Liz Cheney Gets on Her High Horse to Bash 'Dangerous' Speaker Johnson
In perhaps what is the most ringing endorsement of him yet, former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney called House Speaker Mike Johnson — a principled conservative and a man of deep faith — “dangerous” to democracy.
The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who staunchly defended allowing the federal government to spy on Americans through the Patriot Act, is concerned that the Louisiana congressman is now the leading House Republican.
For the record, that is a caucus Cheney is no longer part of because she undemocratically refused to represent Wyoming voters during her final term.
She instead joined pro-abortion, pro-death, pro-chaos Democrats by prominently sitting on a committee with them as they attempted to portray the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion as the most dangerous moment in American history.
Wyoming voters tossed her out of office, but she refuses to accept the will of the people and go away.
This week, she appeared on the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ “Politics Is Everything” podcast to spout off about Johnson.
Cheney teaches at the school — no doubt droning on to young people about the evils of questioning the results of an election that was administered in battleground states by mail with questionable ballot counting procedures.
The former congresswoman found a way to insert the 2020 election into her comments on the podcast.
“Mike is somebody that I knew well,” she said of the country’s new speaker. “We were elected together. … Our offices were next to each other. And, you know, Mike is somebody who says that he’s committed to defending the Constitution. But that’s not what he did when we were all tested in the aftermath of the 2020 election.”
Johnson voted not to certify the results of that election, which Cheney said makes him “dangerous.”
She told the “Politics Is Everything” podcast that the Louisiana congressman was “acting in ways that he knew to be wrong” when he questioned a questionable election.
“I think that the country unfortunately will come to see the measure of his character,” Cheney said.
“In my view, he was willing to set aside what he knew to be the rulings of the courts, the requirements of the Constitution, in order to placate Donald Trump, in order to gain praise from Donald Trump, for political expedience. And so it’s a concerning moment to have him be, having been elected speaker of the House.”
Cheney added, “One of the reasons why somebody like Mike Johnson is dangerous is because when you have elected Republicans who know better, elected Republicans who know the truth but yet will go along with the efforts to undermine our republic, the efforts, frankly, that Donald Trump undertook to overturn the election.
“In order for the party and therefore the country to move away from Donald Trump, he’s got to be defeated. But that means that people who know better have to recognize the stakes. They have to recognize this isn’t a game. This isn’t politics as usual.
“We’re dealing with somebody who, if he were elected to another term, would most assuredly begin the process very quickly of attempting to consolidate power and, frankly, undo the institutions that protect our freedom.”
Professor @Liz_Cheney, @uva @Center4Politics Professor of Practice, says new House Speaker Mike Johnson is “dangerous”. Hear her reasons in our exclusive interview on a new episode of the Center for Politics’ podcast “Politics Is Everything.” Listen here or wherever you pod:… pic.twitter.com/xZgBRGmZHu
— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) November 1, 2023
Deep down, it’s difficult to imagine Cheney isn’t simply seething because she isn’t speaker – even though just a few short years ago her career trajectory could have led her anywhere.
Laughably, not only did her political career end with a blowout in the 2022 Wyoming primary but she was removed by her House Republican colleagues as chair of the House Republican Conference for being a turncoat.
A relic of the uniparty conservatism, Cheney’s career ended the moment former President Donald Trump won the 2016 election.
None of us knew it at the time, but that election ended the grift for people such as Cheney, Paul Ryan, Bill Kristol and each of the reprobates who founded the Lincoln Project.
Like those other fossils of a bygone era, Cheney has been reduced to sniping at people who actually work to achieve policies they promised to enact on behalf of voters.
Cheney’s veil is off and in spite of her years misrepresenting one of the country’s most conservative states, we’re better off having had her in Congress if it helped the conservative movement rid itself of her and her ilk.
Being called “dangerous” by someone such as Liz Cheney is the ultimate compliment for a man such as Johnson.
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