Liz Cheney: If GOP Picks Trump, I'll Leave Party

Republican says she'll campaign for some Democrats to defeat election deniers
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 25, 2022 10:35 AM CDT
Cheney Says What Would Drive Her From Party
Republican Rep. Liz Cheney speaks last month in Jackson, Wyo.   (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

She plans to campaign for some Democrats, but for now, Rep. Liz Cheney remains a Republican. That will change, CNN reports, if the party nominates former President Donald Trump to run for president in 2024. "I'm going to do everything I can to make sure he is not the nominee," Cheney said Saturday. "And if he is the nominee, I won't be a Republican." Cheney made the statement in remarks at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin. She wouldn't say whether she'd enter the race herself.

The Republican Party has not exactly embraced Cheney since she began working against Trump. She was kicked out of the House GOP leadership last year and lost her Wyoming primary last month to Trump's candidate, Harriet Hageman. Cheney criticized Trump on Saturday in discussing her work as vice chair of the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. "While leaders in Congress were begging him, 'Please, tell the mob to go home,' Donald Trump wouldn't," Cheney said, per Axios. "And just set the politics aside for a minute and think to yourself, 'What kind of human being does that?'"

Cheney said she'll also work to keep Republicans who spread election lies out of office, an effort that will include campaigning for Democrats in some cases. One such Republican, Cheney said, is Kari Lake, a Trump supporter who's the nominee for governor of Arizona. "I'm going to do everything I can to make sure Kari Lake is not elected," Cheney said Saturday. She hasn't changed positions on other issues, saying the Biden administration has many "bad policies." And Cheney didn't go so far as to call for the Democrats keeping control of the House. But she added that it's important that voters "recognize and understand what the Republican Conference consists of in the House of Representatives today." (More Liz Cheney stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X