Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich appears to have had it with outgoing Rep. Liz Cheney as she continues to disparage her own party and its leaders following her embarrassing rout last week by Trump-backed lawyer Harriet Hageman.
In an appearance last week on NBC’s “Today” show, Cheney reflected on her loss to Hageman while also ripping her party and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for aligning with former President Donald Trump publicly following the Jan. 6 riot after criticizing him in private.
“I think what we have seen, not just in Wyoming but across the country, is that Donald Trump has betrayed Republican voters. He’s lied to them. Those who support him have lied to them. And they’re using people’s patriotism against them. They’re preying on people’s patriotism,” she claimed, according to the UK’s Daily Mail.
“This is a great, a special, exceptional nation, and we need leaders who have reverence to our Constitution, are faithful to our Constitution, and will do what’s required to abide by our oath no matter whether it’s politically convenient. Kevin McCarthy does not fit that bill,” she added.
Liz Cheney is joining us live. @SavannahGuthrie is speaking with her about the defeat in the Wyoming Republican primary, her take in the message the voters were sending, and where she goes from here. pic.twitter.com/xrpOMs5fAv
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 17, 2022
The outlet adds:
Cheney’s rising star within the House GOP was derailed when she broke from her party to criticize Trump and ultimately voted to impeach him over the January 6 Capitol riot – which she took a lead role in investigating on the bipartisan House select committee.
For that work she had been censured by the Republican National Committee, renounced by the Wyoming GOP, and lost her role as the No. 3 leader in the House to pro-Trump Rep. Elise Stefanik.
Gingrich, a former GOP congressman from Georgia who was widely credited with helping his party regain control of the House in 1994 after 40-plus years of a Democratic majority, had little use for Cheney’s remarks. In particular, he rejected her claims that a large portion of Republican lawmakers and voters “are sick” for supporting Trump.
“To go back home to the people that you claim to represent, to only get 29% support and then decide that the other 61 that they’re the ones who are wrong. They’re the ones who are sick,” Gingrich told Fox News on Monday.
“I think that Liz has arrogated to herself a standard of being the moral judge of millions and millions of Americans, around 73 or 75 million Americans who voted for Trump because they’re ‘sick.’ They voted for Trump because they deeply dislike the establishment. And no matter what you tell them about Trump, they dislike the establishment even more,” he added.
“And so it’s amazing to me that nobody who’s in the anti-Trump faction has stopped to say, ‘what is it we’re doing that repels so many Americans?’ Wyoming’s a great example. The Cheney name was at one time magic. Now it doesn’t just get beat, it gets humiliated. I mean, 29% is a sign that – take away the Democrats who switched parties to vote for her – she got probably one in every four Republicans. It’s amazing. So I don’t take what she says very seriously,” Gingrich noted further.
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