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Liz Cheney's Sunday Performance on CNN Reminds Us Why She Was Ousted From Congress

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  October 24, 2023 6:00 PM

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, during which her performance not only served to remind us of the disdain she has for the Republican Party, but also why it is that she's no longer serving in Congress. She's been replaced by Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY), who beat her by more than 40 points in the August 2022 primary. Sunday's interview Cheney gave to Jake Tapper was a particularly long one, almost 20 minutes long and full of memorable moments. 

She was no doubt asked about former and potentially future President Donald Trump, especially in the context of foreign policy, with Hamas having attacked Israel on October 7 and other international crises going on around the world while President Joe Biden has been in office.

When asked by host Jake Tapper "who do you think is providing better leadership on the international stage right now, Biden or Trump," Cheney was firm in her answer. "Oh, certainly Biden," she responded, having no kind words for the former president.

Cheney's preference for Biden over Trump came after she herself acknowledged that "I think probably the biggest mistake that we made post-9/11 was President Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan the way that he did," while also stressing the need to actually be tough against Iran and impose more sanctions. This is especially given that Iran is in support of Hamas, as reports from the Wall Street Journal indicated and Cheney also mentioned.

Trump wasn't the only Republican who Cheney went after on foreign policy. Tapper played for her a clip of Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), who has served in the military, raising concerns about funding for Ukraine. This is particularly as it applies to how Biden is trying to tie in both Israel and Ukraine.

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"Whatever your views, on Ukraine," Vance pointed out to Fox News' Sean Hannity, "it is a separate country and a separate problem. I think what the president did is completely disgraceful. If he wants to sell the American people on $60 billion more to Ukraine, he shouldn't use dead Israeli children to do it. It was disgusting."

Cheney did not hold back in her response to criticize Vance, who has continuously spoken out against tying the aid together, including through a memo. She referred to his comments as "completely wrong, ignorant, uninformed," as well as claimed that when it comes to the major adversaries of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, "what happens with respect to our willingness to defend Ukraine has a direct impact on all of those other challenges and conflicts we face." 

The former congresswoman continued on with more harsh words for Republicans, claiming those opposed to such aid are "engaged in surrendering to America's adversaries."
 
"Because that's what that is. If you do not support aid to Ukraine, given the global atmosphere and the context in which we're living, you are, in fact, helping America's adversaries. You're demonstrating weakness at precisely the moment when we need to be showing strength. So, it's dangerous and ill-informed," she went on to say.

After a commercial break, Cheney was once more given the chance to bash Republicans, specifically in the House. At the time the interview took place, House Republicans had not yet voted on their third nominee for speaker since Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted earlier this month. Although it was Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) who filed a motion to vacate the chair, and eight Republicans joined with all Democrats to remove McCarthy, the ouster was the fault of McCarthy, according to Cheney. 

"What we have seen is a result of really the leadership decisions that Kevin McCarthy made all the way back after the 2020 election, and certainly after January 6, and looking the other way in the face of the kind of assault on our democracy that we have seen from Donald Trump and his allies in the House, including Jim Jordan, elevating those members, frankly, some of whom are white supremacists, some of whom are antisemitic, a number of whom were involved directly in the attempt to seize power and overturn the election," Cheney claimed. She did not name names and Tapper did not ask her to. He also did not push back against such charges.

When asked by Tapper if he "empowered" those members, Cheney affirmed he did "exactly" that.

Cheney also lamented at length how some members said they had received threats for voting against House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), the second nominee for House Republicans, which Jordan unequivocally condemned. By the time the interview took place, the conference had already voted to drop Jordan as the nominee. Later on in the interview, Cheney expressed she was "glad they did that." Even later still in the lengthy interview, Cheney ranted against Jordan and his priorities some more, using Democratic talking points to claim "the notion that the entire judiciary system or the FBI is weaponized against us" amounts to "lies."

Tapper and Cheney still brought this back to being about Trump, with Cheney once more bringing up her view that Trump "lied" about the 2020 presidential election that resulted in Biden becoming president.

"And we now know, frankly, because of the lie, we know that the lie about the election, we know that telling people that they have to use violence in order to take back their country, we know that that lie was very effective in sparking violence. And it hasn't stopped," Cheney complained. 

When asked by Tapper, who was playing along with such complaints, as to if objecting to Electoral College votes was "disqualifying" for speaker candidates Cheney responded that it "certainly" should be. "And I think it tells you, though--over 140 members of the House Republican Conference voted to object, and voted to object after the violence," she added, prompting a particularly absurd response from Tapper.

"After people were dead, after bodies were lying dead in the Capitol," he pointed out. Only one person was killed that day at the Capitol, and it was Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by a Capitol police office. Cheney continued to play along, adding that this happened "right after the mob that Donald Trump provoked had invaded."

The former congresswoman continued still to rail against the GOP, which including how Republicans "have to have a party that gets back to advocating those conservative policies, gets back to embracing the Constitution," something "the Republican Party is not doing today.

Not to be outdone, Tapper insulted hundreds of members of Congress and millions of voters by pointing out that "a majority of Republican voters and a majority of House Republicans just think the moon is made of green cheese."

Later still in the interview, when he and Cheney were discussing the threat that Trump supposedly poses, Tapper also denigrated conservative media, specifically Fox News.

"And, as you know, it's not just House Republicans. It's not just Donald Trump. It's FOX. It's an entire right-wing ecosystem that is amplifying these lies," he pointed out to Cheney.

When asking about what a second Trump term would look like, something he admitted "could happen," Cheney predictably "he cannot be the next president." What followed was even more fearmongering, as Cheney touted her work on the January 6 select committee and claimed "there can be no question that he will unravel the institutions of our democracy."

"So we are facing a moment in American politics where we have to set aside partisanship, and we have to make sure that people who believe in the Constitution are willing to come together to prevent him from ever again setting foot anywhere near the Oval Office," she said.

Cheney is so willing to stop Trump that as she revealed at the close of the interview, she has not yet ruled out a move to run for president. It's the same response she's given since even before she lost her primary in August of last year. Further, the filing deadlines have already passed in certain states.

She was, however, more certain in her response that she was "going to spend the next year, between now and the election, certainly helping to elect serious people, helping to elect sane people to Congress."

The interview wasn't only noteworthy because of Cheney's performance, but because Tapper often fawned over her. The mainstream media's interest in her is likely one more reason why she's not in office anymore. As he invited her to bash Republican members, at one point he declared Cheney was "super conservative," adding "you're just not nuts" and "you're just not anti-democracy."

Tapper had also bragged about his network's coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, pointing out "we have not [moved on] and we continue to tell those stories on CNN," despite how they have been criticized for how they have shamefully given a platform to propagandists to discuss the issue and spew falsehoods about Israel, and have continued to do so since this interview aired.