Calling him a threat to democracy, former GOP representative Liz Cheney said Donald Trump's victory in Iowa should be a wake-up call to Republicans who have so far minimized the former president's reelection bid.
"It's very clear that you can't beat Donald Trump if you don't actually campaign against Donald Trump,” she said of his rivals' lackluster results in Iowa. “I think one of the challenges that we've seen candidates like Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis face was an unwillingness to actually speak the truth about Donald Trump and who he is and what he stands for."
Cheney's role as vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee investigating the former president's attempts to undermine the 2020 election led to her ouster from Republican leadership.
She then lost her 2022 reelection bid as the representative from Wyoming amid a tide of pro-Trump sentiment in her party.
In her recent memoir, titled "Oath and Honor," Cheney paints a scathing portrait of former President Donald Trump.
But she also takes aim at what she calls an "extremist takeover" of the Republican Party.
"If we end up in a situation in January of 2025 where you know, the presidential election is thrown into the House; you can't count on a group of House Republicans at this point to uphold the Constitution."
Cheney singled out House Speaker Mike Johnson for criticism.
“He’s a dangerous player in all of this,” she said. “I think the fact that, just within the last 10 days or so, he’s been unwilling to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, I think it’s important for people to really be focused on as they go to vote, is the extent to which House Republicans are saying that they believe they have the authority to throw out the votes of millions of Americans. That is not the rule of law. That’s tyranny.”
During her speech, part of the Ringling College Library Association Town Hall series, Cheney did not rule out a third party run for president but said after Trump's win Monday night, she is getting closer to making a decision.
The biggest round of applause Tuesday came after Cheney said she was confident Americans would put aside their partisan differences and do “what was necessary to defend freedom.”
