Former President Donald Trump questioned Muslim voters who support Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s election, given the Democratic nominee’s embrace of former U.S. Representative Liz Cheney.
The Republican from Wyoming has joined Harris on the campaign trail in a push to win over GOP voters for the Democratic ticket. The former congresswoman has voraciously criticized Trump. Her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, has also endorsed Harris in the 2024 presidential race.
Trump and Liz Cheney have been embroiled in a long-running feud. The Republican presidential nominee called Cheney “one of the dumber people in politics” and assailed her for her role on the January 6 House committee. Trump has also been critical of Dick Cheney’s foreign policy measures under former President George W. Bush, claiming the ex-vice president led the county into a “ridiculous” war in the Middle East.
Liz Cheney and her father have said that Trump is unfit to serve in the White House again.
The former GOP congresswoman this month backed Harris on stage in Wisconsin while urging “reasonable people from all across the political spectrum” to vote for the Democratic nominee.
While discussing the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol waged by Trump supporters, Cheney told the crowd: “Donald Trump was willing to sacrifice our Capitol and to allow law enforcement officers to be beaten and brutalized in his name, and to violate the law and the Constitution in order to seize power for himself,” Cheney said. “I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent: That is depravity and we must never become numb to it.”
“Any person who would do these things can never be trusted with power again,” she added. “We must defeat Donald Trump on November 5 … Donald Trump is not fit to lead this good and great nation.”
Trump on Wednesday took another swipe at Cheney, writing to Truth Social, “Why would Muslims support Lyin’ Kamala Harris when she embraces Muslim hating Liz Cheney, a total loser, whose father brought years of war, and death, to the Middle East???”
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Some analysts have warned that Harris’ embrace of the Cheneys’ endorsement could backfire with Arab American voters, who are already critical of White House policies toward Israel amid the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. Earlier in the month, a coalition of Muslim political organizations condemned Harris for her alliance with Cheney, whom the group called “an anti-Muslim bigot and far-right war hawk who continues to openly endorse the crime of torture, including waterboarding.”
“Liz Cheney’s current opposition to Donald Trump does not excuse her bigotry or erase her support for torture,” read the statement from the American Muslim 2024 Election Task Force. “The Harris campaign’s decision to platform Cheney is an insult to every American who worked to oppose the Bush-Cheney administration’s criminal policies and to everyone around the world who died due to those policies.”
Newsweek reached out to the Harris campaign via email on Wednesday for comment.
Recent polling has shown that Trump holds a slim lead on Harris among Arab Americans. In a poll released Tuesday by Arab News and YouGov, Trump was backed by 45 percent of respondents, while 43 percent said they plan to vote for Harris. Another 4 percent threw their support behind Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who has focused her campaign on Israel’s wars with Hamas and Hezbollah.
Trump was also ahead by 1 point on Harris in a poll released earlier in the month by the Arab American Institute, which found the former president leading 42 percent to 41 percent.
In the 2020 election, Muslim voters overwhelmingly supported President Joe Biden, with 64 percent backing the then-Democratic nominee over the 35 percent who voted for Trump, according to the Associated Press.
Trump has also called out other key voting blocs that have historically sided with Democrats in recent weeks. During a rally in Atlanta last week, the former president said that “any African American or Hispanic” who does not vote for him should have their “head examined.”
He’s made similar comments about Jewish voters, saying in a July radio interview that “any Jewish person that voted for her [Harris] or him [Biden] … should have their head examined.”
