On Wednesday morning, House Republicans formally voted to remove Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from her position in party leadership. Cheney had been set up to get replaced as House GOP conference chair by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a Trump ally. At issue is the fact that Cheney has refused to go along with the brazen lies about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election that former President Trump and some of his top allies have spread. On Tuesday evening, Cheney spoke on the House floor, where she outlined how she would not be backing down, even when facing the now fulfilled threat of her removal from party leadership.
Trump, of course, has claimed that the 2020 election was fraudulently rigged for Joe Biden, but no legitimate evidence in support of this allegation has ever emerged. The lack of evidence has not stemmed Trump’s propagation of the lie, and Cheney has repeatedly condemned the deception. Trump’s deception amounts to an attack on democracy itself as it presently stands in the United States.
On the House floor, Cheney commented, in part, as follows:
‘Our freedom only survives if we protect it, if we honor our oath, taken before God in this chamber, to support and defend the Constitution. If we recognize threats to freedom when they arise. Today, we face a threat America has never seen before. 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 former violence. Millions of Americans have been misled by the former president. They have heard only his words but not the truth, as he continues to undermine our democratic process, sowing seeds of doubt about whether democracy really works at all.’
Cheney subsequently noted a selection of the many rebuttals to Trump’s election fraud claims. These rebuttals have included numerous court rulings against the claims — Trump’s systematic election fraud theory was never accepted by a single court a single time — and Cheney solemnly observed that “those who refuse to accept the rulings of our courts are at war with the Constitution.” The Constitution outlines the federal judiciary, and instead of accepting the basic realities of the process — and the basic realities requiring the presentation of legitimate evidence and the like — Trump would evidently rather replace American democracy with his own agenda.
Cheney added as follows:
‘This is not about policy. This is not about partisanship. This is about our duty as Americans… We must speak the truth. Our election was not stolen, and America has not failed.’
Watch Cheney’s comments below:
