Liz Cheney may run for US president to stop Trump
Republican says she won't stop fighting after losing House seat to supporter of former president
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JACKSON (Wyoming) • Republican Representative Liz Cheney has called on Americans to unite across party lines to keep Mr Donald Trump from winning the White House again following her crushing defeat to a primary challenger backed by the former president.
Ms Cheney, 56, who has served three terms in Wyoming's sole United States House seat, yesterday vowed to do whatever it takes to block Mr Trump's path after losing to conservative lawyer Harriet Hageman in Tuesday's Republican primary race.
Ms Cheney told NBC early yesterday that she was "thinking about" a 2024 presidential run as she launched a new political organisation called The Great Task, a nod to president Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg address.
"That's a decision that I'm going to make in the coming months," she said. "It is something that I'm thinking about," said Ms Cheney, the daughter of Republican former vice-president Dick Cheney.
In acknowledging defeat on Tuesday, Ms Cheney warned that the Jan 6 US Capitol insurrection last year and the refusal of Mr Trump and other Republican leaders to tamp down the rage behind it put the nation at risk.
"Our nation is barrelling once again towards a crisis of lawlessness and violence," she said, putting the blame squarely on Mr Trump.
"I have said since Jan 6 that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office and I mean it."
In addition to her new political action committee, Ms Cheney will have a public forum for her campaign against Mr Trump as vice-chair of the committee investigating the former president's role in the Capitol insurrection until she leaves Congress in January.
Ms Cheney lost by more than 30 percentage points to Ms Hageman, a natural resources lawyer, who has embraced Mr Trump's election claims.
The ousting of Ms Cheney is the latest sign of Mr Trump's enduring sway over the Republican Party.
Mr Trump, who has hinted that he will run for president in 2024, made ending Ms Cheney's congressional career a priority among the 10 House Republicans he targeted for supporting his impeachment last year.
The former president called Ms Hageman's victory a "complete rebuke" of the Jan 6 investigative committee and a "wonderful result for America" in a posting on his Truth Social website.
Ms Cheney yesterday also spoke critically of Republicans loyal to Mr Trump and who have rejected the legitimacy of President Joe Biden's victory in 2020.
She warned her party against embracing Mr Trump's "cult of personality" and said the country needed leaders who stood by their oath "whether or not it's politically convenient".
"Kevin McCarthy does not fit that bill," she said, referring to the House Republican leader.
Asked by NBC if the country was better off with Democrats in charge, Ms Cheney avoided directly endorsing Democratic leadership in Washington.
"I think we have to make sure that we are fighting against every single election denier," she said. "The election deniers, right now, are Republicans. And I think that it shouldn't matter what party you are. Nobody should be voting for those people, supporting them or backing them."
In conceding the race, Ms Cheney said she was not willing to "go along with president Trump's lie about the 2020 election" to win a primary race.
She said: "It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take."
Republican leaders are expected to dissolve the Jan 6 investigation if they win control of the House of Representatives in November. The representatives in the new Congress take their seats in January.
BLOOMBERG, NYTIMES, REUTERS
The ousting of Ms Cheney is the latest sign of Mr Trump's enduring sway over the Republican Party. Mr Trump, who has hinted that he will run for president in 2024, made ending Ms Cheney's congressional career a priority among the 10 House Republicans he targeted for supporting his impeachment last year.
