Democrats sought to fundraise off of Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-Wyo.) ouster from her House leadership post on Wednesday, hitting the GOP for bowing to former President Trump.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) blasted out an email urging supporters to donate in an effort “to stop extremist Republicans from returning to power in 2022,” while House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) sent an email to supporters praising Cheney for being one of the few Republicans to push back on Trump’s assertion that there was widespread voter fraud in last year’s presidential election.
“The dangerous evolution of the Republican Party into an anti-truth, autocratic cult has never been more clear, or our need to fight it,” Schiff, who helped lead Democrats’ first impeachment effort against Trump, wrote in his fundraising email.
House Republicans voted behind closed doors to remove Cheney from her post as GOP conference chair after she spoke out against Trump on numerous occasions, including blaming him for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
The vote was done by voice, meaning there will be no tally of the lawmakers who voted to oust Cheney or those who wanted to keep her in the leadership post.
Proponents of the ouster argue that her views do not align with the majority of Republican voters, while others say the vote is a sign of Trump’s tightening grip on the GOP.
“I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” Cheney said before a bank of television cameras after the vote.
Democrats and Cheney’s Republican allies were quick to hit Trump and his GOP supporters after the vote.
“Today, the Republican Party went all in to fully transform itself into the party of Donald Trump. House Republicans are making clear their only priority is to defend Trump and his Big Lie, despite the deadly insurrection on the Capitol, and Trump’s dismal approval ratings that the NRCC [National Republican Congressional Committee] tried to keep quiet,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement.
Harrison added that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (D-Calif.) “has completely turned over the leadership of his caucus to extremists and conspiracy theorists, and the Republican Party’s dumpster fire has now become a full-blown inferno.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), like Cheney one of just 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 riot, said in a tweet, “Kevin McCarthy (an employee of Donald Trump) may win … but history won’t be kind.”