Democracy is at stake if Trump is reelected, Liz Cheney warns in her new book
Republican Liz Cheney has made no secret of her criticism of former President Donald Trump. It's what made her an outcast in her own party and cost her her job in Congress last year.
The former Wyoming representative was one of just 10 Republicans to back his second impeachment in 2021. She became one of two Republicans on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, for which she explicitly blamed Trump.
Cheney's vocal and sustained criticism of the former president led to her losing her leadership role as the No. 3 House Republican and, eventually, her primary campaign for reelection.
Now, with Trump leading the polls in the 2024 Republican primary, Cheney is ramping up her efforts to keep him out of the Oval Office. She tells NPR's Morning Edition she hasn't ruled out her own presidential run in 2024 for that reason.
"I look at it very much through the lens of stopping Donald Trump," she said. "And so whatever it will take to do that is very much my focus. I think the danger is that great that that needs to be everybody's top priority."
This week Cheney releases Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, a no-holds-barred accounting from inside the Republican party of the days before and after Jan. 6, Trump's efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election and her often-lonely role in trying to thwart them.
Cheney name-checks members of GOP leadership too, including former and current House speakers Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson.
Cheney tells Morning Edition's Leila Fadel that the dangers she describes in the book are ongoing, from Trump's defiance of the institutions meant to check him, to the Republican politicians who she says put their own career ambitions ahead of their duty to the Constitution.
"People really, I think, need to understand and recognize the specifics, the details of what he tried to do in terms of overturning the election and seizing power and the details and the specifics of the elected officials who helped him," she said. "I do think it's very important for people to understand how close we came to a far greater constitutional crisis — and how quickly and easily — in a way that is, frankly, terrifying."
Cheney does credit a handful of brave Republicans in state and federal offices from stopping "the worst of what could have happened." But she says many of those people won't be there the next time around. The stakes for the country, she adds, "couldn't be higher."
"All of these things that we know Donald Trump and those who enabled him did before, they will do again," she said. "And people who are willing to abide by that, including Republicans in Congress, can't be trusted with power. And that's something that voters need to have at the forefront of their minds when they go into the voting booth in 2024."
Cheney lays into Republican leaders for their embrace of Trump
Cheney isn't afraid to name names in her book.
Among them: She describes McCarthy, the former speaker, as a coward and hypocrite who knew Trump's election claims to be false but defended them publicly anyway. She calls Johnson, the current speaker, an election denier who was easily swayed by Trump's flattery well before he ascended to House leadership.
She invoked such examples, she says, to show how "it didn't take much for people to decide that they were going to ignore the most fundamental obligation I believe elected officials have."
She says many Republicans — herself included — anticipated Trump would bring legal challenges immediately after the 2020 election and then concede by the time the Electoral College met to certify its results.
Courts across the country dismissed more than 50 lawsuits from Trump's team alleging electoral fraud. Trump and his allies focused on overturning the election results through an elaborate scheme that culminated in the Capitol riot, as detailed by the Jan. 6 committee's investigation and alleged by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., where he faces criminal charges.
Cheney says in the days after Jan. 6 there was "near unanimity in the sense that Donald Trump was responsible for what happened."
Republicans proposed legislation that would have censured Trump, and floated a bipartisan commission to investigate what it called a "domestic terrorist attack."
"It was common sense," she added. "We'd lived through it."
But that near-unanimity began to dissipate very quickly, which she attributes to two factors: elected officials putting their own political ambitions ahead of their oath to the Constitution, and their fear — including of violence.
Cheney writes that some members of Congress told her at the time that they believed Trump should be impeached but couldn't vote that way because they were afraid for their security and that of their family. She urged listeners not to gloss over that fact.
"People really need to stop and think about: What does it mean in America that members of Congress are not voting the way that they believe they should because they fear violence instigated by, then, the sitting president of the United States?" she adds, calling that "a place we haven't been before."
And she says once her colleagues took that position they were able to rationalize it, which helps explain where the party stands now.
"Once you've accepted something that is so indefensible, then it's hard ever to sort of go back and say, 'Well no actually, I should have stood against that.'"
Why the Jan. 6 panel's work matters — and continues
Cheney backed Trump's agenda some 93% of the time during her Congressional career. But says that after Jan. 6, as she saw it, "there never seemed to be a choice."
"It was very clear what was right and what was wrong," she added. "It was very clear that we had gotten to a point where the president had crossed lines that could never be crossed. And as Republicans, we had a particular obligation to say, 'No, we won't support this.'"
In July 2021, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced her picks to serve on the Jan. 6 panel: seven Democrats and Cheney, who, at the time, was still in GOP leadership. After a back-and-forth with McCarthy that led to him rescinding his Republican picks, Pelosi also appointed Adam Kinzinger, a Republican Trump critic who did not seek reelection in 2022.
Cheney says it would have been inconceivable to her a year earlier that she would be accepting a committee appointment from Pelosi, with whom she disagreed vehemently on policy matters. She doesn't recall the two ever speaking more than a few sentences to each other in Cheney's six years in Congress.
But she says she didn't hesitate to accept, and their relationship became "absolutely indispensable" as Pelosi worked to support the committee's efforts.
"As passionately as we both care about our views on a whole range of issues, and they're different, we both knew immediately that that did not matter as much as doing everything we could to defend the Constitution," Cheney said.
All members of the Jan. 6 committee recognized that "partisanship could not rule the day," and that they needed to let the witnesses and the evidence speak for themselves, which is what Cheney believes made it successful.
The committee held ten televised hearings that attracted millions of viewers, culminating in an 800-page report and four criminal referrals of Trump to the U.S. Justice Department.
And while some of the people singled out by the committee as collaborators are facing racketeering charges in Georgia, many others remain in positions of political leadership — and Trump leads the Republican primary pack, despite facing 91 felony counts across four criminal cases.
Cheney says the committee's work was "crucial and indispensable" both in terms of informing the Justice Department's work and presenting evidence of Trump's involvement for the historical record. And she says it's far from over.
"Looking to the future requires that we acknowledge what happened and how dangerous it was and certainly not put those same people back into office again," she added. "Making sure that that story is written and that story's told is very important as we think about, particularly, the election that's coming up next year."
Cheney says stop Trump first, then reform conservative politics
Cheney was a notable figure in conservative politics well before she was elected to represent Wyoming in Congress in 2017. She worked on her father Dick Cheney's campaign when he was George W. Bush's running mate in 2000, and focused on promoting democracy in the Middle East as a State Department aide in Bush's administration.
She says she grew up in Republican politics and believes in the values of the party that former President Ronald Reagan, for example, embodied. But she doesn't recognize them in today's GOP, which she says has become "an anti-constitutional party."
She points to the moment at the first Republican primary debate, when six out of the eight candidates onstage raised their hand to show they would support Trump as the nominee even if he were convicted.
"I think if the party goes down the path of nominating Donald Trump, certainly the party itself will have lost any claim to be a party that is, in fact, supportive of the Constitution," Cheney added.
She says it's a misconception that a second Trump term "wouldn't be that bad" because of the separation of powers and institutions that some have suggested would restrain him.
One of the main messages of her book is that people can't actually count of them to work: a House led by Johnson full of lawmakers who have pledged allegiance to Trump, courts whose rulings Trump has made clear he will ignore, a Senate confirmation process that Trump could avoid, radical far-right figures who he would appoint to his administration.
"Our republic can't sustain that," Cheney said, adding that "the Republican Party, as it exists today, is dangerous to the country."
She says Republican leaders have chosen Trump and can't be counted on to stop him. But she called on the majority of Americans who do not support Trump (63% of Americans viewed him unfavorably as of a July Pew Research Center poll) to mobilize against him at the polls.
"I think the most important thing to do now, without question, is to make sure we stop Donald Trump," Cheney said. "What American politics looks like after that, what the Republican Party — or a new Republican Party or a new conservative party — looks like after that remains to be seen."
The broadcast interview was edited by Reena Advani and produced by Lilly Quiroz.
9(MDAxODcyMTgzMDEyMTgxMTY5NjYxN2I4OQ004))
Transcript
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Liz Cheney is out with a tell-all book, an accounting from inside her party on the days before and after the mob attack on the Capitol on January 6.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We need to hold the doors of the Capitol.
(YELLING)
FADEL: "Oath And Honor: A Memoir And A Warning" is a scathing rebuke of Cheney's former colleagues, who, she writes, knowingly collaborated and enabled former President Trump's lies about the 2020 election results. She writes of former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, who defended Trump's lack of a response to the attack on him and his colleagues on January 6.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KEVIN MCCARTHY: What he ended the call was saying - telling me he'll put something out to make sure to stop this. And that's what he did. He put a video out later.
FADEL: A video of Trump, if you recall, that came hours into the attack. In it, he called the attackers good people. Cheney also writes about then GOP caucus vice chair Mike Johnson, currently the speaker of the House, backing the lie that the election was stolen after U.S. courts and state Republican election leaders all debunked the claim.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIKE JOHNSON: President Trump during his rallies that summer - in all of his speeches, he was saying, hey, watch it. The rules are being changed. You know, he was right.
FADEL: When Johnson asked members to sign an amicus brief in support of throwing out election results in some key states, her colleagues, she wrote, felt pressure to sign. Cheney recalls one saying, the things we do for the orange Jesus. On January 6, when she and her colleagues were attacked for trying to certify the 2020 election results, she thought her party would agree that Trump had threatened this country's democracy. But she was wrong. Months later, she was removed from party leadership because of her stance. Just before her ouster, she gave a defiant speech on the House floor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LIZ CHENEY: The election is over. That is the rule of law. That is our constitutional process.
FADEL: She would go on to lose her House seat to a candidate backed by Trump. She felt compelled to write this book, she says, because the foundations of this country are still at risk.
CHENEY: I thought it was particularly important because the threat that we have faced began really in the time period that I cover in the book is ongoing, and we're now in a situation where it looks like there's a very good chance that Donald Trump could be the Republican nominee, for example. And people really, I think, need to understand and recognize the specifics, the details of what he tried to do in terms of overturning the election and seizing power and the details in the specifics of the elected officials who helped him and - as well as what he would do if he were elected again. And we don't have to guess about that because he has been very clear in terms of being at war with the rule of law.
But in terms of what happened on Capitol Hill, what happened in Congress in the aftermath of the 2020 election, I do think it's very important for people to understand how close we came to a far greater constitutional crisis and how quickly and easily in a way that is, frankly, terrifying, members of Congress who, you know, had seemed reasonable and responsible before the 2020 election, in many cases, how quickly those individuals decided to put their own political survival ahead of their duty to the Constitution. And it's a scary story, but I think it's one that - it's really important. I think people deserve to know what happened from the inside.
FADEL: Now, you don't hold back in this book. You name names. Former speaker Kevin McCarthy comes off as a hypocrite and a coward. You write that he told you Trump knew he'd lost the election. And yet McCarthy repeats these lies and ends up publicly defending the president after the attack on the Capitol. You also write about current speaker Mike Johnson, also an election denier. You say he was easily swayed by flattery from Trump, and you criticize their cowardice, the party's cowardice. Why was it important for you to call out party leadership by name in this moment?
CHENEY: Several reasons. One, you know, with respect to Mike Johnson, when I wrote the book, he was not the speaker of the House. And, you know, I focused very much on the role that he played because it had been such a destructive role even before he ascended to the speakership. And I was very involved and engaged in terms of the debates that we were having about whether or not Republicans should sign on to the Texas amicus brief, for example, or about whether Republicans should be objecting to electoral votes.
And Mike played a particularly destructive role. He claimed to be a constitutional lawyer. He claimed to be somebody who was committed to the rule of law and then time and time again, really did ignore the rulings of the courts and made assertions to our colleagues that were not supported by the facts or by the law or by the Constitution. And the story of the role that he played, I felt, was a very important one to tell, even, you know, before he was in a role of prominence that he is now.
And I think that history really has to be informed by specific individuals and by people understanding that it doesn't take very much, tragically and frankly, in a way that I find heartbreaking. It didn't take much for people to decide that they were going to ignore the most fundamental obligation, I believe, elected officials have.
FADEL: In the beginning of the book and the beginning of this, you are in leadership in your party, and you feel that a lot of your party understands what's at stake with you. But then slowly, that chips away, and at a certain point, you're almost standing alone. Did you have a watershed moment where you realized, the party isn't with me?
CHENEY: After the election, I think there was a period of time where many of us in the party thought, look, there may be legal challenges. Every candidate has the right to do that if they have a basis for it. But certainly by the time the Electoral College meets, Donald Trump will concede; it'll become clear that Joe Biden is obviously going to be the president; and we will all, you know, move forward. And so there were just many moments where I thought that was going to happen, and it didn't. Certainly then, you know, when we got to January 6, then obviously, I talk at length in the book about the lead-up to and that day itself.
But in the aftermath of the 6th, there was near unanimity in the sense that Donald Trump was responsible for what happened. Republicans proposed legislation that would have censured Donald Trump. And the language in that legislation was virtually identical to the article of impeachment. Republicans proposed a bipartisan commission to investigate what had happened, and and the commission that the Republicans proposed was called the Commission to Investigate the Domestic Terrorist Attack on the U.S. Capitol. So it was clear. It was common sense. We'd lived through it. And that near unanimity, though, began to dissipate very quickly.
FADEL: What was it that stripped away that unanimity?
CHENEY: I think it's several things. I think that some of it was certainly just sort of, you know, raw political ambition, that every member of Congress, if you asked them, you know, listen, if you have to choose between the Constitution and your own political survival, every one of them will say, well, of course we will choose the Constitution. But as it turned out, when it came down to it, most of them, or too many of them, didn't. Some of it was fear of violence.
And, you know, I talk in the book about members who told me they believe Donald Trump should be impeached, but they couldn't vote to impeach him because they were afraid for their security, for their families' security. People really need to stop and think about, what does it mean in America that members of Congress are not voting the way that they believe they should because they fear violence instigated by, you know, then the sitting president of the United States? That's a place we haven't been before.
FADEL: What's at stake here for the country?
CHENEY: It couldn't be higher. It really couldn't. And sometimes you hear people say - there was an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal recently where they suggested that even if Donald Trump were elected, it wouldn't be that bad because, of course, we have these institutions, and we have these traditions, and we have the separation of powers and that people could somehow count on that to restrain him. And one of the main messages of my book is, no, you can't. You cannot count on those institutions to restrain him.
You will not be able to count on, you know, a House of Representatives led by Mike Johnson and full of individuals who've already pledged allegiance to Donald Trump. They won't restrain him. United States Senate, you know, with people like Mike Lee, Rand Paul, they won't restrain him. Tommy Tuberville, holding nominations for the most senior positions at the Pentagon. Why is Tommy Tuberville doing that? It's causing great damage to this nation's military readiness. Is he holding those positions open so that Donald Trump can fill them? What's he doing? It's certainly not serving the purposes of the United States of America.
FADEL: The Republican Party is in your blood, right? I mean, the daughter of Dick Cheney, the former vice president. In the book, you describe a lot of towering figures in the Republican Party from the generation before you and your current generation. You still describe yourself as a conservative with these conservative values. But are you a Republican?
CHENEY: I am certainly not a Trump Republican. I think that the Republican Party as it exists today is dangerous to the country. I think that we have to work to rebuild a conservative party. And I don't know whether that means that, you know, the Republican Party, which has gone so far down this path of a cult of personality, whether it can come back or whether we will need to build a new party, another - you know, a party that truly stands for conservative values.
And either way, I think that that is a project that is crucially important, but that won't be completed by 2024. And so I think very much about, what is the most important thing to do now? And I think the most important thing to do now, without question, is to make sure we stop Donald Trump. What American politics looks like after that, what the Republican Party or a new Republican Party or a new conservative party looks like after that remains to be seen.
FADEL: Are you considering a run for the presidency in 2024?
CHENEY: I haven't ruled it out. I look at it, though, very much through the lens of stopping Donald Trump. And so whatever it will take to do that is very much my focus. I think the danger is that great that that needs to be everybody's top priority.
FADEL: Liz Cheney. Her new book, is called "Oath And Honor: A Memoir And A Warning." Thank you so much for your time.
CHENEY: Thank you. Wonderful to be with you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
300x250 Ad
300x250 Ad