Former congresswoman Liz Cheney called on people to rise above party and politics to defeat former President Donald Trump, calling him a “uniquely grave threat to the republic” in a packed Shannon Hall discussion Friday night.
Cheney drew on her experience as the third-highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives and her role on the Jan. 6 Select Committee to explain her break with Trump and endorsement of Kamala Harris.
The event, part of the CapTimes 8th annual Idea Fest, featured a discussion between Cheney, a former three-term congresswomen from Wyoming and New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker. Cheney was ousted from her seat in 2023 after breaking with Trump over his conduct during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, and as the chair of the House Republican Conference, was the highest-ranking Republican to vote in favor of Trump's second impeachment.
She was later appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve as the Vice Chair of the House Committee investigating Jan 6., where she outlined over multiple hearings Trump’s inaction — “187 minutes” of sitting in his dining room, watching television — as a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol and attempted to prevent Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
“There’s only one candidate in this race, there’s only one American president in history who mobilized a mob that he knew was armed and sent them to attack the Capitol, " Cheney said. “The response has to be to defeat [Trump] at the ballot box in November.”
Cheney, who endorsed Trump in 2016 and 2020 and voted against his first impeachment in 2019, identified herself as a conservative Friday and acknowledged she has policy disagreements with Vice President Kamala Harris. However, Cheney said Trump’s actions and recent rhetoric make it imperative to support the Democratic nominee.
“If you really believe, as I do, that Donald Trump is too dangerous ever again to be near the Oval Office, then I think that it's incumbent upon us to go the extra step and actually cast a vote for Vice President Harris,” Cheney said.
When asked if she would have supported the Democratic nominee if Trump wasn’t their opponent — Baker mentioned Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley as alternative Republican candidates — Cheney said it’s “only Trump who presents a uniquely grave threat to the republic in this election cycle.”
Cheney said election deniers couldn’t be trusted with power but didn’t directly answer if she would have supported Harris had one of them been the nominee.
After Baker questioned whether the Republican Party could purge itself of Trump, Cheney said it was hard to see how the party could convince voters until it recognizes what it's done, which in her words was allow “itself to become a tool for this really unstable man.”
Cheney said a possible solution might be “organizing a new party” and predicted a “big shift” in American politics.
She also said she would not vote for Wisconsin Republicans like U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden and businessman Eric Hovde, who is running against Sen. Tammy Baldwin. Both Van Orden and Hovde have questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“A big part of what we have to do as a country and especially in states like Wisconsin is remember and reflect on how important these offices are — you can’t just reflectively think ‘I’m going to vote for the Republican because I’m a Republican,” Cheney said. She added it was imperative House Speaker Mike Johnson lose his majority since he assisted in Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
The conversation also touched on recent events, such as the second attempted assassination of Trump last week, which Cheney condemned, and the debate between Trump and Harris, where Trump flouted numerous unsubstantiated claims. Asked if Republicans actually believe Trump’s rhetoric, Cheney said few elected officials actually believe what he says, and his enablers will bear “tremendous responsibility and blame when history looks back.”
At the same time Cheney spoke, Harris held a rally across town at the Alliant Energy Center. Cheney, who endorsed Harris earlier this month, said she would do “everything she can” to help Harris win and praised the coalition Harris assembled.
Cheney was born in Madison to former Vice President Dick Cheney, similarly a staunch Republican who has endorsed Harris. She said she took a picture of a news caption on MSNBC that read “Dick Cheney and Taylor Swift Support Harris.”
The crowd cheered.
Gavin Escott is the campus news editor for the Daily Cardinal. He has covered protests, breaking news and written in-depth on Wisconsin politics and higher education. He is the former producer of the Cardinal Call podcast. Follow him on X at @gav_escott.
