Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney encouraged anti-Trump Republicans and independents Sunday to consider voting for Vice President Kamala Harris, saying it’s “not enough” to write in someone other than former President Donald Trump in the November election.
“Given how close this race is, in my view, again, it’s not enough. You have many Republicans out there who are saying, ‘Well, you know, we’re not going to vote for him, but we will write someone else in,’” Cheney said in an interview on ABC News' "This Week." “And I think that this time around, that’s not enough, that it’s important to actually cast a vote for Vice President Harris.”
Asked why she decided to support Harris, Cheney said that she had never voted for a Democrat in her 40 years of voting but that Trump “poses a challenge and a threat fundamentally to the republic.”
“We see it on a daily basis, somebody who was willing to use violence in order to attempt to seize power, to stay in power, someone who represents unrecoverable catastrophe,” said Cheney, a vocal Trump critic who was vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee. “Frankly, in my view, and we have to do everything possible to ensure that he doesn’t, that he’s not re-elected.”
Pressed about whether Harris’ moderation of her positions on a variety of issues compared with a few years ago made the decision to endorse her easier, Cheney pointed to Harris’ speech at the Democratic National Convention last month, saying she believes it’s a speech former GOP Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush could have given.
“It’s very much an embrace and an understanding of the exceptional nature of this great nation, a love of America, a recognition that America is a special place, a recognition that we all have to work together to ensure that,” she said. “And you contrast that to ensure that we maintain it. You contrast that with what we hear from Donald Trump again on a daily basis, that America is a failing nation, that America is a laughingstock.”
“The trash-talking of the United States of America very much is part of the message that Donald Trump is pushing. And so at the end of the day, I think it’s important for people to recognize he’s not a conservative,” Cheney said, citing Trump’s embrace of global tariffs, which she decried as “fundamentally an anti-conservative policy” that would “choke off global trade.”
Cheney said she has spoken to Harris in the process of making her decision to endorse her campaign, but she declined to elaborate.
“I’m not going to talk about the details of conversation, except I would just say that she has a full recognition and understanding of the stakes of this race and of the importance of reflecting the broad coalition that’s coming together to support her,” she said.
Asked what she makes of former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley's recent remarks that she is on “standby” to campaign for Trump after she had decried him as unqualified for a second term in office, Cheney said she “can’t understand her position on this in any kind of principled way” because Haley had run on conservative principles in the Republican presidential primaries.
“The things that she said, that she made clear when she was running in the primary, those things are true,” she said. “And again, you know, those of us who are conservative, those of us who believe in fidelity to the Constitution, have a responsibility and have a duty to recognize this is not about partisan politics, and the country is going to need to rebuild [a] conservative, true conservative movement when we’re when we’re through this election cycle.”
“In too many instances that so many elected Republicans have made, which is to abandon the Constitution — to tell yourself that this is just simply, you know, a partisan choice — that’s not what we’re facing this time around," she said.
A spokesperson for Haley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cheney, who was ousted from House Republican leadership after she denounced Trump in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, announced her endorsement of Harris last week. Days later, her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, also said he plans to vote for Harris in November.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., dismissed the notion that Harris’ Republican endorsements will make a difference.
“It’s a remarkable time in politics. You have Dick Cheney endorsing a Democrat, and you have a Kennedy endorsing a Republican,” Cotton said on CNN's "State of the Union," referring to former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who endorsed Trump last month.
“I think what it tells us is that there’s a lot of ferment in American politics, but in the end, endorsements are not going to make the difference in this race. What’s going to make the difference is their records,” he added, before he criticized Harris’ record on the economy.
In his statement endorsing Harris, Dick Cheney criticized Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen 2020 election and said, “He can never be trusted with power again.”
Asked in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” about what he would say to undecided voters who might be swayed by the former vice president’s argument, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said he’s unsure whether any undecided voters would be swayed because “it’s been pretty well understood” that Cheney is “not a fan” of Trump.
Burgum questioned whether Cheney would get on the campaign trail for Harris, noting Democrats’ criticism of him over his record on foreign policy.
“This is the, you know, ‘Darth Cheney,’” he said. “I think, you know, ‘genocidal war criminals,’ what Democrats were calling him for decades. And now, overnight, they’re embracing him. So I guess I’m just wondering if, you know, maybe he’ll be on the campaign trail.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has not endorsed Harris since she replaced President Joe Biden in the race, applauded the Cheneys in a separate interview on "Meet the Press."
"What I think Dick and Liz Cheney are saying is that in this existential moment in American history; it’s not just issues," he said. "Cheney and I agree on nothing, no issues. But what we do believe in is that the United States should retain its democratic foundations.
"And it’s not just Cheney. I think there is a significant number of Republicans who say, 'Well, you know, I may not agree with the vice president on this issue or that issue, but I cannot support somebody who is a pathological liar, somebody who fomented an insurrection to overthrow the election returns,'" he added. "So I applaud the Cheneys for their courage in defending democracy. Obviously, on all the issues, we have very different points of view."
Sanders also said he does not think Harris is abandoning her progressive ideals, saying she made a “pragmatic” move by moderating her views “in order to win the win the election.”
