Yahoo Finance Liz Cheney Calls Out GOP As She Faces Ouster For Criticizing Donald Trump: “Remaining Silent And Ignoring The Lie Emboldens The Liar”
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) gave a speech on the House floor Tuesday on the eve of her expected ouster from House Republican leadership, as she vowed to continue to speak out against Donald Trump and his false claims that the election was stolen.
CNN carried Cheney’s six-minute speech live, and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes later did a segment on it.
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“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 said on the floor. “He risks inciting further violence.”
She added: “Millions of Americans have been misled by the former president. They have heard only his words but not the truth.”
Cheney’s pending ouster as House Republican Conference chair is expected in a House Republican members vote sometime on Wednesday. That vote drew extensive coverage on CNN in particular. Earlier in the day, CNN’s Jake Tapper said, “They are purging her because she refuses to lie. We should keep that in mind.”
Fox News stayed with Tucker Carlson, who talked about indicting Dr. Anthony Fauci and later featured Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) talking about why he wasn’t getting the Covid-19 vaccine.
Cheney was among the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, triggered by the then-president’s false claim that the election was stolen from him. She has continued to criticize Trump for his ongoing claims of election fraud.
“This is not about policy. This is not about partisanship,” Cheney said. “This is about our duty as Americans. Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar. I will not participate in that.”
Wednesday’s vote likely will be in private, meaning that correspondents will be relying on sources in the Republican conference gathering for the outcome.
In a letter to House Republican members on Monday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) wrote that a change in leadership of the conference was necessary in advance of the 2022 midterms. But he insisted that the party was a “big tent party.” “We represent Americans of all backgrounds and continue to grow our movement by the day. And unlike the left, we embrace free thought and debate,” he wrote.
Yet even some congressional Republicans said that the effort to oust Cheney was a move to stifle a Trump critic. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) told reporters that “cancel culture is cancel culture no matter how you look at it. Unfortunately, I think there are those that are trying to silence others in the party,” according to The Hill. On Tuesday, some reporters noted that irony in that before Cheney spoke, a number of Republicans took to the floor to rail against “cancel culture,” but did not make the connection to the pending vote on Wednesday to purge Cheney from the GOP leadership.
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