Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) claims in her new book that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told her former President Trump acknowledged that he lost the 2020 presidential election just two days after the election, according to reports.
In her book “Oath and Honor,” obtained exclusively by CNN ahead of its scheduled release this upcoming Tuesday, Cheney rebukes the Republican Party and reveals new details about her experience in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
“He know it’s over,” McCarthy told the former lawmaker after speaking with Trump, CNN reported.
“He needs to go through all the stages of grief,” he added.
The former House Speaker also visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after the Jan. 6, 2021, riots on the Capitol. Cheney says it was because Trump wasn’t eating.
Her account strikes at the heart of repeated claims that the former president sincerely believed he won the 2020 presidential election — and therefore took steps to avoid leaving office.
As vice chair on the House Jan. 6 select committee, Cheney similarly laid out the case with her fellow committee members that Trump knew he lost to Joe Biden and tried to overturn the results.
Trump currently faces two criminal cases related to his actions after the 2020 election — one federal indictment and one state case in Georgia, alongside 18 other defendants.
The former president’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, denied Cheney’s claims, CNN reported, saying it belonged “in the fiction section.”
“These are nothing more than completely fabricated stories,” Cheung said.
In the book, Cheney also pledged to leave the Republican Party if Trump is chosen as the GOP nominee in 2024. She vowed to do whatever necessary to stop Trump from returning to the White House — including leaving the door open to a potential 2024 presidential bid herself.
“As a nation, we can endure damaging policies for a four-year term. But we cannot survive a president willing to terminate our Constitution,” Cheney writes in the book.
“So strong is the lure of power that men and women who had once seemed reasonable and responsible were suddenly willing to violate their oath to the Constitution out of political expediency and loyalty to Donald Trump,” she added.