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- Republicans voted Wednesday to remove Rep. Liz Cheney as chair of the House Republican Conference.
- Cheney was ousted over her criticism of Donald Trump and the GOP's lies about the 2020 election.
- "Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar," Cheney said on the House floor Tuesday.
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House Republicans voted to remove Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership position on Wednesday morning after the Wyoming lawmaker repeatedly pushed back on Republican lies about the 2020 election.
Cheney was one of just 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach former President Donald Trump for inciting the Capitol insurrection in January and has since criticized her party's embrace of Trump's continued campaign to undermine faith in the legitimacy of the presidential election.
Following a voice vote during a GOP conference meeting, Cheney appeared defiant and insisted that she would continue her battle against Trump and his allies.
"If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I'm not your person, you have plenty of others to choose from. That will be their legacy," she said. "I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office."
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, delivered a scathing rebuke of her colleagues on the House floor on Tuesday night and said she wouldn't "watch in silence" as Trump and other GOP leaders undermine the democratic process.
"Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar," she said. "I will not participate in that. I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president's crusade to undermine our democracy."
-Reuters (@Reuters) May 12, 2021
In a Washington Post op-ed last week, Cheney urged her party to "steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality."
The party's leaders have aligned behind Rep. Elise Stefanik to replace Cheney as the GOP conference chair. House Republicans will hold a candidate forum on Thursday with a vote on Cheney's replacement on Friday, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy announced.
Stefanik is among the most moderate members of her party on policy issues, and broke from Trump on several key pieces of legislation, including his 2017 tax cuts. But the 36-year-old congresswoman became an outspoken proponent of Trump's in the latter years of his presidency, aggressively defending him during his first impeachment trial and has embraced Trump's election lies.
Trump has repeatedly weighed in on the intra-party fight, calling Cheney a "warmongering fool" and endorsing Stefanik, who he's celebrated as "a new Republican star." After the Wednesday vote, Trump released a statement calling Cheney "a bitter, horrible human being" and reveled in her ouster.
Cheney survived the first vote to recall her in February, but the backlash against her grew over the last few months as she continued to publicly criticize Trump and the party, straining her relationships with both McCarthy and House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise.
In the weeks following the Capitol riot, it seemed possible that a significant number of Republican lawmakers and voters would distance themselves or even break from Trump. Sen. Mitch McConnell, then the majority leader, blamed Trump for the riot, cut ties with the former president, and suggested he might vote to impeach Trump.
McCarthy also blamed Trump for not responding more quickly to call off the rioters. Several Trump cabinet secretaries resigned early.
But it soon became clear that Republicans' core voters would remain loyal to Trump, even as he continued to lie about the election. McConnell ultimately voted against impeachment and McCarthy began defending Trump's response to the riot.