Liz Cheney Speaks on 2024 Buzz

In admitting defeat in her Wyoming primary on Tuesday night, Rep. Liz Cheney appeared to be setting her sights beyond. "The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all," the Republican said. "Lincoln ultimately prevailed. He saved our Union, and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history." She's considering a similar path for herself, she told Today on Wednesday. A run for president "is something I'm thinking about, and I'll make a decision in the coming months," the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney said.

"I believe that Donald Trump continues to pose a very grave threat—a risk to our republic, and I think defeating him is going to require a broad and united front of Republicans, Democrats, and independents, and that's what I intend to be a part of," Cheney added. Over the next several months, including through her work on the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, "I'm going to make sure people all around this country understand the stakes of what we're facing," she told Today. The Republican party "has really become a cult of personality," but it needs to return "to a place where we're embracing the values and principles on which it was founded."

Cheney converted her campaign finance committee to a leadership PAC called The Great Task early Wednesday, per Insider. It's "a signal that her role in politics is hardly over," per the Washington Post. But Philip Elliott at Time argues the "prospects that she may have a second act as a legitimate primary challenge to Trump in 2024 are far overblown." Though Cheney "has a lot going for [her] as a contender for her party's nomination in two years" and "could wipe the floor with any Trump acolyte on policy and history without breaking a sweat," it's hard to imagine how her future "could include successfully swaying many Republican primary voters, not after building a national brand around opposing the most popular figure in their party." (More Liz Cheney stories.)