House GOP sets Wed. vote to boot Cheney from post

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has informed his Republican members that they will vote Wednesday on whether to remove Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney from leadership, paving the way for Trump-boosting New York Rep. Elise Stefanik to take her place.

Cheney is facing near-certain removal as House GOP Conference chairwoman because of her willingness to rebuke ex-President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, but McCarthy insisted in a Monday letter to colleagues that the forthcoming vote doesn’t erase the fact that “we embrace free thought and debate.”

“We are a big-tent party. We represent Americans of all backgrounds and continue to grow our movement by the day,” the California Republican wrote in the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by the Daily News. “But our leadership team cannot afford to be distracted from the important work we were elected to do and the shared goals we hope to achieve. The stakes are too high to come up short.”

The scheduling of the vote came one day after McCarthy officially endorsed Stefanik’s bid to replace Cheney.

Trump and Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 Republican in the House, threw their weight behind Stefanik already last week, suggesting Cheney’s highly unlikely to hold on to her No. 3 post.

McCarthy, the top House Republican, suggested in his letter that hunger for Cheney’s ouster is widespread in the party.

“Having heard from so many of you in recent days, it’s clear that we need to make a change,” he wrote. “As such, you should anticipate a vote on recalling the conference chair this Wednesday.”

The vote will take place behind closed doors. Ballots will be cast confidentially by the House GOP’s 212 members, and a two-thirds majority is likely required for Cheney to be removed.

If the caucus votes to strip Cheney of her post, Stefanik is expected to be easily nominated as her replacement.

Unlike Cheney, Stefanik is a diehard Trump loyalist who has amplified his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged and supported his attempts to subvert President Biden’s victory.

Stefanik, who represents a chunk of upstate New York spanning from Albany to the Canadian border, was elected in 2014 on a moderate platform, but after Trump took office, she underwent a political transformation and centered her agenda around loyalty to the ex-president.