House Republicans on Wednesday eliminated Rep. Liz Cheney from her get together management position after she urged the GOP to reject former President Donald Trump.
But Cheney remained defiant, vowing to proceed the combat in opposition to Trump.
“I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” Cheney informed reporters after she was ousted as House GOP convention chair throughout a closed-door assembly.
“The party is in a place that we’ve got to bring it back from,” she mentioned. “We cannot be dragged backward by the very dangerous lies of a former president.”
Cheney delivered one last pitch to her colleagues on the prime of the assembly, which started round 9 a.m. ET and lasted roughly 20 minutes.
US Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, speaks to the media on the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on May 12, 2021.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
“We cannot let the former president drag us backward and make us complicit in his efforts to unravel our democracy,” Cheney mentioned, NBC News reported. “Down that path lies our destruction, and potentially the destruction of our country.”
“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 mentioned.
“But I promise you this, after today, I will be leading the fight to restore our party and our nation to conservative principles, to defeating socialism, to defending our republic, to making the GOP worthy again of being the party of Lincoln,” Cheney mentioned.
In a press release following the GOP convention’s voice vote, Trump applauded Cheney’s removing with a sequence of private insults in opposition to the Wyoming lawmaker.
The showdown got here days after two different top-ranking House Republicans, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, mentioned they had been by means of with Cheney as House GOP convention chair.
They and Trump have endorsed Rep. Elise Stefanik, a fourth-term New York congresswoman who gained nationwide consideration in 2019 for forcefully defending Trump throughout his first impeachment trial.
A vote for the brand new convention chair might be held Friday, McCarthy mentioned on the finish of Wednesday’s assembly, NBC reported.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., arrives for the House Republican Conference assembly the place she is anticipated to be voted in to interchange Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., as chair of the House Republicans Conference within the Capitol on Wednesday, May 12, 2021.
Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
The push to swap the staunchly conservative and politically deep-rooted Cheney with the Trump-supporting Stefanik affords a stark instance of the GOP’s shift towards a agency realignment behind the previous president with the 2022 midterm congressional elections developing.
Cheney, one in every of simply 10 Republicans to vote to question Trump on the cost of inciting the lethal Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol, survived a previous try in February to oust her. At that point, the Wyoming Republican had the backing of her fellow House leaders.
To their chagrin, Cheney within the three months since has continued to bash Trump for spreading the lie that the 2020 election was rigged in opposition to him.
In doing so, Cheney, who was the No. 3 Republican within the House, set herself other than almost the remainder of her convention, which within the wake of Trump’s loss has grown solely extra dedicated to preserving the ex-president’s standing as its chief.
Trump by no means conceded the 2020 election to President Joe Biden and nonetheless falsely claims he gained the race — although his attain was restricted after a number of social media firms banned him from their platforms within the wake of the Jan. 6 rebellion.
There isn’t any proof of widespread voter fraud. William Barr, Trump’s legal professional basic on the time, mentioned the Department of Justice discovered no proof of fraud that may reverse Biden’s victory. But public opinion polling suggests giant swaths of Trump’s supporters nonetheless imagine unlawful voting or fraud modified the result of the race.
Some Republicans, together with McCarthy and Scalise, have urged Cheney’s refusal to again down on Trump creates a distraction that hurts the GOP’s objective of profitable again the House in 2022.
Republican Conference Chairman Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) speaks throughout a press convention with House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) (R) and Republican Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) on the US Capitol on December 17, 2019 in Washington, DC.
Samuel Corum | Getty Images
“Each day spent relitigating the past is one day less we have to seize the future,” McCarthy mentioned Tuesday in a letter that didn’t point out Cheney by identify.
But Cheney, in a searing speech on the House flooring Tuesday evening and in an op-ed final week, argued that confronting Trump’s election lies is virtually a patriotic obligation.
‘Ignoring the lie emboldens the liar’
Cheney has vowed to maintain up the combat in opposition to Trump’s “Big Lie” even when she is booted from management. On the eve of the anticipated vote to oust her, Cheney appeared to get a head begin, taking to the ground of the House to make her case.
“Today we face a threat America has never seen before: A former president who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol, in an effort to steal the election, has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him,” Cheney mentioned.
Trump “risks inciting further violence,” she mentioned, and he “continues to undermine our democratic process, sowing seeds of doubt about whether democracy really works at all.”
She famous that after dozens of court docket challenges and official investigations, no widespread election fraud was found.
“The election is over,” Cheney mentioned. “Those who refuse to accept the rulings of our courts are at war with the Constitution.”
“Our duty is clear: Every one of us who has sworn the oath must act to prevent the unraveling of our democracy,” she mentioned. “This is not about policy, this is not about partisanship. This is about our duty as Americans.”
“Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar.”
“I will not participate in that,” Cheney added. “I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president’s crusade to undermine our democracy.”
Trump’s position
After the 2020 election cycle, Republicans misplaced management of the White House and the Senate. But a lot of the get together nonetheless sees Trump as its largest draw.
“He’s the most popular Republican in the country by a lot. If you try to drive him out of the Republican Party, half the people will leave,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a dedicated Trump ally, mentioned Tuesday on Fox News.
“So it doesn’t mean you can’t criticize the president, it means the Republican Party cannot go forward without President Trump being part of it,” Graham mentioned.
While Cheney was ousted behind closed doorways, the intraparty row over her views has been aired in broad daylight — resulting in some uncommon political optics, comparable to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer praising Cheney for talking “truth to power.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in a press release Wednesday known as Cheney “a leader of great courage, patriotism and integrity.”
“Today, House Republicans declared that those values are unwelcome in the Republican party,” Pelosi mentioned.
The Biden administration has largely steered away from the combat. “We will leave that to them to work out among themselves,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki mentioned Tuesday when requested in regards to the GOP energy wrestle.
But requested about it straight final week, Biden mentioned the GOP appears prefer it’s going by means of a “sort of mini-revolution.”
“We badly need a Republican Party. We need a two-party system. It’s not healthy to have a one-party system,” Biden mentioned on the White House. “And I think the 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.”
McCarthy and different Republicans are scheduled to go to the White House later this week to debate the administration’s financial funding plans.
