Tom Williams/Getty
After losing reelection in Wyoming this week, Rep. Liz Cheney has set her sights on a new target: keeping “election deniers” out of office, starting with former president Donald Trump.
In a wide-ranging interview with ABC’s This Week aired on Sunday morning, Cheney told host Jonathan Karl about her plans to start a political organization tasked with preventing a second Trump presidency and opposing other candidates who support his “Big Lie” about the 2020 election.
“I’m going to be very focused on working to ensure that we do everything we can not to elect election deniers,” Cheney said. “And I’m going to work against those people. I’m going to work to support their opponents. I think it matters that much.” She told Karl that some of those targets may include her Republican colleagues in Congress.
After her primary defeat, GOP Rep. Liz Cheney tells @jonkarl that she will focus on working to keep election deniers out of office.
“I’m going to work against those people, I'm going to work to support their opponents. I think it matters that much.” https://t.co/ztgdHLNV99 pic.twitter.com/cHDGCmvihJ
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) August 21, 2022
She also revealed that it would be “very difficult” for her to support a Trump-aligned presidential candidate in 2024. In Cheney’s eyes, Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, both of whom have taken action to overturn the election results, have “made themselves unfit for future office.” And when asked about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another potential challenger to Trump, Cheney said, “DeSantis is somebody who is right now campaigning for election deniers. And I think that is something that people have got to have real pause about. Either you fundamentally believe in and will support our constitutional structure, or you don’t.”
GOP Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz have “made themselves unfit for future office,” Rep. Liz Cheney tells @jonkarl.
“Both of whom took steps that fundamentally threatened the constitutional order and structure in the aftermath of the last election.” https://t.co/WlcxJ7QWDh pic.twitter.com/jhb113MNpg
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) August 21, 2022
Election denial is “dangerous broadly speaking,” Cheney said, and Trump, as the leader of the movement, is the “center of the threat.” After January 6, she said, “There’s just simply no way that the nation can, in my view, sustain itself if we excuse that and put him in a position of power again.” (As my colleague Tim Murphy writes, it should be noted that Cheney endorsed Trump in 2016 and 2020.)
In the near future, in her role as vice chair of the House January 6 committee, Cheney plans to use much of her remaining tenure in Congress to educate Americans about the aftermath of the 2020 election. “I think it’s really important for people really across the political spectrum of all ages to understand and recognize why what happened after the last election can never happen again,” she said.
