WASHINGTON — Rep. Liz Cheney said former President Donald Trump’s role in her ouster was “dangerous” and that she’ll do all she can to prevent a second Trump term.
“We have to recognize what it means for the nation to have a former president who has not conceded and who continues to suggest that our electoral system cannot function,” Cheney said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
“That kind of questioning about our process, frankly, it’s the same kinds of things that the Chinese Communist Party says about democracy: that it’s a failed system, that America is a failed nation.”
House Republicans ousted Cheney as the party’s No. 3 leader last week, replacing her with Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who had Trump’s backing.
Stefanik, 36, was first elected to the House in 2014 as a moderate and emerged as one of Trump’s most prominent defenders during his first impeachment. She was selected on a 134-46 vote at a closed-door meeting of GOP House members.
Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, represents Wyoming and remains in the House. She was among 10 House Republicans who voted with Democrats in January to impeach Trump a second time.
Before challenging the former president’s assertions about fraud in the 2020 presidential election and blaming him for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Cheney had clashed with Trump on such topics as foreign affairs — although she voted for his reelection. He’s repeatedly called her a “war-monger.”
While Cheney said she’ll “do everything that I can” to make sure Trump isn’t the 2024 Republican nominee, she dodged on Sunday when asked if she might make her own run for president, or if she’d leave the GOP if he were nominated.
