Cheney clings to GOP post as Trump endorses replacement
WASHINGTON — No. 3 House Republican Liz Cheney was clinging to her post Wednesday as party leaders lined up behind an heir apparent, signaling that fallout over her clashes with former President Donald Trump was becoming too much for her to overcome.
Unbowed,she implored her GOP colleagues to pry themselves from a Trump “cult of personality,” declaring that the party and even American democracy were at stake. “History is watching,” she said.
Mr. Trump issued a statement giving his “COMPLETE and TOTAL Endorsement” to Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York to replace Ms. Cheney. Ms. Stefanik, a 36-year-old Trump loyalist who has played an increasingly visible role within the GOP, responded, highlighting his backingto colleagues who will decide her political future.
“Thank you President Trump for your 100% support for House GOP Conference Chair. We are unified and focused on FIRING PELOSI & WINNING in 2022!” she tweeted.
The day left the careers of Ms. Cheney and Ms. Stefanik seemingly racing in opposite directions, as if to contrast the fates awaiting Trump critics and backers in today’s GOP.
The turmoil also raised questions about whether the price for political survival in the party entails standing by a former president who keeps up his false narrative about a fraudulent 2020 election and whose supporters stormed the Capitol just four months ago in an attempt to disrupt the formal certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
Ms. Cheney showed no signs of backing off in an opinion essay posted Wednesday by The Washington Post.
She denounced the “dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality,” and warned Republicans against embracing his statements “for fundraising and political purposes.”
She said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, RCalif., has “changed his story” after initially saying Mr. Trump “bears responsibility” for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Mr. McCarthy, who is tacitly backing the drive to oust her, has since said Mr. Trump issued a video to try halting the violence.
Ms. Cheney, in her article, agreed with Democrats that a bipartisan investigation should focus solely on the riot and not on disturbances at some of last summer’s racial justice protests. In an apparent reference to her own situation, she said she would defend “basic principles” of democracy, “no matter what the short-term political consequences might be.”
Dozens of state and local officials and judges from both parties have found no evidence to support Mr. Trump’s assertions that he was cheated out of an election victory.
President Joe Biden told reporters at the White House that the GOP is in the throes of a “significant sort of mini revolution.”
He added, “I think Republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than I thought they would be at this point.”
Ms. Cheney, a daughter of DickCheney, who was George W. Bush’s vice president and before that a Wyoming congressman, seemed to have almost unlimited potential until this year. Her career began listing after she was among just 10 House Republicans to back Mr. Trump’s impeachment for inciting supporters to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, when five died.
Combined with a morning endorsement from No. 2 House Republican leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and tacit backing from Mr. McCarthy, the momentum behind Ms. Stefanik’s ascension was beginning to seem unstoppable.
Ms. Stefanik, who represents a mammoth upstate New York district, began her House career in 2015 as a moderate Republican.
She spoke out against Mr. Trump’s ban on immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries and joined Democrats in voting against his effort to unilaterally redirect money to building a wall along the Southwest border. She led an effort to recruit female candidates for her party.
She morphed into a stalwart Trump defender and was given a high-profile role during the 2019 House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings.