by Elka Worner
Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney told a sold-out crowd at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center that Donald Trump is a threat to Democracy, and a tyrant supported by Republican enablers willing to spread his lies.
The Republican stalwart from Wyoming received two standing ovations at the Jan. 27 Distinguished Speaker event. She said making sure Trump isn’t elected is “the cause of our time.”
“We’re facing a situation in this election year that is unprecedented in our nation’s history,” Cheney said. “It is so unprecedented, and the stakes are so high, and the threat is so great, that I have even supported Democrats.”
The former Congresswoman was pilloried by her party for voting to impeach former President Trump, and agreeing to sit on the House committee investigating the role he played in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. She was subsequently labeled a “Pelosi Republican,” and defeated in the 2022 Wyoming Republican Primary.
“What he did that day was depravity, refusing to tell the mob to leave,” she said.
In her new book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and Warning,” Cheney condemned the GOP “enablers and collaborators” willing to support Trump and his big lie — that the election was stolen.
“Authoritarians cannot succeed alone. They’ve got to have enablers,” Cheney said. “They have to have people who will help spread their propaganda and help spread their lies.”
One of the most terrifying things since Jan. 6, she said, was “just how many elected officials are willing to spread his lies.” She added that Trump’s lies have “now become a pillar industry of the Republican party,” and that Trump is “willing to do anything to seize power again.”
Cheney said she’s a conservative who believes in low taxes and limited government. While in Congress, Cheney said she supported the majority of Trump’s policies.
“I supported the majority of his policies,” but “you can’t have policy discussions if the Constitution unravels,” she said.
After the Capitol attack, Representative Mike Johnson, the current Speaker of the House, played a leading role in trying to convince other Republicans that “we had the authority in Congress to throw out the votes of millions of Americans,” Cheney said.
“That’s not the rule of law. That’s tyranny,” she said. “That’s where we’re headed for again if we all don’t pay attention and focus and understand the danger and threat we’re facing.”
Trump’s call to Republican lawmakers to defeat a recent bipartisan border security bill is evidence of his influence and power. “They say they won’t support it because Donald Trump told them not to.”
Cheney said she was very concerned about the threat of violence now playing out in the political system.
When she saw the video of former Vice President Mike Pence being evacuated down the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6, she flashbacked to the Secret Service evacuating her dad, Vice President Dick Cheney, down the steps of the West Wing into the bunker under the White House.
“They thought a plane was coming to the White House,” she said.
“On Sept. 11 the Vice President was being evacuated because Al Qaeda was attacking America,” Cheney said. “On Jan. 6, Mike Pence had to be evacuated because of a violent mob of our own citizens that had been sent and incited by our President.”
Because of what we’ve all lived through the last couple of years, “we’ve become numb to that and I think the survival of the country requires that we all stop and think about that.”
Cheney said it is time to put patriotism over partisanship and do the right thing in “our time of testing.”
“We’ll be able to say in our time of testing, we rose above. We stood together and we ensured the Republic survived. Because we love our country more,” she said.
Former KFI radio host Doug McIntyre, who interviewed Cheney, asked if she was going to run for president this year. The question drew sustained applause.
“Well, I’m not making any announcements tonight,” she said.
Manhattan Beach resident Kristi Ninegar said she respected Cheney for standing up for what she believed in. “It came at a cost,” she said. “But she’s a Cheney. She’ll survive.” ER
