Former US Vice President Dick Cheney has slammed Donald Trump in a new campaign video for his daughter Rep. Liz Cheney, calling the former president a “coward” and saying there has never been anyone who is a “greater threat to our republic”.
The video was released Thursday by Rep. Cheney’s re-election campaign, two weeks before the Republican primary in Wyoming that the three-term congresswoman is preparing to lose. Echoing his daughter’s criticism of Trump, Dick Cheney denounced him as a danger to the country through his relentless lies about the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
“In the 246-year history of our nation, there has never been an individual who has posed a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said. “He tried to steal the last election by using lies and violence to stay in power after voters rejected him.
“He’s a coward,” said Dick Cheney. “A real man would not lie to his followers. He lost his election, and he lost big time. I know it, he knows it, and deep down I think most Republicans know it.”
A spokesman for Trump did not immediately return an email seeking comment on the video.
Trump has been out to defeat Liz Cheney ever since she joined nine other House Republicans in voting to impeach him for inciting insurrection on January 6, 2021 at the US Capitol. She infuriated him further by becoming vice chair of the House committee investigating the riot.
Trump has endorsed attorney Harriet Hageman in the Cheney primary. As the congresswoman focused her energy on delving into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 violence, Hageman burst into the state, courting small rural crowds in the traditional mold of Wyoming politicking, an approach more akin to that Cheney herself used to beat. a packed Republican primary field to win the state’s only House seat in 2016.
Dick Cheney, who served for eight years as President George W. Bush’s vice president, has made no secret of his disdain for Trump and members of his own party who, particularly in the wake of the unrest on Capitol Hill, shied away from efforts to impeach Trump. Trump. from the office.
In January, Dick Cheney and his daughter were the only two Republicans to attend a House pro forma session on the anniversary of the Capitol riots, sitting together in the front row on the Republican side of the chamber.
“Well, it’s not leadership that looks like any of the people I met when I was here for 10 years,” Dick Cheney said after that meeting, noting the absence of other Republicans in the chamber he was a member of in the decade. from 1980.
Liz Cheney has faced other fallout from her vote to impeach Trump and join the House committee on January 6. Several months after the impeachment vote, the House Republican Party fired her from her No. 3 leadership position for her persistent repudiation of Trump’s election claims. Federal and state election officials and Trump’s attorney general have said there is no credible evidence that the 2020 election was tainted.
When asked if he was disappointed in the move, Dick Cheney replied: “My daughter can take care of herself.”
In the new video, the former vice president praises his daughter for “standing up for the truth, doing what is right, honoring her oath to the constitution, when so many in our party are too scared to do so.”
“There is nothing more important for her to do than lead the effort to make sure Donald Trump is never near the Oval Office again, and she will succeed,” Cheney said. “I proudly voted for my daughter. I hope you too.”