Cheney says Trump ‘projecting’ with Biden threat to democracy accusations

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) characterized former President Trump as “projecting” when he claims President Biden is the threat to democracy.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper pressed Cheney, once a top-ranking House Republican, on what she would say to Republicans who believe Trump’s claims that it is Biden, not him, who is a threat to democracy in an interview Tuesday. She told Cooper that an “overwhelming majority” of Republicans understand Trump’s claims are “disinformation.”

“That’s been sort of Trump’s … method of operating. He knows that,” Cheney said. “It is a real threat to his political success if people recognize that, that he himself is trying to unravel democracy, and so I think he’s projecting. He’s trying to turn that thread around, but I don’t think it’ll work.”

Trump argued that Biden posed a greater threat to democracy at a campaign event over the weekend in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The criticism of his likely Democratic opponent in the 2024 presidential election echoes the criticism often applied to Trump.

“Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy. Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy,” Trump said. “It’s him and his people. They’re the wreckers of the American dream. The American dream is dead with them in office.”

Numerous media outlets published pieces Monday warning that a Trump presidency could slip toward a dictatorship and spell an end of U.S. democracy. Trump’s allies defended the former president as the headlines came out Monday and dismissed the criticism as the media’s latest attempt to target Trump.

Cheney has been on a media tour to promote her new book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning,” which largely focuses on the current state of the Republican Party and the dangers Trump can pose if elected to the White House again.

Cheney ramped up her criticism of Trump in the months following the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol. She was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump following the riot, and then served as the vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attacks.

She later lost her August 2022 primary to now-Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) after becoming a frequent critic of the GOP and Trump.