Chad Pergram reports from Capitol Hill with details after the vote to expel the highest-ranking GOP woman in U.S. government from her position.
The House Republican Conference is set to hold a candidate forum on Thursday to discuss who should be their next conference chair after ousting Rep. Liz Cheney from the post Wednesday, and Rep. Elise Stefanik says she absolutely has the votes to secure the spot in GOP leadership.
Stefanik, R-NY., is the only declared candidate for the post so far, though Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, is considering launching his own bid, The Daily Caller reported. A bid from Roy or any other member would be an extreme longshot, as Stefanik has support from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and many other top conference members.
Cheney set to be face of anti-Trump GOP
By Scott Wong
9 hours ago
When Republicans vote Wednesday to expel House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney from the No. 3 leadership post, it will cement the Wyoming Republican and political scion as the face of the anti-Trump movement in the party.
What remains unclear is whether her apostasy leads to a political cul-de-sac or becomes the launching pad to a more prominent role within a Republican Party that’s still grappling with its identity in a post-Trump Washington.
Until now, that splintered Never Trump faction has had no apparent leader. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the 2008 presidential nominee who repeatedly clashed with former President Trump , died in 2018. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R), the centrist Alaskan, and Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the party’s 2012 standard-bearer, both backed Trump’s impeachment this year but don’t lean into every Trump controversy.
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She did not mention party leaders by name. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) have called for her removal after she repeatedly rejected Trump’s false claim that he lost the November election due to widespread fraud, and for his role in encouraging supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 based on that falsehood.
“Today, we face a threat America has never seen before,” she told the nearly empty House chamber. “A former president who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol, in an effort to steal the election, has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him. He risks inciting further violence.”
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Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., warned fellow Republicans on Tuesday that American democracy faces a threat it has never seen before in a defiant floor speech on the eve of a vote that is expected to result in her removal from the role of House Republican Conference Chair.
Cheney, who lost support from fellow GOP leaders in recent weeks amid a public feud with former President Donald Trump, said her stand was driven by a reverence for the rule of law. In a scathing six-minute speech, the Wyoming Republican said Trump risks inciting further violence and had misled millions of Americans with disproven claims that the results of the 2020 presidential election were fraudulent.
Liz Cheney, who was the No. 3 Republican in the House, has repeatedly bashed Trump for spreading the lie that the 2020 election was rigged against him.