Speaking on CBS News’s Face the Nation, Rubio got into a heated back-and-forth with host Margaret Brennan over Trump’s suggestion that Cheney should be sent to a warzone.

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“Donald Trump doesn’t talk like someone who’s been in Washington for 30 years,” Rubio began, defending the statement.

“Training guns on her face?” Brennan interjected.

“No, but that’s not what he said. Margaret, you guys know that. Come on, everybody knows exactly what he was saying,” he retorted.

Brennan argued that the quote showed that Trump intended his remarks as a threat, which Rubio responded was taken out of context.

“He said he would give her a gun to go stand in conflict as well,” Rubio said, countering accusations from Cheney and some liberal figures who argued that Trump was threatening to send Cheney in front of a firing squad. “You don’t normally give a gun to someone that’s going to be facing a firing squad, which is what much of the media made it sound like.”

“The point he was making is not a new point,” he continued. “It is a point that has been made by people in both parties for decades, and that is, you’re all for war, and it’s easy to be for war when you’re in some fancy building and you’re safe and sound in Washington, DC. Let’s see how much you are for war when you yourself get deployed into combat.”

The Florida Republican then suggested that the argument over the quote pointed to a wider trend of media bias.

“I think it’s truly not just unfair; it’s egregious to see that reported the way that it was, along with other things that are out there,” he said. “I’ve never seen such a concerted effort. And look, I’ve always believed there’s bias, because no one’s unbiased, but I’ve never seen such a concerted effort like what I’ve seen, especially in the last two weeks, among multiple media outlets in this country, to, in some cases, breathlessly distort and lie about what’s being said and to create, manufacture these gotcha moments against Donald Trump, I’ve never seen it before.”

The controversy began on Friday when Trump suggested that Cheney should be sent to war.

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK? let’s see how she feels about it,” he said. “You know, when the guns are trained in her face. You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, gee … let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.’”

“But she’s a stupid person,” Trump continued. “I’d have meetings with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people.”

Cheney interpreted the remarks as a death threat.

“This is how dictators destroy free nations. 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,” Cheney said in a post on X, along with the hashtags #Womenwillnotbesilenced and #VoteKamala.

Cheney’s interpretation quickly caught on in Democratic and anti-Trump circles. The anti-Trump Drudge Report ran the headline, “TRUMP CALLS FOR CHENEY’S EXECUTION.”

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Trump continued his comments on Saturday.

“I think that Liz Cheney is a disaster. All she wants to do is blow people up,” he told reporters. “She’s a war hawk, and a dumb one at that. And if you ever put her into the field of battle, she’d be the first one to chicken out. “