Liz Cheney’s grip on Republican post weakens as Donald Trump endorses replacement
- No 3 House Republican Liz Cheney was clinging to her post as party leaders lined up behind an heir apparent
- Fallout over her clashes with former president Donald Trump was becoming too much for her to overcome
Congresswoman Liz Cheney’s grip on the No 3 House Republican job all but vanished as former US president Donald Trump endorsed replacing her with New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who also has the backing of the chamber’s second-ranking Republican leader.
The former president’s intervention shows how he is determined to keep his hold on the party heading into the 2022 elections and beyond, and how willing the Republican leadership is to give him that control.
Cheney, a daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, has been a vocal and persistent critic of Trump and his unfounded claims of election fraud, which has left her increasingly isolated in the party. In his statement, Trump said Cheney “has no business in Republican Party leadership”.
Yet Cheney gave no sign of backing down. In an opinion essay published Wednesday afternoon in The Washington Post, she said that the Republican Party was at a “turning point” and that embracing or ignoring Trump’s statements about the election will do “profound” damage to the party and the country.
“Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work – confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this,” Cheney wrote. “Republicans need to stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality.”
