Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) highlighted Democrats’ long-standing negative views of former vice president Dick Cheney on Sunday and suggested that some on the Left were hypocrites for suddenly praising the former Republican vice president for endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
“This is Darth Cheney, you know, ‘genocidal war criminal’ is what Democrats were calling him for decades, and now overnight they’re embracing him,” Burgum told Meet the Press.
Burgum’s remarks came just before Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a longtime critic of Cheney, appeared on the same show.
“I guess I’m just wondering if maybe [Cheney will] be on the campaign trail campaigning with Senator Sanders. This is a season for odd couples,” Burgum said.
WATCH: Gov. Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) reacts to former VP Dick Cheney’s endorsement of Kamala Harris.@GovDougBurgum: “‘Genocidal war criminal’ is what Democrats were calling him for decades, and now overnight they’re embracing him. … This is a season for odd couples.” pic.twitter.com/CJBDr0qEyd
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 8, 2024
Cheney said Friday that he planned to vote for Harris because her opponent, former President Donald Trump, “can never be trusted with power again.”
Cheney has long drawn ire from Democrats and a faction of Republicans for his prominent role in supporting the Bush administration, launching what became a yearslong war in Iraq in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The war left thousands of U.S. troops dead and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. At the time, President George W. Bush, Cheney, and other administration officials justified starting the war, in part, based on faulty intelligence.
Sanders has been openly hostile toward the Cheneys in the past and criticized Dick Cheney as recently as 2019, saying he “lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and got us into a horrific war that we should never have started.”
Sanders was asked Sunday about his thoughts on Dick Cheney’s support of Harris, as well as his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-WY) endorsement of her.
“I applaud the Cheneys for their courage in defending democracy. Obviously, on all the issues, we have very different points of view,” Sanders said.
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Sanders, a self-identified Democratic socialist, was also asked if he would welcome Liz Cheney on the campaign trail, and he did not directly respond.
“What I think Dick and Liz Cheney are saying is that in this existential moment in American history, it’s not just issues. [Liz] Cheney and I agree on nothing, no issues,” Sanders said. “But what we do believe in is that the United States should retain its democratic foundations.”