Cheney blames McCarthy for House Speaker havoc

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Sunday blamed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for the havoc wreaked on the House as a result of his ouster from the leadership post, citing his elevation of members who wanted to overturn the 2020 election results and “looking the other way” when it comes to Jan. 6.

“I wish that it were surprising,” she said when asked about the House’s lack of a Speaker on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“You know, what we’ve seen is a result of really, the leadership decisions that Kevin McCarthy made all the way back after the 2020 election and certainly after January 6, then, you know, looking the other way in the face of the kind of assault on our democracy that we’ve seen from [former President Trump] and his allies in the House, including [Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)].”

She accused McCarthy of “elevating” some members, including some she labeled as “white supremacists” and “anti-Semitic.” She said some of the members McCarthy pushed are those who tried to interfere with the 2020 election and overturn the results.

“It’s not a surprise when you see that those people have been in power,” she added.

She also spoke about how some Republicans have faced threats of violence amid the Speakership chaos, saying that the “acceptance of violence is completely inappropriate and dangerous in our politics.” A handful of Republicans have said they have faced death threats for their votes on the Speaker last week.

She said that threats of violence against lawmakers can be traced back to former President Trump and his false claims that he won the 2020 election.

“We know that that lie was very effective and sparking violence, and it hasn’t stopped,” she said. “I mean, one of the issues that I, again, I hope will come up with the Speaker’s forum tomorrow night is the question that [Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.)] keeps asking is … do you accept that Donald Trump lost the election in 2020?”

Cheney herself was ousted from her own GOP leadership post in 2021 for calling out Trump’s false election claims and was replaced with a Trump loyalist, moves that were orchestrated and supported by McCarthy.