{"id":63541,"date":"2021-05-03T21:21:11","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T01:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=63541"},"modified":"2021-05-03T21:21:11","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T01:21:11","slug":"traitorous-rino-liz-cheney-will-be-out-of-house-leadership-by-the-end-of-may-good-riddance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=63541","title":{"rendered":"Traitorous RINO Liz Cheney Will Be Out of House Leadership by the End of May—GOOD RIDDANCE!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Allies of GOP leader vow to oust Liz Cheney<\/strong><\/h1>\n

BY SCOTT WONG AND MIKE LILLIS
\nThe Hill<\/p>\n

Top allies of House Minority Leader\u00a0Kevin McCarthy<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Calif.) are vowing to oust Rep.\u00a0Liz Cheney<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Wyo.), one of the harshest critics of former\u00a0President Trump<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in either party, from her leadership post by the end of the month.<\/p>\n

They argue that the No. 3 Republican has repeatedly contradicted McCarthy and his team, undermining the party\u2019s message and its efforts to take back the House majority in next year\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no way that Liz will be conference chair by month\u2019s end,\u201d one key McCarthy ally told The Hill on Monday. \u201cWhen there is a vote, it won\u2019t be a long conference; it will be fast. Everyone knows the outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

The developments suggest it is not just members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who are pushing to get rid of Cheney; senior lawmakers in the 154-member Republican Study Committee, the largest GOP caucus on Capitol Hill, have been openly critical of Cheney and are now trying to orchestrate her removal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a broad range of lawmakers who have had it with her,\u201d said a second McCarthy ally. \u201cShe\u2019s a liability, and McCarthy\u2019s as fed up as the rest of us that she is focused on the past rather than winning back the House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheney, the GOP conference chairwoman who\u2019s tasked with overseeing party messaging, has defended her against-the-grain approach, saying she\u2019s simply trying to tug the party away from its veneration of a single figure and back to its pre-Trump policy ideals. Part of that responsibility, she says, is calling out Trump and his loyal foot soldiers for claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 2020 presidential election was not stolen,\u201d Cheney tweeted on Monday. \u201cAnyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheney\u2019s tweet was in response to a new statement from Trump, who has clung to the narrative that the election was rigged against him, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary. On Monday, he issued a one-sentence statement amplifying the false notion that his defeat was the result of rampant voter fraud.<\/p>\n

“The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!” Trump said.<\/p>\n

Trump fired back at Cheney on Monday with a statement saying: “Heartwarming to read new polls on big-shot warmonger Liz Cheney of the great State of Wyoming. She is so low that her only chance would be if vast numbers of people run against her which, hopefully, won\u2019t happen. They never liked her much, but I say she\u2019ll never run in a Wyoming election again!”<\/p>\n

The internal acrimony reflects the extraordinary sway that Trump holds over the party even after his election defeat. Although cloistered at his Florida resort and banned from Twitter, the former president remains enormously popular among the GOP\u2019s conservative base, and his promise to stay active in future elections \u2014 and go after anyone deemed insufficiently loyal \u2014 has sent an explicit message to Republican leaders: Defy him at your own risk.<\/p>\n

Against that threat, most House Republicans have rushed to Trump\u2019s defense and downplayed his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. That\u2019s made Cheney an outlier, one whose public disgust with the former president marks a sharp contrast from the position adopted by McCarthy, the could-be Speaker who had championed Trump\u2019s account of a stolen election and is now actively seeking his help heading into 2022.<\/p>\n

Asked last week if Cheney remains a \u201cgood fit\u201d to be in leadership, McCarthy abandoned his earlier support for her.<\/p>\n

“That’s a question for the conference,” he said, referring to House Republicans.<\/p>\n

The debate over Cheney\u2019s future is part of a broader GOP reckoning over the direction of the party in the wake of Trump\u2019s presidency. It\u2019s a conversation that\u2019s splintered traditionalist Republicans from a new brand of populists and sitting members from former colleagues, who are more free to assess Trump frankly without fear of political backlash.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiz is right,\u201d former Rep.\u00a0Francis Rooney<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Fla.) told CNN last week. \u201cThe party that I’ve been a member most of my life doesn’t exist right now amidst all this populism and nativism and opposition to traditional Republican principles that we need to get back to. And we can’t get back to them if we just continue to placate Trump.”<\/p>\n

Cheney’s rhetorical approach is similar to that of Senate Minority Leader\u00a0Mitch McConnell<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Ky.), who accused Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 rampage at the Capitol \u2014 though McConnell did not support Trump’s impeachment, like Cheney did\u00a0\u2014 and appears eager to move the party beyond the mercurial reign of the 45th president. It\u2019s a position that’s elicited plenty of attacks from Trump, who’s calling for McConnell’s removal as Senate GOP leader.<\/p>\n

Yet the dynamics in the House, where more than half the GOP conference voted to overturn the presidential results, are much different than those of the Senate, where there\u2019s been no call from Republican senators to oust McConnell. And some GOP senators have rushed to the defense of Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.<\/p>\n

“Liz Cheney is a woman of strength and conscience, and she did what she thought was right, and I salute her for that,” Sen.\u00a0Susan Collins<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Maine) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear when another vote to remove Cheney from leadership might emerge.<\/p>\n

Cheney, the highest-ranking GOP woman in Congress, easily staved off an internal challenge to her leadership position in February during a marathon, four-hour meeting of Republicans in the Capitol Visitors Center, where lawmakers lined up behind closed doors to denounce her \u201cdefiance\u201d and disloyalty.<\/p>\n

That contest came after she\u2019d joined just nine other GOP lawmakers in voting to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection. With McCarthy\u2019s vocal backing, she prevailed under secret ballot by a tally of 145-61 \u2014 a landslide victory suggesting that the bulk of the conference agreed with her judgments of Trump, but were just not willing to do it publicly.<\/p>\n

But in recent days, Cheney has only amplified the harsh critiques of the president, clashing with other GOP leaders who are eager to unite the fractured party by winning Trump\u2019s good graces heading into the 2022 elections, when Democrats will be defending razor-thin majorities in each chamber.<\/p>\n

Last week, during the Republicans\u2019 annual strategy conference, held this year in Orlando, Fla., Cheney made waves by saying the GOP\u2019s congressional leaders \u2014 not Trump \u2014 are commanding the party. She also broke with McCarthy in calling for an independent investigation into the Jan. 6 attack focused squarely on that event. Two days later, she raised more eyebrows when she fist-bumped\u00a0President Biden<\/a><\/span>\u00a0on the House floor as he made his way down the aisle for his first address to a joint session of Congress.<\/p>\n

Cheney\u2019s willingness to buck other GOP leaders has given plenty of talking points to Democrats fighting to hold the House in 2022 \u2014 and infuriated a growing number of her GOP colleagues, including many who had voted in February to keep her as the party\u2019s conference chair but are now singing a very different tune.<\/p>\n

Some are predicting Cheney won\u2019t survive the month, largely because they don\u2019t believe McCarthy will stand by and defend her as he did ahead of the first attempt to oust her. Republicans who attended both the Orlando gathering last week and a separate House GOP campaign retreat over the weekend said there was a \u201cton of chatter\u201d about Cheney\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is a big distraction,\u201d the first McCarthy ally said. \u201cI don\u2019t see McCarthy saving her this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another GOP lawmaker agreed. Cheney has \u201cmade things worse and worse over the last few weeks with unforced comments and actions. McCarthy held people back from ousting her last time; I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll do it this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

A second vote to determine Cheney\u2019s future won\u2019t happen immediately. The House is on recess and doesn\u2019t come back into session until May 12, but GOP lawmakers say they anticipate they will hold a closed-door, secret-ballot vote to boot Cheney from leadership once they return to Washington.<\/p>\n

A McCarthy spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

As of now, it\u2019s unclear who would be the favorite to step into the GOP conference chair role if Cheney is voted out by her foes. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the new Republican Study Committee chairman, has been raising his profile in recent months, taking public jabs at Cheney and urging Republicans to stick with a pro-Trump agenda that he says has\u00a0broad appeal to working-class Americans<\/a> and will lead to election victories in 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n

Rep.\u00a0Mike Johnson<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-La.), the immediate past Study Committee chair who currently serves under Cheney as GOP conference vice chair, would be well positioned, too. However, if Banks or Johnson joined McCarthy and Minority Whip\u00a0Steve Scalise<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-La.) on the team, the top three leadership jobs would be filled by white men at a time McCarthy has been emphasizing the need to recruit diverse candidates.<\/p>\n

Other Republicans are floating Reps.\u00a0Elise Stefanik<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-N.Y.) or\u00a0Jackie Walorski<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Ind.) for the conference chair job. Both sided with Trump and voted to overturn the election results on Jan. 6.<\/p>\n

Al Weaver contributed.<\/em><\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/house\/551548-mccarthy-allies-take-aim-at-cheney<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Allies of GOP leader vow to oust Liz Cheney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}