Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney, McLean, Virginia, January 6, 2022. The former congresswoman spoke at the University of Montana on Oct. 5, 2023. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Center for Creative Photography/University of Arizona; provided by the University of Montana)
Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney used her trip to the battleground state of North Carolina to announce she is voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Donald Trump cannot be trusted with the power of the presidency,” Cheney said during a lecture at Duke University on Wednesday called “Defending Democracy.”
“I don’t believe that we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states,” she said.
“As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this. And because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”
Cheney is a staunch conservative and was previously a member of the U.S. House Republican leadership. She was kicked out of her leadership post when she rejected Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
She was vice-chairwoman of the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and former President Donald Trump’s role in it. She was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the insurrection. Cheney paid the price for opposing Trump. She lost her Wyoming primary in 2022 to a Trump-backed challenger.
Cheney, whose father Dick Cheney served from 2001 to 2009 as vice president in the administration of Republican President George W. Bush, has vowed to “do whatever it takes” to make sure Trump loses this election.
Harris’s campaign has been highlighting the support she’s received from Republicans. The campaign has launched state Republicans for Harris groups. Republican speakers were featured at the Democratic National Convention.
The campaign had been courting Cheney’s endorsement, the New York Times reported.
Cheney said Wednesday that she wants people to commit themselves to remembering that Trump watched the riot at the Capitol unfold on television and rejected pleas to call off the mob.
“He watched people assault our Capitol in his name,” she said. “He sat there as members of his family, as members of his staff, pleaded with him to tell the mob to stop. They pleaded with him. He wouldn’t do it,” she said. Instead, Trump “poured gasoline on the fire,” she said, with a Tweet saying Vice President Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what needed to be done.
Trump was pressuring Pence to overturn his election defeat.
Cheney said it is important to defeat election deniers.
“It’s not just Donald Trump,” she said. “Here in North Carolina, it means defeating the Republican candidate for governor. Defeating the Republican candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction.”
Trump has endorsed Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson for governor.
After the Jan. 6 riot, Republican candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction Michele Morrow recorded a video calling for Trump to “put the Constitution to the side” as she advocated for a military coup to keep Trump in power, CNN has reported. Morrow was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, but CNN found no evidence that she entered the building.
This story was originally produced by NC Newsline which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network, including the Daily Montanan, supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.