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The falsehood that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump has become the justification for voter-suppression laws in Republican-controlled states across the country. A majority of Republicans voted against certifying the election even after the Capitol riot; fully 60 percent of Republicans believe that the election was stolen. What we’ve seen is a result of the leadership decisions that Kevin McCarthy made back after the 2020 election and certainly after January 6. Looking the other way in the face of the kind of assault on our democracy that we’ve seen from Donald Trump and his allies in the house, including Jim Jordan. Elevating those members, frankly, some of whom are white supremacists.
'It's Really Dangerous': Liz Cheney Blames Kevin McCarthy For House GOP Chaos
Former Vice President Mike Pence also testified in Smith’s investigation. The lawmaker stressed the work of the Jan. 6 House select committee, which released in 2022 a scathing report of Trump’s behavior, relied on testimony from dozens of Republicans who worked in the White House. She occasionally clashed with Trump during his presidency over issues like the U.S. withdrawal from Syria. But virtually open warfare between the two commenced in January once she became one of 10 House Republicans to back his second impeachment for inciting his supporters’ deadly Capitol assault. Stefanik owns a more moderate voting record than Cheney but has evolved into a vigorous Trump defender who’s echoed some of his claims about widespread election cheating.
Liz Cheney says House GOP chaos is "direct result" of Kevin McCarthy-Donald Trump alliance
To their chagrin, Cheney in the three months since has continued to bash Trump for spreading the lie that the 2020 election was rigged against him. They and Trump have endorsed Rep. Elise Stefanik, a fourth-term New York congresswoman who gained national attention in 2019 for forcefully defending Trump during his first impeachment trial. "If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I'm not your person, you have plenty of others to choose from. That will be their legacy," she said.
House GOP ousts Trump critic Liz Cheney from leadership post
“It is of imperative public importance that respondent’s claims of immunity be resolved by this Court and that respondent’s trial proceed as promptly as possible if his claim of immunity is rejected,” Smith and his team wrote the court in December. If the Supreme Court takes its time in handing down a ruling on Donald Trump’s demand for absolute immunity for insurrection-related crimes, voters may not know whether Trump is a convicted criminal before deciding whether to elect him to the most powerful position in the world. She occasionally disagreed with Trump during his presidency over issues like the U.S. withdrawal from Syria and his attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci over the pandemic. But her career hit turbulence in January once she became one of 10 House Republicans to back his second impeachment for inciting his supporters’ deadly Capitol assault. Liz Cheney, the representative of Wyoming, the daughter of a former vice president, and a lifelong conservative Republican, is facing a purge.
"So it's not a surprise that we are where we are, but it's a disgrace, and it's an embarrassment." House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., was floated as the top pick to replace McCarthy, but he withdrew his nomination within a few days of his consideration. "I think what you're seeing right now and among the Republicans in the House is a direct result of the decisions that Kevin McCarthy made to embrace Donald Trump, to embrace the most radical and extreme members of our party, to elevate them," Cheney said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming blamed the ties between ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and former President Trump for the House's disarray as the chamber struggles to elect a new speaker.
The House voted to oust McCarthy earlier this month after Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., introduced a motion to vacate, accusing McCarthy of breaking the promises he made to win the speaker's gavel in January. The former rep's comments came on "Face the Nation" as President Biden requested Friday that Congress approve a $105 billion emergency supplemental package to aid Israel, Gaza and Ukraine, and requested to speed up asylum processing at the southern border. Cheney also said the next speaker should not waiver in their support for Ukraine. “That’s why he is doing everything possible to try to delay his Jan. 6 federal criminal trial until after the November election,” she added.
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Republican Rep. Ken Buck was the only member watching Cheney speak in person. The way it's supposed to work is that the House GOP Conference chair "generally communicates the House Republican message to the public," according to the House GOP website. Despite her feud with Trump, House Republicans overwhelmingly voted in early February to keep Cheney as the No. 3 House Republican. I have tremendous affection and admiration for many of you in this room.
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As I have written in the past, the belief that the 2020 election was stolen, like the claim that former President Barack Obama was not born in America, is not amenable to fact-checking. The assertion of fraud is an ideological statement that political opposition to the Republican Party in general, and to Donald Trump in particular, is illegitimate. Even if Joe Biden got more votes, this logic holds, those votes should not count, because the people who cast them are not Real Americans the way Trump supporters are. To oppose Trump is to be The Enemy, and to be The Enemy is to surrender any claim to fundamental political rights.
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Liz Cheney trashes House Republicans, Kevin McCarthy for 'elevating' members who are 'white supremacists' and 'antisemitic' - New York Post
Liz Cheney trashes House Republicans, Kevin McCarthy for 'elevating' members who are 'white supremacists' and 'antisemitic'.
Posted: Sun, 22 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Not until the mob ransacked the Capitol in January, it seems, did she begin to understand that millions of Americans believe the things their leaders tell them. William Barr, Trump's attorney general at the time, said the Department of Justice found no evidence of fraud that would reverse Biden's victory. But public opinion polling suggests large swaths of Trump's supporters still believe illegal voting or fraud changed the outcome of the race. The vote to remove him came as part of a far-right revolt within the House, as more extreme members of the GOP stood against McCarthy's reliance on Democrats to pass a funding bill to avoid a then-looming government shutdown.
Cheney’s McCarthyite campaign against the Justice Department lawyers was blunted when a group of former Republican officials, including Ken Starr and Theodore Olson, released a letter chastising Cheney. Starr described the attorneys’ work as being “in the finest tradition of the profession.” John Adams, the second president of the United States, the letter pointed out, had famously represented the British soldiers in the Boston Massacre. In effect, those Justice Department officials did what Cheney is attempting to do now—defend fundamental democratic rights from the cynical authoritarianism of shortsighted political partisans. The conflict here does not stem from Cheney’s refusal to move on from the lies that sparked the Capitol riot, but from the fact that the Republican Party has embraced those lies as foundational to Republican identity in 2021.
And though she has establishment lineage and embraces classical GOP conservative stances, it almost seems the party has evolved out from under her. Mr. Kennerly, who worked for United Press International and had been a board member since the early 2000s, nominated Ms. Cheney for the medal last year and said that he had urged the foundation’s executive committee to reconsider her this year. Cheney went on to lament the threats made against Jordan’s holdouts and how they’ve been ignored by Jordan’s allies. In her op-ed, Cheney argued that while Smith reached the same conclusions as the House Jan. 6 committee, much of the indictment is based on a “separate and independent investigation” with new information and evidence. Cheney was first elected to Wyoming's sole House seat in 2016 but lost the GOP primary in 2022 to now-Rep. According to Cheney, Johnson "was acting in ways that he knew to be wrong" when he sought to convince fellow House Republicans to sign an amicus brief for one of the lawsuits Trump filed questioning the 2020 election.
Cheney arrived in Congress in 2017, and by November 2018 was elected to her leadership job unopposed. Her career path seemed to potentially include runs at becoming speaker, senator or even president. “You can’t have a conference chair who recites Democrat talking points,” said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a conservative leader using the formal title for Cheney’s former post. And many of the time-tested 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. Cheney’s critics say her offense wasn’t her view of Trump but her persistence in publicly expressing it, undermining the unity they want party leaders to display in advance of next year’s elections, when they hope to win House control.
Rep. Jim Jordan on Friday became the latest to exit the race, prompting a crowded candidate field to seek the speakership. Washington (CNN) — Republican former Liz Cheney on Sunday tied the “dangerous” House GOP chaos to former President Donald Trump’s behavior and the Republicans supporting him. It was initially unclear when the separate vote on Cheney’s replacement would occur. She was Congress’ highest-ranking Republican woman, a daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and her removal marked a jarring turnabout to what’s been her fast rise within the party. The representative from Wyoming is taking a stand against an authoritarian streak in the Republican Party that she helped cultivate. The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support.
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York, who has enthusiastically endorsed Trump’s claims, likely will be elected to replace Cheney as party conference chair. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy announced his support for Stefanik during a recent interview on U.S. cable network Fox News. Today, House Republicans declared that those values are unwelcome in the Republican party."
"One of them told me that in response, Congressman [Warren] Davidson said, 'Well, that's not Jim Jordan's fault. That's your fault for voting against him,'" Cheney said. "That is the kind of encouragement and acceptance of violence that is absolutely has no place in this party, should have no place in our country." But Cheney has indicated that she is not done with politics, and rumors have been swirling that she could potentially enter the race for the Republican nomination for president. The House has been without a speaker since Oct. 3, when McCarthy was ousted in a historic vote, the first time in history a speaker has been removed in a vote. The party first nominated Majority Leader Steve Scalise to succeed McCarthy, but within days, Scalise withdrew his name from consideration.
Frustrations and divisions have only intensified within the conference as Republicans search for a way to resolve the impasse. That, along with the GOP’s narrow majority, has made it increasingly unclear whether any candidate will be able to secure the 217 votes needed to win the gavel on the House floor. Stefanik also arrived in Congress with sterling GOP establishment credentials. A Harvard graduate, she worked in President George W. Bush’s White House and for the campaign of the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, Wisconsin Rep. and later Speaker Paul Ryan. Even so, stripping Cheney, 54, of her leadership job stood as a striking, perhaps defining moment for the GOP.
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