- Exclusive: Liz Cheney’s new book blasts GOP as ‘enablers and collaborators’ of Trump, whom one member called ‘Orange Jesus’ CNN
- Lawrence: Liz Cheney’s new book reveals what a potential witness might tell Jack Smith MSNBC
- ‘Bait and switch’: Liz Cheney book tears into Mike Johnson over pro-Trump January 6 brief The Guardian
- McCarthy visited Mar-a-Lago after January 6 because Trump was ‘not eating’ Business Insider
- Jake Tapper Doubts Report Trump Wasn’t Eating After Jan. 6 The Daily Beast
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Tag Archives: Cheneys
Liz Cheney’s PAC spends $500,000 in Arizona to defeat GOP nominee Kari Lake
Newsweek opinion editor Josh Hammer on NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ handling of migrants being bused from Texas, Rep. Liz Cheney’s defeat and where the GOP stands ahead of the 2022 midterms.
Republican Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) is targeting Arizona Republicans for defeat with a new $500,000 ad buy from her PAC attacking the GOP nominees for governor and secretary of state.
“I don’t know that I have ever voted for a Democrat, but if lived in Arizona, I absolutely would,” Cheney says in a new 30-second ad released Friday.
‘WAR-FIRST, AMERICA-LAST’: GOP CANDIDATE SAYS IT’S ‘NO SURPRISE’ LIZ CHENEY ENDORSED HIS DEMOCERATIC OPPONENT
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) appears on Meet the Press in Washington, D.C. Sunday, Oct. 23, 2022. (William B. Plowman/NBC via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The ad, titled “Honor,” features remarks Cheney gave earlier this month in Tempe, Arizona, at an event hosted by the McCain Institute. Speaking at Arizona State University, Cheney said that Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and Secretary of State nominee Mark Finchem should be defeated because they questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“If you care about the survival of our republic, we cannot give people power who will not honor elections,” Cheney says. “We must have elected officials who honor that responsibility.”
Former U.S. President Donald Trump (L) embraces Arizona Republican nominee for governor Kari Lake, who he has endorsed, during a campaign rally. (Mario Tama/Getty Images / Getty Images)
ARIZONA, PENNSYLVANIA, OHIO, AND OTHER STATES WITH IMPORTANT MIDTERM RACES: WHY DO THEY MATTER?
Cheney’s group, The Great Task, is an anti-Trump PAC that takes its name from a phrase in President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The group says it is “focused on reverence for the rule of law, respect for our Constitution, and a recognition that all citizens have a responsibility to put their duty to the country above partisanship.”
The congresswoman, who lost her primary race in August to pro-Trump candidate Harriet Hageman, has previously invoked Lincoln’s legacy in calls for the Republican Party to reject former President Donald Trump and “cult of personality.”
Harriet Hageman, Republican U.S. representative candidate for Wyoming, speaks during a primary night watch party in Cheyenne, Wyoming, US, on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022. (David Williams/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“We’ve to get this party back to the principles and values on which it was founded,” Cheney told NBC’s “Today Show” in August.
CONSERVATIVES SLAM ‘FAILED’ LIZ CHENEY AFTER SHE ENDORSES DEMOCRAT
As vice chair of the Jan. 6 Committee, Cheney has sought to prove that Trump incited the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and has endorsed Democratic candidates for Congress over Trump-supporting Republicans in the 2022 midterm campaign.
On Thursday, Cheney endorsed Michigan Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin over her Republican opponent, state Sen. Tom Barrett.
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Liz Cheney’s political life is likely ending — and just beginning
“This is our great task and we will prevail. I hope you will join me in this fight,” Cheney concludes.
Cheney is looking far beyond Tuesday’s Republican primary for this state’s at-large seat in the U.S. House, a race that she is likely to lose, barring an unprecedented surge of non-Republican voters into the GOP contest.
She entered Congress six years ago as a relative celebrity, the daughter of the former vice president who spent several years using Fox News appearances to deliver acid-tongued critiques of the Obama-Biden administration. And she will exit the U.S. Capitol, likely in 4½ months, as the face of an anti-Trump movement that has cost her old alliances but left her with new supporters, clamoring for a next act more nationally focused.
“I sure hope she runs for president,” James Rooks, elected to Jackson’s town council as a self-proclaimed “fierce independent,” said while sitting in a coffee shop looking up at Snow King Mountain.
Cheney has fielded questions about her ambitions since first taking office, but the intensity ramped up after this summer’s blockbuster hearings, in which she has served as vice chair of the committee investigating the ex-president’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.
“I’ll make a decision on 2024 down the road,” she told CNN in late July.
But Cheney is clear-eyed when it comes to her chances of actually winning the presidential nomination in a party that is still so loyal to former president Donald Trump, according to friends and advisers. She sees her future role similar to how she views the work of the Jan. 6 committee: Blocking any path for Trump back to the Oval Office.
“It’s about the danger that he poses to the country, and that he can’t be anywhere close to that power again,” she told a crowd of supporters in Cheyenne just before the committee hearings launched in early June.
Traditional conservatives opposed to Trump have already discussed the possibility of Cheney running for the White House. “That chatter was very strong even before that Dick Cheney commercial,” Dmitri Mehlhorn said, referring to a campaign ad that ran nationwide on Fox News and featured the former vice president denouncing Trump.
Mehlhorn advises several donors across the political spectrum who are opposed to Trump, including the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman. He said he and the donors he works with would consider funding a Cheney presidential bid.
In that regard, Cheney will spend the months after the committee concludes its work later this year figuring out her next steps. That might be launching a political organization that focuses on Trump, or some think-tank work matched with media appearances.
But, for certain, Cheney and a small but influential bloc of anti-Trump Republicans have decided that there must be a 2024 candidate who will run as an unabashed opponent of both the ex-president and other contenders who spew his mistruths about the 2020 election.
This anti-Trump group fears a repeat of the 2016 campaign, in which rivals refrained from attacking Trump’s unorthodox behavior and positions until it was too late. The emerging 2024 Republican presidential field consists of the former president, his allies looking to emulate him and a collection of other Republicans courting non-Trump voters but without forcefully denouncing Trump.
Cheney and her crowd want a candidate who would serve merely as a political kamikaze, blowing up his or her candidacy but also taking down Trump.
“You need that. I think it’s got to be somebody that’s willing to take the boos, take the yells,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), the only other Republican on the Jan. 6 committee, said in a recent interview. “Somebody [who] can stand on the stage and just tell people the truth, I think that would have a huge impact.”
Mehlhorn, the adviser to anti-Trump donors, said that if Cheney were to approach them “and say, you know, with an extra 10 million, I can make sure that Republican voters are reminded of how bad Trump is in a way that might allow someone else to emerge from the primary or might weaken him for the general, but I need another $10 or $20 million — look, we would take that seriously.”
Cheney has been very outspoken in her denunciations of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other Republicans who have remained loyal to Trump despite his help precipitating the Capitol attack.
But she has also been upset with a separate group of Republicans who despise Trump but instead hope the ex-president will just fade away, particularly Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“Where Kevin is like full-on public embrace, McConnell is: Ignore and hope he goes away. And that just doesn’t work,” Cheney told the authors of “This Will Not Pass,” a book about the fallout of the 2020 election.
But Cheney’s singular focus on preventing Trump from being reelected has come at a heavy cost. Her political world has turned upside down.
Over the weekend, McCarthy began hosting his annual big-donor fete in Teton Village, less than 15 miles north of Cheney’s polling place. It’s the same spot where Cheney and her father co-hosted a $1 million fundraiser on behalf of Trump in August 2019, but the resort owner has since denounced Cheney and is supporting her challenger, the Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman.
Instead of her traditional GOP support, Cheney is trying to rally tens of thousands of Democrats and independents across Wyoming to cross over into the Republican primary.
Anecdotally, local liberals are perplexed by their rush of support after decades of seeing the Cheney family as the political enemy.
“I can’t believe I’m thinking about this. This world is insane,” Diana Welch, an adviser to Christy Walton, a billionaire heir to the Walmart fortune, recalled thinking. But last Monday, Welch happily co-hosted an event in nearby Wilson where Democrats, including local elected officials, outnumbered Republicans.
Alli Noland, a local public relations executive, spent years as a Democrat but eventually gave up a few years ago because the GOP primaries were so critical in this deeply conservative state.
She now organizes regular meetups at the Stagecoach Bar just outside Jackson for liberals interested in learning how to support Cheney.
And there are people like Mike May, who told his friends Saturday evening how, since the early days of the Bush-Cheney administration, he owned a Volkswagen bus with a blunt bumper sticker: “Cheney is a creep.”
His more traditional truck now has a “Cheney for Wyoming” sticker on it. He said he attended the Monday event just to tell her “thank you” for standing up to Trump.
According to state records, the shift is real.
On Jan. 1, Republicans had more than 196,000 registered voters, while Democrats had about 46,000. By Aug. 1, Republicans gained 11,000 new voters while Democrats lost 6,000 and those voters unaffiliated with either party dropped by 2,000.
Teton County, traditionally the only liberal-leaning spot in Wyoming, now has more registered Republicans than Democrats, and voters can switch parties up until Tuesday’s primary.
The Teton County clerk, Maureen Murphy, reported a stunning tilt in early voting toward Republicans: 3,259 votes have been cast in the GOP primaries by the end of Friday, and just 166 came in the Democratic contests.
Cheney supporters believe those numbers suggest a real surge in crossover voters. Rooks, the Jackson councilman, has spent the past weeks proselytizing to Democrats and independents to join him crossing into the GOP primary, with a good amount of success.
“I have two friends who just can’t do it,” Rooks said, recalling one who got into an early voting polling station and ran out without voting for Cheney.
Republican friends are a much tougher sell, he said. “I might as well be trying to tell them to denounce their faith.”
That scares Noland, who warns that the push to get non-Republicans into the primary has only driven traditional GOP voters away from Cheney. “It really fired up all the Republicans,” she said.
If Cheney loses the usual Wyoming Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin, as polls suggest, she would need something along the lines of 40,000 Democrats and independents to cross over — an insanely high figure in a state where just 115,000 voted in the last midterm GOP primary.
Even these crossover voters, like Patrice Kangas, have moved beyond Tuesday’s outcome and want to know what comes next. As she recounted at the Stagecoach, she waited in line quite awhile to meet Cheney after the Monday event ended and finally asked whether she would run for president.
“Go big?” Kangas said.
“Oh,” Cheney responded, “I don’t know yet.”
Hannah Knowles contributed from Washington
correction
An earlier version of this article misidentified a town council member as James Brooks. His name is James Rooks. This version has been corrected. This story also has been corrected to clarify the circumstances in which anti-Trump donors would provide funding for a Cheney presidential bid.
Opinion | Decoding Liz Cheney’s big hint about the Jan. 6 hearings, John Eastman, and Donald Trump
The suggestion, of course, is that Eastman’s activities were criminal. And the release of that video, which largely featured Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) previewing Thursday’s hearing as committee vice chair, had its desired effect: It built media anticipation for a new set of revelations.
But to really grasp the importance of this, focus on a different quote — one from Cheney. In the video, Cheney reminded us the committee has convincingly demonstrated that Trump was extensively informed he’d lost. Cheney then said Thursday’s hearing will focus on Trump’s relentless pressure on Pence to subvert the electoral count in Congress.
“President Trump had no factual basis for what he was doing, and he had been told it was illegal,” Cheney continued. Despite this, she added, Trump “plotted” with Eastman and others to overturn the election on Jan. 6, 2021.
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A crucial hint there is that Trump had been told this was illegal. This suggests the committee might furnish new evidence that Trump had been warned that such pressure — which constituted an effort to push Pence into violating his official duty — could violate the law.
A source close to Cheney tells me the committee is very likely to present such evidence. When Cheney says such things, the source says, it’s “based on information the committee knows.”
Trump’s pressure on Pence to abuse his role as president of the Senate by delaying the election’s conclusion is the key that unlocks this whole scandal. Eastman concocted a bogus legal justification for Pence to secure this delay, which would allow states to revisit the voting, find it fraudulent and certify sham electors for Trump, overturning his loss.
But also critical is that Trump was told this would be illegal on Pence’s part. What’s more, Trump appears to have been told his pressure on Pence to do that might also be illegal.
What do we know about this part of the story? We know Pence’s counsel drafted a memo forcefully informing Trump that if Pence carried out his scheme, he’d be in violation of the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which governs how Congress counts presidential electors.
Which means Trump was told he was pressing Pence to violate his official duty and to break the law. Yet Trump kept doing so, including on Jan. 6, when he hammered Pence again in a phone call and then whipped up the mob to put still more pressure on Pence to carry out the dirty deed.
On whether Trump was told his act of bringing that pressure might also be illegal, recall that the select committee has obtained relevant texts between Fox News’s Sean Hannity and Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows. In them, Hannity suggested he had inside knowledge of White House conversations about whether Trump’s pressure on Pence was legal.
Hannity even seemed to suggest the whole White House counsel’s office might quit over this. So does the committee have more evidence that Trump or his top advisers were informed pressuring Pence violated the law?
Cheney sure seemed to hint as much. So what laws might be implicated here?
A federal judge recently declared that Trump’s pressure on Pence might have violated two laws. One prohibits obstruction of an official proceeding (the count of electors). The other bars conspiracy to defraud the United States (Trump and Eastman may have conspired to disrupt that count).
If Trump had been told pressuring Pence was illegal, it could buttress the case that Trump violated either of these statutes. It could constitute more evidence that Trump did one or both those things corruptly, says Randall Eliason, a white collar crime specialist.
“Conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct a congressional proceeding require the government to prove corrupt or wrongful intent,” Eliason told me. “This is one more piece.”
In other words, if Trump were informed pressuring Pence had put him on shaky legal ground, yet he continued doing so anyway, it could disarm the argument that Trump simply believed he’d won the election and that he was merely exercising his legal options in response.
Eliason cautioned that this would represent one piece of a broader effort to prove Trump’s corrupt intent throughout. Other pieces include strong evidence that Trump knew he’d lost yet tried to overturn the results anyway, and that Trump pressured the Justice Department to manufacture fake evidence of widespread voter fraud, to create a pretext for the whole scheme.
In this narrative, Eliason said, Trump pressuring Pence would constitute “one of a number of incidents that tend to show his state of mind.”
We still don’t know if Trump or his co-conspirators will ever face a criminal investigation relating to Jan. 6. But Cheney just dropped a big hint about the case the committee will make against both Eastman and Trump. “Get a great effing criminal defense lawyer,” indeed.
Jan. 6 brings Democrats, Cheneys together — with GOP mostly absent
President BidenJoe BidenBiden hopes for big jobs number on Friday Jan. 6 brings Democrats, Cheneys together — with GOP mostly absent Equilibrium/Sustainability — Climate, democracy emergencies indivisible MORE and Democratic lawmakers gathered Thursday in Washington to observe the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, a somber occasion that was essentially boycotted by Republicans, who are wary of any actions that might upset former President Trump
Biden used the stage to deliver a fiery and remarkably personal speech in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall in which he accused Trump in no uncertain terms of orchestrating the insurrection.
“For the first time in our history, a president not just lost the election, he tried to prevent a peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol,” Biden said in what was perhaps his most critical address toward his predecessor so far in his presidency. “We must make sure that never happens again.”
The lopsided partisan nature of the commemoration ceremonies marked a stark contrast to the bipartisan solidarity that followed the last major assault on the nation’s base institutions: the attacks of 9/11.
And it highlighted the degree to which Republicans — from the top ranks of leadership to the bottom rungs of the rank-and-file — are eager to move beyond the insurrection of Jan. 6, when a violent pro-Trump mob, ginned up by the former president, stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s election victory.
The signs of that messaging strategy were everywhere on Thursday.
A typically defiant Trump canceled a news conference about Jan. 6 after pressure from GOP allies, who feared what he might say. Most GOP senators, joined by some Democrats, flew down to Atlanta on Thursday to attend the funeral services for one of their own, beloved former Sen. Johnny Isakson
And only three of the 212 House Republicans were spotted in the Capitol. Two of them were Trump loyalists, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene
The third was Rep. Liz Cheney
“She’s doing a hell of a job,” he said. “I’m here to support it.”
When he served as vice president under George W. Bush, the elder Cheney was a toxic figure in the eyes of Democrats, reviled for his no-holds-barred brand of conservatism and accused of leading the country, under false premises, into a disastrous conflict in Iraq.
But that was then.
On Thursday, Democrats rallied around their former nemesis, making clear that whatever animosities they harbored in the past would be discarded while the sides share a common foe in Trump.
“We were very honored by his being here,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi
The two Cheneys were the only two Republicans in the House chamber on Thursday, when Pelosi and dozens of Democrats returned to the Capitol mid-recess to remember the heroics — and the threat to democracy — surrounding the deadly Capitol siege of one year ago.
The odd alliance — Democrats and Cheneys banding together — highlights the drastic ideological shift undergone in recent years by a Republican Party in which Trump remains the unrivaled kingmaker, and most GOP lawmakers — from leadership on down — are treading cautiously to remain in his good graces for the sake of their own political survival.
Central to that effort has been the widespread Republican embrace of Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” by a broad conspiracy of corrupt state lawmakers, tech companies, foreign adversaries and election officials of both parties who certified the election results as valid — a claim for which no evidence has surfaced.
Leaving the House floor on Thursday, Dick Cheney bashed the current GOP leaders for their fealty to the former president.
“It’s not a leadership that resembles any of the folks I knew when I was here for 10 years,” he said, referring to the decade he served in the House representing Wyoming.
Walking by his side, Liz Cheney was even more harsh in her takedown of those Republicans still advancing Trump’s lie that Biden’s victory was fraudulent — the false narrative that had sparked the attack of Jan. 6 to begin with.
“A party who is enthralled to a cult of personality is a party that is dangerous to the country,” the younger Cheney said. “And I think that we’ve really got to get to a place where we’re focused on substance and on issues.”
The Cheneys held court in the well of the House, where Dick Cheney once served in key GOP leadership posts in the late 1980s. Democrats, including Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Veronica Escobar
“I told him I was proud of his daughter,” McGovern said of Liz Cheney. “We disagree on almost everything but I admire her integrity and her commitment to protecting this democracy. She’s a true statesperson. I mean, she’s somebody who put it all on the line to do what’s right for the country. History will remember her like they remember Margaret Chase Smith.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
“We appreciate the fact that he’s here, supporting his daughter in what is otherwise a very significant minority position in the Republican Party, which is very sad,” Hoyer said.
Democrats, led by Pelosi, filled the entire day with events to commemorate the attack — and to shame Trump and his GOP loyalists in Congress for stoking the violence and failing to take responsibility for their role in it.
Biden and Vice President Harris kicked things off in the same Statuary Hall, where a year ago hundreds of rioters had paraded through before an armed standoff in the House chamber.
Around noon in the Capitol basement, Democratic lawmakers — including Reps. Jason CrowJason CrowJan. 6 brings Democrats, Cheneys together — with GOP mostly absent The Hill’s Morning Report – Presented by Altria – Marking the Jan. 6 ‘chaos and carnage’ Overnight Defense & National Security — Nation marks 1 year since Capitol riot MORE (Colo.), Val Demings
And House Democrats put together an hours-long program that included personal testimonials from lawmakers who survived the attack; a discussion by historians Jon Meacham and Doris Kearns Goodwin about Jan. 6’s place in the nation’s messy history; and a musical number introduced by Lin Manuel Miranda and performed virtually by the cast of “Hamilton.”
“I reflect on that day, being trapped in the [House] gallery, ultimately praying for all of our safety and peace in our nation,” Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), who is close to Biden, told her colleagues. “I also reflect on just how close we came to losing it, to losing our democracy.
“Those of us trapped in the gallery, we lived it. Ducking, crawling, under, over railings, hands knees, the sounds, the smells,” she continued. “We had a front row seat to what lies, hate or plain-old misinformation conjures. We went from victims to witnesses, and today we are messengers.”
Cristina Marcos contributed.
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s, Liz Cheney’s futures in balance as House GOP gathers for crucial meeting Wednesday
House Republicans will gather Wednesday afternoon for a conference meeting that comes as two of its members are in hot water for very different reasons, and they could face threats to their futures in the party.
Debate is expected at the meeting about the standing in the conference of Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. Cheney angered many of her fellow Republicans with a vote to impeach former President Trump, triggering a push by some of the Trump loyalists in the conference to remove her as the conference chair.
And intense focus is on Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., over Greene. The GOP leader Tuesday had his long-awaited, in-person talk with Greene — who’s shown little if any remorse for previously espousing conspiracy theories.
Democrats are moving to potentially strip Greene of her committee assignments if McCarthy doesn’t. That will be a topic of discussion in a separate Rules Committee meeting Wednesday. But some Republicans have alleged a double standard given past anti-Semitic affiliations of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and inciteful words from Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. A group of Republicans moved to strip Omar of her committee assignments Tuesday.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., is under fire for her impeachment vote, and a number of House Republicans are supporting an effort to oust her as the GOP conference chair. (William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images)
GRAHAM BACKS CHENEY AMID ATTACKS OVER HER TRUMP IMPEACHMENT VOTE
Politico reported Wednesday that McCarthy is likely McCarthy will try to work out a deal with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., to get Democrats to back off a vote to remove Greene from committees, which would place House GOP members in a painful political position. If that doesn’t work, McCarthy is leaning toward removing Greene from at least the House Education and Labor Committee on his own, Politico reported — she is also on the Budget Committee.
Responding to that news, Greene said in a tweet: “No matter what @GOPLeader does it would never be enough for the hate America Democrats.”
The movement to remove Cheney as the GOP conference chair is spearheaded by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who traveled to Wyoming last week to hold a political rally against Cheney.
“We are in a battle for the soul of the Republican party and I intend to win it,” Gaetz said. He was joined by phone by Donald Trump Jr., who said “it’s time to have a change at the top.”
Cheney is backed by a number of other members of the conference, however, including Reps. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas; Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y.; Chip Roy, R-Colo.; Tom Cole, R-Okla., and others. She also received tepid support from McCarthy.
But more recently some powerful Senate voices have backed Cheney, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who usually does not insert himself into House affairs.
“Liz Cheney is a leader with deep convictions and the courage to act on them. She is an important leader in our party and in our nation. I am grateful for her service and look forward to continuing to work with her on the crucial issues facing our nation,” McConnell said in a statement Monday.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., grabs the hand of a supporter following a rally against U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021, outside the Wyoming State Capitol in Cheyenne. Gaetz spoke to hundreds, bashing Cheney after she voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and he called for a group effort in finding the right nominee to replace her when she is up for reelection in 2022. (Michael Cummo/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP)
GOP LAWMAKERS SEEK TO REMOVE OMAR FROM COMMITTEES AS DEMS PRESS TO DROP GREENE FROM PANEL
McConnell has made clear his disdain for Trump after the former president’s post-election behavior. But one of the senators who’s been most involved in Trump’s impeachment defense also backed Cheney.
“I believe @RepLizCheney is one of the strongest and most reliable conservative voices in the Republican Party,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said. “She is a fiscal and social conservative, and no one works harder to ensure that our military is well prepared.”
He added: “Liz knows that a strong America is a safe America. She believes we must confront radical Islam and take the fight to them to ensure there are no more 9/11’s. In the eyes of many – Liz Cheney’s experience, leadership, and strength are invaluable to the Republican Party.”
The Republicans who are upset at Cheney over her impeachment vote said that her stance against Trump — who she said “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack” — means she’s out of touch with the majority of the House GOP conference, which is still loyal to the twice-impeached former president.
“When Representative Cheney came out for impeachment today, she failed to consult with the Conference, failed to abide by the spirit of the rules of the Republican Conference, and ignored the preferences of Republican voters,” Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., who was among the first to call for her ouster as conference chair, said. “She is weakening our conference at a key moment for personal political gain and is unfit to lead.”
There’s expected to be major disagreements over what to do about Cheney at the Wednesday conference, who has been working the phones to whip support, multiple sources tell Fox News.
LIVE UPDATES: GRAHAM FOLLOWS MCCONNELL IN DEFENDING CHENEY AFTER HER TRUMP IMPEACHMENT VOTE
They add that Cheney will likely make her case at the meeting but is not expected to apologize for her impeachment vote. Instead, she’s expected to talk about the future of the Republican Party.
Meanwhile, it’s likely there will also be discussion about Greene’s future in the House GOP.
House Republicans have been largely silent on Greene, including and especially the leadership. Asked if any decisions were made at a House GOP Steering Committee meeting Tuesday night, Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., said “No, we’re still going to be working through some things.”
But some Senate Republicans this week, as they threw their support behind Cheney, also condemned Greene, citing past conspiratorial comments.
“Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality,” McConnell said Monday. “This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party.”
Former President Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., meet at Mar-a-lago Thursday.
(Save America PAC)
AS MCCARTHY SEEKS UNITY WITH TRUMP, GAETZ SLAMS CHENEY IN WYOMING AMID SPECULATION OVER PRIMARY CHALLENGES
Senate Republican Conference Chair John Barrasso of Wyoming, who has defended Cheney, on Tuesday compared Greene to former Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who the House GOP stripped of committee assignments over racist statements.
“I think our party has to make it very clear that she does not represent us in any way. Our big tent is not large enough to both accommodate conservatives and kooks,” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, also said.
What likely won’t happen Wednesday is a vote to remove Cheney as the conference chair, which would require a petition that she step down with 20% of the conference — or 43 members — signed on to be submitted at the meeting. Then, it would require a two-thirds vote to suspend the rules — or McCarthy’s support — to get to an up-or-down vote on a resolution that Cheney step down.
Instead, it will probably be a longer process with a petition calling for a special conference meeting to consider such a resolution, with the same requirements, submitted after Wednesday. House conservatives say that they have well over 100 members willing to remove Cheney as conference chair.
If those circulating the petition against Cheney do get the requisite number of signatures, then the petition must be granted within 10 legislative days. At that meeting, the resolution could be either voted on immediately with two-thirds support or with McCarthy’s support, or it would be sent to a committee. That committee would later report the resolution with a favorable or unfavorable recommendation, which could then be passed by a simple majority vote.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) heads to the Senate floor before being called into session on Jan. 26, 2021, in Washington, D.C. McConnell made two unusual forays into House affairs this week with statements supporting Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and condemning Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., as a person “not living in reality.” (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
TRUMP PUSHES POLL SHOWING CHENEY WOUNDED IN WYOMING BY IMPEACHMENT VOTE
The resolution would be that Cheney should step down as the leader of the conference, not to actually remove her, so it would not actually have force. But it is not expected that Cheney would attempt to remain conference chair if the resolution passes.
Trump Jr. indicated at the Thursday rally that those interested in ousting Cheney may take their time in this process, warning that if too many Trump-supporting congressmen run for Cheney’s spot, she could keep her seat with the support of less than half of the conference.
“Let’s find exactly the opposite of her, and let’s back that person fully,” Trump Jr. said at the Gaetz rally. “But let’s not make that decision today. We have some time. Let’s find the right one, let’s not split this vote up and blow our opportunity to get rid of a RINO.”
What Republicans do about Cheney and Greene may also indicate the path it will take in the post-Trump era.
Donald Trump Jr. waits for President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump to arrive and board Air Force One for a final time at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. Trump Jr. last week joined a rally against Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., by phone. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
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Some members still want to hold tightly to the former president, who has indicated that he will fuel primary challenges to any members he sees as insufficiently loyal to him. That fear of a primary challenge, plus Trump’s loyal base, may guide many members’ actions, just as it did during Trump’s presidency.
But others worry that if the GOP accepts Greene while rebuking Cheney, it may keep the Trump base happy at the expense of its morality and any hope of winning moderates in future elections.
“I think we should have nothing to do with Marjorie Taylor Greene, and think we should repudiate the things she said and move away from her,” Romney said.
Fox News’ Kelly Phares, Chad Pergram, Jason Donner, Mike Emanuel and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.