When Liz Cheney Blasted Trump and Accused the GOP of Turning Into a Cult

Former Representative Liz Cheney had once openly called out former President Donald Trump and said there's a "cult of personality" around him. In June 2022, the congresswoman publicly criticized Trump as she was defeated by a Trump-backed candidate, Harriet Hageman in Wyoming. Cheney, who supported Trump's impeachment after the January 6 Capitol incident, became an open critique of the Trump administration. 

In an exclusive word with NBC on its Today program, Cheney stated, "I think the Republican Party today is in very bad shape. The party... embraced Donald Trump [and] embraced his cult of personality," as she spoke of the party ethics in her point of view. Talking about her defeat, she asserted, "That path would have required that I accept, that I embrace, that I perpetuate the Big Lie." Earlier in the scathing interview, Cheney said, "We have too many people now in the Republican Party who are not taking their responsibilities seriously and who have pledged their allegiance and loyalty to Donald Trump. I mean, it is fundamentally antithetical, it is contrary to everything conservatives believe, to embrace a personality cult. And yet that is what so many in my party are doing today."

After becoming an outcast by the Republicans, she firmly stated her stance saying, "I am absolutely going to continue this battle and do whatever it takes," as she vowed to ensure Trump doesn't come back in the next tenure. In another interview, Cheney had insisted vehemently that the Republican party should reconsider Trump being their representative in the next tenure. "I think the country needs a strong Republican Party going forward, but our party has to choose. We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we cannot be both," she told CBS News in January 2022.

While talking to journalist Margaret Brennan, Cheney said, "I think that it is indeed very concerning, given what we know happened in the lead-up to the sixth and what the committee is finding out about the events of that day. But I think that it's not surprising. But again, he knows these claims caused violence and we've seen now people who were in the Capitol, people who've been arrested because of their activities on that day, they themselves have told us in court filings, they've told us on social media, we've seen it on videos; that they were here because Donald Trump told them to be here." She held Trump responsible for the Capitol riots.

When Brennan asked, "You've raised in the past the possibility of criminal culpability for the president. Is that the consensus view of the committee?" Cheney responded, "The committee has firsthand testimony that President Trump was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office, watching on television as the Capitol was assaulted as the violence occurred. We know that that is clearly a supreme dereliction of duty. One of the things that the committee is looking at from the perspective of our legislative purpose is whether we need enhanced penalties for that kind of dereliction of duty. But we've certainly never seen anything like that as a nation before."