Liz Cheney said she would consider running for US President in 2024, after losing the primaries for her seat in the US House of Representatives to a Donald Trump-backed opponent.
Cheneydaughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, has represented Wyoming in the House since 2017, but staunch conservative state Republicans chastised her for being one of the prominent congressional critics. especially for the former president.
Her re-election chances plummeted this year after she became vice chair of the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol and voted to impeach Trump, regardless former presidents and Republican leaders.
Cheney said she’s currently considering running for president in 2024. “That’s what I’m thinking about and I’ll make a decision in the coming months,” she said in an interview with NBC Wednesday morning. .
After Tuesday’s defeat, Cheney said she may have won the primaries, but that will require following through on Trump’s conspiracies about the 2020 election. rely on the goodwill of all candidates for office to accept the outcome of the election,” she said.
Cheney noted that Abraham Lincoln had lost congressional elections prior to being elected president, and went on to accuse “major elements” of her party’s defense of the January 6 rioters and attack labour. false statements about the FBI search of the Trumps last week. “Malicious lies destroy free nations,” she said. “Freedom is not, cannot and will not die here.”
Tuesday’s Wyoming and Alaska primaries are among the last before the midterm elections in November. They present a test of Trump’s grip on Republican voters after the FBI raids on his Mar-a-Lago estate and the start of a investigation of his handling classified national security documents.
In Alaska, former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who supports Trump and is running for the state’s only House seat, and incumbent Republican senator Lisa Murkowski, who is considered a moderate peace, both leading to general elections in November.
A separate election, with Palin racing to fill the House seat in the meantime after the death of Don Young, the longtime MP, was inconclusive. It will be decided in the coming days and weeks once Alaska completes tabulation of votes based on its ranked choice voting system.
The congressional candidates have openly criticized trumpet struggled to win the Republican primaries. Tom Rice of South Carolina, Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington and Peter Meijer of Michigan – who all voted to impeach Trump over his conduct on January 6 – have lost their seats to candidates nominated by the former president. approved. The other four who voted to impeach Trump decided not to run and only two survived the primaries.
Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman led Cheney nearly 30 percentage points in the polls before the primaries, leaving the former vice president’s daughter under no illusions about the results.
“Today, whatever the outcome, is certainly the beginning of a battle that will continue,” Cheney told CBS during the vote on Tuesday.
“We are facing a moment where our democracy is really under attack and threatened. And those of us – Republicans, Democrats and independents who deeply believe in freedom and care about the Constitution and the future of our country – have an obligation to put that party first. , “She added.
After Mar-a-Lago was searched, Hageman – who also supported Trump’s denial of the 2020 election results – defended the former president, calling the investigation “political persecution”.
“If the FBI can treat a former President this way, imagine what they can do to the rest of us. It’s a 2 tier system of justice – one for the elites and the other for their political enemies,” Hageman wrote on Twitter.
Even before Cheney’s defeat was predicted, Trump and his allies were delighted. Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesman, posted a photo of Trump dancing on Twitter and wrote: “Bye Bye Liz Cheney.”
Cheney said she was “embarrassed to hear members of my party attack the integrity of FBI agents”, criticizing the comments for putting “the lives of patriotic public servants in jeopardy”. “.
But most notably, in one last, quirky pitch to Wyoming voters, she issued a call for Americans to drop the “Big Lie” perpetrated by Trump and his followers about election 2020.
“America cannot remain free if we give up the truth. The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious. It preys on people who love their country,” Cheney said in a short video posted on Twitter.
Cheney will face an uphill battle to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, demanding that conservative voters turn their backs on Trump and Trumpism.
In his role as vice chairman of the parliamentary inspection committee January 6 attacksCheney said there is growing evidence that Trump committed misconduct related to the Capitol attack and that the prosecution case has become stronger.
