Liz Cheney cheers Kevin McCarthy removal, warns of Jim Jordan ascension
Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney welcomed Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as House speaker this week, castigating him as “unfit” for the role.
“Kevin McCarthy is absolutely unfit to be speaker,” Cheney, 57, said in remarks at the University of Minnesota Wednesday night.
When asked, Wyoming Republican Cheney said she would have joined the eight Republicans who backed ejecting McCarthy (R-Calif.) from his position had she still been in the House of Representatives.
Cheney also lauded House Democrats’ decision not to bail McCarthy out as “principled and honorable,” arguing that he eroded trust with them.
“Kevin McCarthy, at every moment over the course of the last two years, has done more to enable and collaborate with and apologize for Donald Trump,” Cheney explained.
“I think they did exactly the right thing.”
The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney pointed to McCarthy’s mending of fences with the 45th president after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, as one of her chief grievances with him.
During her tenure in the lower chamber, Cheney quickly rose up the ranks to serve as the House Republican Conference chair from 2019 to 2021, making her the GOP’s third-ranking member at the time.
However, she roiled her colleagues with her effusive condemnation of Trump and perch as vice chairwoman of the now-defunct select committee that investigated the riot.
She was ultimately voted out as conference chair in May 2021 in favor of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). The next year, she was defeated in a primary by Trump-backed Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.).
Earlier this year, Cheney joined the University of Virginia as a professor, but is keeping the door open to a political comeback.
“No,” Cheney replied when asked if she had ruled out a run for president. “I have not decided for sure.”
“What I have decided is that I will do whatever it takes to defeat Donald Trump.”
The former Wyoming congresswoman also issued a warning about House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), one of the candidates to replace McCarthy.
“If the Republicans decide that Jim Jordan should be the speaker of the House,” she warned, “there would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected Republicans could be counted on to defend the Constitution.”
One name Cheney did float was Speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who she contended would be “great” to fill the job.
Cheney has often clashed with GOP firebrands like Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, mainly over her comparatively hawkish foreign policy stances.
Gaetz led the mutiny to depose McCarthy as speaker by aligning himself with Democrats in a dramatic 216-210 vote.
McHenry has tentatively scheduled an election to choose the next speaker for Oct. 11.
Picking a speaker takes precedence over all other pending House business, meaning the chamber could be paralyzed for several days or weeks.
