The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
GOP boots Trump critic Cheney from House post
Republicans dumped GOP Rep. Liz Cheney from her House leadership post Wednesday for her persistent repudiation of Donald Trump’s election falsehoods, underscoring the hold the defeated and twice-impeached former president retains on his party. She defiantly insisted she’ll keep trying to wrench the party away from him and his “destructive lies.”
How it happened
Meeting behind closed doors, GOP lawmakers needed less than 20 minutes and a voice vote to oust the Wyoming congresswoman from her job as their No. 3 House leader. The banishment, urged by Trump and other top Republicans, showed his ability to upend the careers of antagonists, even those from GOP royalty.
Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has repeatedly rebuked Trump for his oft-repeated falsehood that his 2020 reelection was fraudulently stolen from him and for his encouragement of supporters who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6.
On Wednesday she lashed out again. “If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I’m not your person,” she told colleagues before the vote, according to a person who provided her remarks. “You have plenty of others to choose from. That will be their legacy.”
What they’re saying
Just minutes after she accused her fellow Republicans of dishonestly buttressing Trump, House Minority Leader Kevin Mccarthy, R-calif., told reporters at the White House, “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. I think that is all over with.”
Mccarthy spoke a week after Trump released a statement saying, “The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!”
Cheney’s critics say her offense wasn’t her view of Trump but her persistence in publicly expressing it, undermining unity. Several also say GOP voters’ allegiance to Trump means the party’s electoral prospects without him would be dismal.
What’s next for Cheney
Cheney, 54, would seem to have an uphill climb in her quest to redirect the GOP away from Trump.
She’s told Republicans she’s not quitting Congress and will run for reelection, but she will have to survive a near-certain GOP primary challenge from a Trump-recruited opponent. Even if she returns to the House, it is unclear how loud her voice will be inside a party that has all but disowned her.
And though she has establishment lineage and embraces GOP conservative stances, it almost seems the party has evolved out from under her.
Polls show Trump’s hold is deep and wide on the party’s voters. And many of the timetested conservative views she and her father share — including a belief in assertively projecting U.S. military force abroad — have lost ground to Trump’s inward-focused America First agenda.
“What happened today was sad,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-ill., another Trump critic and one of the few Republicans who have publicly defended her. “Liz committed the only sin of being consistent and telling the truth. The truth is that the election was not stolen.”
Hard-right conservatives, among Cheney’s fiercest critics, were exultant.
“Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye Liz Cheney,” tweeted Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina.