Liz Cheney says electing Republican ‘choice-deniers’ as governors and secretaries of state puts entire country at risk of collapse — but insists she’s STILL not ready to give up on the GOP
Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney warned Arizona college students not to vote for Kari Lake and Mark Finchem in November
She told the audience that Arizona’s election will have consequences for the United States
Lake is running for governor and Finchem is running for secretary of state, Arizona’s top election official, in the upcoming midterms
Cheney suggested she would be open to supporting their Democratic opponents
She lost her primary to a Donald Trump-backed challenger
<!–
<!–
<!– <!–
<!–
<!–
<!–
Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney addressed an audience of Arizona State University students at an event with the McCain Institute
Outgoing Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming blasted 2020 election naysayers within her own party, which is running for office in November’s midterm races, during impassioned remarks in Arizona on Wednesday night.
However, the anti-Trump lawmaker — who lost her primary to a GOP challenger backed by the ex-president — said she wasn’t ready to give up on the Republican Party just yet.
‘I’m not ready to say we’re going to allow Trump and those at war with democracy to hijack our party. I’m not ready to give up that fight,” she said.
Since the August loss, Cheney has made it her mission to prevent Donald Trump-endorsed candidates from winning public office, repeatedly warning of a danger to American democracy.
She told an audience at a McCain Institute speaking event at Arizona State University that their votes in November would have ramifications for the entire country.
Cheney also suggested her support for Arizona Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs and Adrian Fontes, a Democrat running for secretary of state there. Hobbs currently holds that role.
“So what’s happening here in Arizona is not only important to Arizona, but it’s important to the nation and to the future functioning of our constitutional republic,” the conservative vice chairman of the committee said on Jan. 6.
She told the crowd that the races in their battleground are a main focus for her.
‘In Arizona today, you have a candidate for governor in Kari Lake, you have a candidate for secretary of state in Mark Finchem, both of whom have said — it’s not a surprise, it’s not a secret — they both said they will only honor the result of an election if they agree with it,” Cheney said.
Both Lake and Finchem are running on Trump’s endorsement, which they earned after parroting his allegations of election fraud.
Lake is a former Barack Obama supporter and previously worked as a local television news anchor.
Finchem, who would be Arizona’s highest-ranking election official if elected, has condemned mail-in ballots and maintains that Trump won in 2020 but was the victim of nationwide fraud efforts.
But Cheney said they have both seen evidence to the contrary — and deliberately reject it.
“They’ve looked at all that, the law, the facts and rulings, the courts, and they’ve said it doesn’t matter to them,” the lawmaker said.
‘And if you care about democracy, and you care about the survival of our republic, then you have to understand, we all have to understand, that we cannot give power to people who have told us they will not honor elections.’
She specifically took aim at Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (left) and Arizona Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem (right), both of whom are endorsed by Trump
Cheney shared praise for some Republican state officials, such as current Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who testified before her Capitol riots committee over the summer.
Seeing Bowers testify with his “faith and his duty to the Constitution” had been “incredibly moving for me and my colleagues,” Cheney said.
She also celebrated the “courageous Republicans” like Bowers who came forward to tell the truth about Trump and January 6.
Cheney also took another shot at Trump, saying: ‘We’ve never been in a phase, a place where we face this kind of threat. And that’s because we’re facing a threat from a former president who’s trying to unravel the republic.’
“I think I knew on some level that even in the United States this was fragile,” she said.
“But I certainly didn’t understand how fragile it was. I think that’s such an important lesson that we need to take from history’