Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., is in danger of being dumped by her party from her House leadership position as GOP conference chair – and the mainstream media narrative is that she’s being punished for defying former President Donald Trump.
Cheney has openly blamed Trump for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and was one of only 10 House Republicans to cross party lines and vote in favor of his second impeachment.
“The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution,” Cheney wrote in a Washington Post op-ed defending herself and challenging her own party.
But a new report from Politico shows there’s more to the story.
That this isn’t really about her defiance of Trump.
If that were the case, the other nine Republicans would also be facing friendly fire right now.
“At this point, the conflict isn’t so much about Cheney’s principles,” Eliana Johnson, editor in chief of the Washington Free Beacon, wrote on the Politico website. “It’s about the way she’s gone about articulating them, publicly and privately.”
Johnson’s report paints a picture of a lawmaker with an inability “to cultivate the loyalty of colleagues, donors and friendly journalists.”
The half dozen unnamed Republican lawmakers and operatives cited in the report say they have no problem with Cheney holding to her principles.
But her constant comments about them… her constant attacks on Trump and even on members of her own party… are the real problem.
“People who voted to impeach stand by their decision, but they don’t want to be litigating that,” one operative told Johnson. “We should be litigating why the Democrats suck and how Republicans are going to win the majority.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for example, has also had some serious problems with Trump, and has even been attacked by the former president.
Yet McConnell doesn’t speak about it publicly, unlike Cheney.
“She is choosing not to pivot,” another GOP operative was quoted as saying. “Mitch McConnell is no fan of Donald Trump, but he doesn’t say a goddamned word.”
Observers note that Cheney could be playing a much more calculated long game – and that losing the position as conference chair could actually help her in this one.
“History is watching. Our children are watching,” Cheney wrote in her the op-ed. “We must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process. I am committed to doing that, no matter what the short-term political consequences might be.”
That language sounds more than a little soaring for a newspaper column about keeping a position in House leadership that few outside of Washington even knew existed until this controversy.
And that could mean Cheney has another agenda.
CNN’s Chris Cillizza said Cheney’s column “sounds like a line from a ‘Cheney for President’ announcement speech coming to Iowa and New Hampshire in the not-too-distant future.”
She could be setting herself up as the anti-Trump choice for Republicans in 2024.
When asked last month, she didn’t deny it.
“I’m not ruling anything in or out – ever is a long time,” she told the New York Post, adding that support for Trump’s election challenges should be “disqualifying” for a Republican candidate.
That narrows the field considerably – and conveniently puts her at the top of the list of who’s “qualified” according to her own standards.
Of course, the ultimate decision will be made by Republican primary voters, and they made their choice clear in both 2016 and 2020. If Trump runs again, pollsters believe he’ll retain that support and seal up the nomination early.
And if he doesn’t, it seems quite likely he’ll help choose whoever does – and it almost certainly won’t be Cheney.
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert.