kamala Harris,” Leavitt's statement said, but it did not appear that some others shared that sentiment.

Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, called the comments “sick” and wrote on X that “every conservative soul of conscience should condemn this in the strongest possible terms.”

Stephanie Grisham, one of Trump's White House press secretaries during his term, asked, “Where is the line?” In response to the comments, he wrote on “It’s okay.”

Cheney himself responded to the comments, writing on X: “This is how dictators destroy free nations.”

“They threaten death to those who speak out against them,” Cheney wrote. “We cannot trust our country and our freedom to a small, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

Cheney and her father have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, saying in a joint statement released in September, “In our nation's 248-year history, there has never been a person who poses a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”

“He tried to steal the last election with lies and violence to stay in power after voters rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again,” the statement said.

Trump also took aim at Liz Cheney by appealing to the support of her father, Dick Cheney, saying during Thursday's session: “I don't blame him for holding on to his daughter, but his daughter is a very stupid person .”

The former president made a controversial Truth Social post earlier this year in which he appeared to threaten Liz Cheney, saying: “Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is guilty of treason. Retruth if you want to televise military tribunals.”

The post started with a meme account on the platform, but gained widespread attention after Trump “replayed” it on his account.