Something remarkable happened on Fox News’ Special Report Monday evening: long-time conservative darling and former Fox contributor Liz Cheney urged Fox News viewers to ditch former President Donald Trump, arguing that other candidates won’t “torch the constitution” or try to “seize power.”
Cheney was a conservative darling and frequent partisan pundit appearing on an array of Fox News opinion and news programs for years. But despite her record of voting with Trump 93% of the time while she served in Congress during the Trump administration, the events of January 6th and ongoing election denialism from the 45th president were too much for her. And so she became the rarest of creatures in Washington D.C.: a vocal critic of Trump’s blue ribbon conservative bona fides.
Cheney is doing multiple media appearances supporting her new book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning. During a recent appearance on CNN, she was unsparing in her criticism of the network and the role she believes it played in enabling former Trump’s false election claims and the January 6 riot.
During an interview [on Fox] with Jake Tapper, she went after Fox News, lamenting the loss of Charles Krauthammer before saying “there’s no question” that Fox News “played a damaging and dangerous role” in spreading disinformation about the January 6 attack on the Capitol and not debunking election lies, particularly by Trump.
Krauthammer was forever the conservative north star at Fox News until he passed away in the summer of 2018. . . .
Cheney: You know, I come here to Fox, and I sit in the Charles Krauthammer greenroom, and I know how revered Charles was by you,” Cheney said. “And Charles taught us a whole bunch of things. But one of them is that some things have to matter. And rising above politics — rising above partisanship — recognizing our duty to the Constitution is the most conservative of all conservative principles.”
[Bret] BAIER: If you look at the polls, [Trump] is up 63% to his nearest rival, 12% in Iowa. The Des Moines Register, 51%. You keep on going down state by state. What is not getting across if your message is so urgent on these other channels and other places? What is not happening to the electorate that to see that?
CHENEY: Well, I think you’re — you’re actually seeing some movement. There have been other polls out today that show some movement among some of the other candidates.
And look, what I would say to the Fox viewers and I worked here for many years, as you know, and the the race today presents a number of candidates, Republican candidates who will abide by the Constitution. And you can have the policies that we all want, the policies some of which Donald Trump put into place, some of which he didn’t.
We can have conservative policies without having to torch the Constitution. And so what I would urge people watching today who are going to be voting in those caucuses or in those primaries is to vote for somebody else; do not vote for the person who already tried to seize power.
BAIER: You lost your primary to Harriet Harman, 2 to 1. And she said, Liz Cheney has never been in touch with your average person in 2019. AP said, Wyoming’s congresswoman says a summary of the investigation into whether President Donald Trump election campaign coordinated with Russia, confirms what Republicans already knew. The summary of Robert Mueller’s investigation says there was no collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. Wyoming U.S. Representative Liz Cheney says Democrats for over two years have peddled falsehoods and made one scurrilous claim after another involving Trump in Russia. Cheney says in the statement, It’s time for Democrats to put aside their partisan agenda of attacking Trump and focus on real issues.
What do you say to critics who say, listen, all of this as even after you look at January 6th, all of this is about going after Donald Trump and that his policies, if you look back to his four years, are something that they want. So there are voters who obviously feel that way.
CHENEY: Yeah. So I would say a couple of things. First of all, I won my [previous] primary by 70% of the vote.
I could have done that again if I was willing to lie about what Donald Trump did.
I wasn’t willing to do that. I voted against that impeachment that you’re talking about The first impeachment. I voted against it.
But this [the second impeachment, after Jan. 6] was different. When you have a president of the United States who attempts to seize power, that — that goes to the heart of —of who we are. And that danger is one we can’t ignore.
And so, again, I would say, look, this is about ensuring that you’re going to vote for somebody, that you’re going to support somebody who’s going to uphold the rule of law. And one [thing] now Trump has demonstrated he won’t do.
BAIER: At one time you thought about running. Obviously, you’re not running. But could you get in this race?
CHENEY: You know, I haven’t made a decision yet, but it really, it’s not about me. Brett. And I again, I say this again: You know, I come here to Fox and I sit in the Charles Krauthammer greenroom and I know how much how revered Charles was by you, by me. And Charles taught us a whole bunch of things.
But one of them is that some things have to matter. And rising above politics, rising above partisanship, recognizing our duty to the Constitution is the most conservative of all conservative principles.
And so, again, this isn’t about policy. You know, we started off on the Biden administration’s foreign policy, with which I have big disagreements, his economic policy, big disagreements.
It’s not about that. It’s about whether we’re going to support people that are going to uphold the Constitution.
BAIER: Well, we have a policy here to hear from all sides. And we wanted to invite you to talk about your book. Thank you for coming on. And we’ll continue to cover your next steps. . . .