Former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney took a jab at Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) after he criticized disgruntled members of his party for supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.
Cheney has campaigned with Harris across battleground states after breaking with the Republican Party to endorse the vice president “because of the danger that Donald Trump poses.”
Sitting alongside Harris during a moderated conversation in Brookfield, Wisconsin, on Monday, Cheney was pressed on her response to Graham’s recent rebuke that “you’re supporting the most radical nominee in the history of American politics.”
“Don’t listen to Lindsey Graham, No. 1. It’s good life advice, actually,” Cheney told moderator Charlie Sykes.
Sykes: Lindsey Graham was on TV saying what are you NeverTrump Republicans doing.. There’s a lot of people disillusioned with the Republican Party but they’re afraid of paying the price. What do you say to them?
Cheney: Well, don’t listen to Lindsey Graham. It’s good life advice… pic.twitter.com/noaaVyBfDz
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 22, 2024
Her response came to Sykes’s question about “how hard it is to break away from tribal loyalty.”
“Lindsey Graham was on television yesterday, saying, ‘What do you Never Trump Republicans — what are you thinking?’” Sykes noted as he continued to claim that “there are a lot people” similar to Cheney “who may be disillusioned with what’s happening with the Republican Party” but have stopped short of supporting Harris “because there is a cost.”
“So what do you say to those Americans?” he asked.
Cheney responded that, for her, it came down to supporting the Constitution before unleashing an attack on Trump over Jan. 6.
“When you look at what Donald Trump did after the last election. When you look at the cruelty that’s involved in someone who watches an attack on the United States Capitol, an attack conducted by people in his name, and refuses for over three hours to tell the mob to leave. I mean, I really, people just need to think about what that … that’s depravity. He watched the attack happen, and people kept asking him, ‘Please tell the people to leave.’”
Cheney has been far from the only Republican to blame Trump for the events of Jan. 6. Though he has supported Trump’s bid for reelection, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also accused the former president of inspiring the chaos, per excerpts of his biography released earlier this week.
However, in a post to social media made during the mayhem at the Capitol, Trump urged his supporters to “remain peaceful.”
I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2021
“No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order — respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue,” he said in a post to X.
Graham has been among the Republicans who questioned the move from Cheney (and other similar GOP defectors) to support Harris.
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“You’re trying to convince me that Donald Trump’s rhetoric is the danger to this country? The danger to this country is the policies of [President Joe Biden] and Harris. Her fingerprints are all over this disaster, and I can’t take four more years of this crap,” Graham said Sunday during an NBC interview.
“To every Republican supporting her, what the hell are you doing? You’re supporting the most radical nominee in the history of American politics,” Graham continued as he bashed Harris for being “the last person in the room before Biden decided to withdraw from Afghanistan.”