Cheney: Wrong to think Trump ‘threat’ would go away

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Sunday said she hopes the GOP will return to supporting democracy but Republicans can no longer pretend the “threat” from former President Trump will go away.

Cheney told NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), now an opponent of Trump, falsely believes he can ignore the former president and “go forward as a party without him.”

“That’s clearly not the case …. the idea that we could simply ignore Donald Trump and the threat would go away is clearly wrong,” Cheney said. “My view from the beginning has been that we have to as a party reject insurrection, we have to reject what he stands for. I don’t think this is an issue about which you can make a political calculation. I think it matters too much.”

Trump retains a strong grip on the Republican Party, having successfully backed primary candidates who ousted Cheney and seven other House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The former president has aggressively turned on any Republican who has spoken up against him, including McConnell.

Across the country, election deniers supporting Trump’s false claims the 2020 election was stolen are running for office up and down the ballot.

Cheney, who has been a vocal critic of Trump since the Capitol attacks and is the vice chair of the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 rioting, has previously called the GOP “sick.”

On Sunday, she said Republicans echoing Trump’s false claims are “responsible for the impact of that.”

“Words matter,” she said on NBC. “When you support and endorse somebody who said that they will only [accept election results] if they win, then you are responsible and accountable for that.”

But Cheney said her party can return to supporting the peaceful transfer of power and a strong democracy.

“My hope is that ultimately our party will come back to that,” she said. “I think it may take a couple election cycles.”

“I think that the party has either got to come back from where we are right now, which is a very dangerous and toxic place, or the party will splinter, and there will be a new Conservative Party that rises. And if Donald Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party, the party will shatter and there will be a conservative party that rises in its place,” she added.

And when asked about a possible third-party presidential run, Cheney said she will “do whatever it takes’ to defeat Trump if he runs for reelection.

“He will not be the president of the United States again.”