Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney continues to represent a marginalized segment of the Republican Party that stands in resistance to Donald Trump and a MAGA movement that has seized control of the 21st century GOP.
Cheney, who was ousted from Congress for her role leading the January 6 Committee — and censured by her own party — recently committed to voting for Democrat Kamala Harris in November.
Cheney, having cast her first presidential vote for Ronald Reagan, has never voted for a Democrat — even voting twice for Trump, her 2020 vote later regretted after Trump inspired a riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 resulting in the deaths and injury of law enforcement officers and rioters. (NOTE: Trump claims he did not stoke the riot.)
In a statement that indicates how far Trump’s conduct has pushed her to get all the way to Harris, Cheney said of her 2020 vote for Trump: “Look, I was never going to support Joe Biden, and I do regret the vote. I think that it was a vote based on policy, based on, sort of, substance and what I know in terms of the kinds of policies he put forward that were good for the country, but that I — I think it is fair to say I regret the vote.”
.@Liz_Cheney: Republicans claim to be a party of ‘law and order.’ Donald Trump does not believe in the rule of law. He will use violence to achieve his own ends. The damage he could do if he is reelected is significant pic.twitter.com/xMWuFsamq4
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 8, 2024
Trump, as Cheney will tell anyone offering her a media platform, is in her view a danger to the Republic.
Cheney also joins Democrats in warning about the power Trump would have in a second term, not only because of the presidential immunity recently conferred by the Roberts Supreme Court, but also because of the autocratic ambitions laid out in Project 2025, believed to be a blueprint for Trump 2.0 despite the nominee’s current efforts to distance himself from the plan.
Cheney also warns that Trump 2.0 contains another factor that is perhaps not being addressed with sufficient urgency. The replacement on the GOP ticket this time around of Mike Pence with the less independent-minded J.D. Vance.
In the video above, Cheney reminds people that law enforcement officers weren’t the only heroes on January 6, but that Vice President Pence was also essential in upholding the law by refusing to do Trump’s bidding when asked not to certify the election results.
Had Pence bowed to Trump’s authoritarian request, denying the will of the voters to “illegally and unconstitutionally throw out votes,” democracy in America would have been fatally wounded that day, Cheney asserts.
Instead the Republic escaped the menacing threat of a President unwilling to peacefully relinquish power, as every President before him had done.
Vance, Cheney reminds listeners, has said that he would have done what Pence did not, which is doubtless part of the reason he was chosen as Trump’s running mate.
Vance has pledged that he “would put Donald Trump’s orders and instructions ahead of the Constitution,” Cheney says, “and it is hard to imagine a much graver danger than a President and a Vice President who will put themselves above the Constitution.”