The day after being censored by her state’s Republican Party, Wyoming MP Liz Cheney, the third Republican in the House of Representatives, went to Fox News to defend her impeachment vote for former President Donald Trump – and to argue that the GOP will stray if it doesn’t reject Trump’s kind of policy.
“People have been deceived,” Cheney told Chris Wallace in Fox News Sunday when asked about being censored. “How much the president, President Trump, during the months before January 6, spread the notion that the election had been stolen or that the election was rigged was a lie. And people need to understand that. “
Cheney’s decision to explain her rejection of Trump on a Fox News program suggests that she was not influenced by weeks of intra-party criticism of her vote or attempts to overthrow her from her leadership position – and that she wants to persuade Republican voters that his party faction offers a more authentic and sustainable vision for conservatism.
Cheney was one of only 10 House Republicans who joined Democrats in impeaching Trump on charges of inciting insurrection on the United States Capitol in January. And she has faced the consequences of that vote ever since.
After Trump’s supporters in the party called for him to be removed from the party leadership for turning against Trump, House Republicans held a secret vote on Wednesday on whether she should maintain her No. 3 position among her colleagues.
She easily won the vote to remain in her position from 145 to 61, but the share of votes against her was not trivial and, if the vote had been public, experts say it is quite possible that more lawmakers would oppose her to continue as a leader in order to signal her commitment to Trump to her constituents.
Then, on Saturday, Cheney’s state Republican party passed a censorship resolution by a 56-8 vote. The resolution says the Wyoming Republican Party will not raise money for her to proceed – and asks her to return the state party’s donations. made to her 2020 campaign.
But on Wallace’s show on Sunday, Cheney looked unperturbed and defended his decision to accuse Trump without hesitation.
“Look, I think people across Wyoming understand and recognize that our most important duty is to the Constitution,” said Cheney. “And as I have already explained and will continue to explain to supporters from all over the state, voters from all over the state, the oath I took to the Constitution forced me to vote for impeachment, and does not lean towards partisanship, does not yield to political pressure, the most important oath we take. “
The Wyoming lawmaker said Trump was not only a bad leader for Republicans to embrace, but posed an existential threat to the nation.
“The biggest threat to our republic is a president who puts his own interest above the Constitution, above the national interest,” said Cheney. “And we had a situation where President Trump claimed for months that the election was stolen and apparently started doing everything he could to steal it himself.”
Cheney wants to take the GOP from Trump. It is a difficult climb.
Cheney’s appeal to Fox viewers to stay away from Trump – in which she said she believes the Republican Party was Ronald Reagan’s party, not QAnon – shows that she is committed to fighting for the return of an older version of the party .
The question is whether she can persuade Republican voters – and her fellow legislators – that repudiating Trump is wise for the party after a presidency in which he cultivated extremely devoted followers among the party base.
While polls indicate that most Republicans disapprove of the Capitol riot, Besides that shows that most Republicans don’t think Trump is to blame for the event, and that most Republicans align with Trump’s view that the election was rigged.
For example, a Washington Post-ABC News poll in mid-January found that most Republicans said Trump had no responsibility for the attack and almost half said Republican lawmakers did not go far enough in support of the president’s efforts to reverse election results.
According to the survey, about two-thirds of Republican and Republican-inclined participants thought Trump acted and spoke responsibly after the November 3 election.
And a new ABC-Ipsos poll, conducted February 5-6, revealed that only 15% of Republicans support Trump’s conviction in a Senate impeachment trial and prevent him from running for office again.
In other words, if Cheney expects the Capitol invasion to be a warning to Republicans about the dangers of supporting Trump and his party wing, it seems that those hopes are unfounded.
Pro-Trump lawmakers tried to use Cheney’s views against her as a weapon. In the race to vote Republicans in the House on whether she should maintain her leadership, Florida deputy Matt Gaetz, one of the party’s fiercest pro-Trump voices, held an anti-Cheney rally in his home state and criticized his registration policy .
“Liz Cheney is very much like Congress – deeply unpopular and special-interest,” he said at the rally. “She took more money from PACs than people. It works for them, not for you. “
Other lawmakers also faced strong resistance when voting for Trump’s impeachment. Congressman Peter Meijer – a freshman Republican from Michigan and the only Republican in his first term to resist Trump – faced some angry questions from voters during his first virtual city hall this week.
Meijer said during the event that he believes the majority of Republicans in his district – “perhaps a large majority” – disagree with his decision to vote for impeachment. But in the end he kept his decision.
“What we witnessed on Capitol – the attempted insurrection, the involvement of an incumbent American president propagating the falsehoods that led to it – demanded a significant response,” he said. Several of its constituents allegedly disagreed during the city hall, with some saying they plan to work to remove him from his vote – and a primary challenge to Cheney is also underway.