May 12, 2021 Townhall by Matt Vespa
Today is a bit brighter than the others. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) has been removed from her leadership post. There were no vote tallies to report. They didn’t need them. It was done by voice vote. Ouch. Cheney seemed resigned to her fate for days, not even making the necessary calls to cobble together supporters to keep her position. And of course, Donald Trump had a few things to say about Lizzy’s purging:
The Republicans in the House of Representatives have a great opportunity today to rid themselves of a poor leader, a major Democrat talking point, a warmonger, and a person with absolutely no personality or heart. As a representative of the Great State of Wyoming, Liz Cheney is bad for our Country and bad for herself. Almost everyone in the Republican Party, including 90% of Wyoming, looks forward to her ouster—and that includes me!
Look, you cannot mount a defense when the two other top Republicans, Reps. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), endorsed a leadership change. It’s over. Now, the search for her replacement begins. I know Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was putting out feelers. She has been backed by both Scalise and McCarthy, but something tells me she isn’t a consensus choice. She did vote against the Trump tax cuts in 2017, but any Republican in the northeast did. They had to vote against the SALT caps, but she made up for it with her solid defense of Trump during the impeachment fiasco. Liz eventually voted with Democrats to impeach Trump in their second effort, but this removal has always been about her failure to do her job. She survived the vote to remove her based on her siding with Democrats. This was about her being bad at raising money and focusing on bashing Trump instead of getting her people elected. She was a distraction. She spits in the face of the party base, which you don’t do ahead of a key midterm election. And she still vows to fight Trump and ensure he’s never elected president again.
More people voted for Trump in Wyoming than her—and she seems to be gunning for that primary challenge. The goal for us now is to ensure she loses it next year.
May 12, 2021 Epoch Times by Jack Phillips
House Republicans voted Wednesday to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from her House leadership position amid a public spat between her and other House GOP leaders following her increasingly critical comments about former President Donald Trump and the party’s messaging.
After she was voted out, Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, told reporters that she will work to prevent Trump from becoming president again, but stressed she didn’t feel betrayed by her fellow House Republicans.
“I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” Cheney said after the vote on Wednesday, adding that the “nation needs a strong Republican Party … based on the principles of conservatism.”
“I plan to lead the fight to do that,” she said.
An election for who will become the House Republican chair will occur at a later date. It’s not clear when.
Leading up to the vote, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) threw their support behind Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y) to be the House Republican Conference chairwoman. Stefanik tweeted on Wednesday that she is officially campaigning to take Cheney’s spot.
In recent weeks, McCarthy and other Republicans in the House increasingly started publicly questioning Cheney’s leadership ability, arguing that the House Republican Conference chair position essentially serves as a unifying voice within the party and suggested Cheney’s rhetoric was becoming increasingly divisive as Trump is likely still the most popular figure in the GOP.
McCarthy argued that the bid to oust her wasn’t triggered because of her vote against Trump during his second impeachment. Instead, it was because Cheney’s comments were off-message as Republicans attempt to retake the House during the 2022 midterms, he said in a letter earlier this week.
“It had been my hope that our driving focus would be taking back the House in 2022 and implementing our Commitment to America,” McCarthy said in a letter on May 10 to House Republicans. “Despite the mainstream media working overtime against us, I believe we still have a great chance to do so. Unfortunately, each day spent relitigating the past is one day less we have to seize the future.”
But Cheney, in public statements and in a Washington Post opinion article, remarked that the Republican party needs to move away from Trump following his claims about the Nov. 3 election, while calling the former commander-in-chief “dangerous” and “anti-democratic.”
Cheney, meanwhile, has received scant support from other congressional Republicans other than those who voted to impeach or convict Trump during his second impeachment.
“Expelling Liz Cheney from leadership won’t gain the GOP one additional voter, but it will cost us quite a few,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) wrote on Twitter.
In a statement on Wednesday, Trump said he was anticipating her removal, saying that “Cheney is bad for our Country and bad for herself,” adding that voters in Wyoming are “[looking] forward to her ouster.”
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