The Daily - Jan. 6, Part 2: Liz Cheney’s Battle Against the 'Big Lie'

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

This episode contains strong language. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming was the only Republican leader calling on President Donald Trump to move on from his efforts to overturn the results. Then, after the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, she gave a full-throated condemnation of what had happened and the rhetoric that facilitated it. A year later, while many of her party have backed down from criticizing the former president, she has remained steadfast — a conviction that’s cost her leadership position.In the second part of our look at the legacy of the Capitol riot, we speak to Ms. Cheney about that day and its aftermath, the work of the Jan. 6 commission and the future of the Republican Party. Guest: Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and former No. 3 Republican in the House of Representatives. Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: The Jan. 6, 2021, assault has shaken the foundations of the Capitol, a symbol of American strength and unity, transforming how lawmakers view their surroundings and one another.A year after the Capitol riot, Donald Trump’s continued hold on the Republican Party shows, once again, that the former president can outlast almost any outrage cycle.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore, and that's what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal. In the early afternoon of January 6th, when the president went on the National Mall to rally his supporters, he called out a small handful of

Republicans by name. And Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you, I will tell you right now. Republicans who, for years, had stood by him, but now were rejecting his efforts to overturn the election. And we've got to get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren't any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world. We've got to get rid of them. We've got to get rid of them. Among them was Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the number three Republican in the House, the daughter of a Republican vice president,

and the only Republican leader telling the president to move on. We're going to walk down to the Capitol and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them

because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. Now, Cheney is among the last Republicans still in office who continues to criticize Trump's actions and seek accountability. Today, in part two of our look at the legacy of January 6th, a conversation with Congresswoman Cheney. It's Thursday, January 6th. Can you guys hear me?

Yes. Good afternoon, Congresswoman. How are you? Very well. So, Congressman, thank you for making time for us. We really appreciate it. Sure, thank you. Great to be with you guys.

I want to start by going back with you to January 6th, so a year ago. And that morning on the National Mall, the president, Donald Trump, has directly invoked your name to his supporters just before they stormed the Capitol. And my understanding is that shortly after that, you get a call. It's from your father. And he tells you about this fact. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. So I had gone over to the House floor because I was going to speak in support of counting electoral votes and of the certification. And so I was actually in the cloakroom, the Republican cloakroom off the House floor, and my dad called and told me that, you know, the president had mentioned me and we had a conversation about the security implications of that and whether or not, you know, it would have an impact on my decision that I was going to speak. on my decision that I was going to speak. And, you know, we decided that it shouldn't prevent me from speaking, that it was very important to go ahead with that. But it was obviously,

you know, a jarring conversation to be having in the cloakroom of House representatives with my dad about whether what the president of the United States had said was cause for concern for my security. Well, of course, not long after that phone call, the president's supporters stormed the Capitol. And it has been reported that on that day, a member of the Freedom Caucus and a House Republican colleague of yours, Jim Jordan, was standing in the aisle as members of Congress were being escorted away from the mob, from the protesters, and that he said something to you. He said, we need to get the ladies away from the aisle,

let me help you. And you are reported to have pushed his hand away and said to him, and I'm, you know, going to use this word because it was published, get away from me. You fucking did this. Can you confirm that story? Because I think it's important. Yeah, it's true. You know, I was in the aisle, on the aisle, and he came over to me, you know, and basically said, we need to get the ladies away from the aisle. And, you know, I had watched for the months since the election what was going on and the lies that have been told to people. And, you know, it was both that I, you know, certainly didn't need his help. And secondly, I thought clearly that the lie that they had been spreading and telling people had absolutely contributed to what we were living through at that moment. Right. It's going to be months, Congressman, before your commission learns the details of Jim Jordan's involvement that day, that he had been coordinating with the White House and seeking ways to prevent the election from being certified that day. But you're saying that already at that moment,

you on some level held people like Congressman Jordan responsible for what was happening in real time. Correct. In the hours that followed that exchange with Congressman Jordan, I imagine you spending lots of time in close quarters with other lawmakers, and you're all talking. close quarters with other lawmakers, and you're all talking. When you are able to confer with fellow Republicans, did you find in those early hours and days after January 6th that there is a widespread understanding that Republicans, especially Republicans in your own chamber of Congress, are responsible for this, that they did contribute? You know... That your view is shared by your colleagues?

Well, I think that what we certainly shared was an understanding that Donald Trump was responsible. And I think you can see that absolutely in many of the probably, you know, well, many of the public comments. Last week's violent attack on the Capitol was undemocratic. Including by Kevin McCarthy. Right. The senior most House Republican.

Right. The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. There's no question. None. And Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader. Yeah. President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it.

I believe we need to hold the president accountable. The president's language and rhetoric crossed a line and it was reckless. What the president did on January 6th to me is inexcusable. He shouldn't have done it. The president formed the mob. The president decided the mob.

The president addressed the mob. He was at the flame. The president formed the mob. The president incited the mob. The president addressed the mob. He was at the flame. The president is unfit. All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough. And we will certify the winner of the 2020 presidential election. presidential election. And so, you know, what happened after that seemed to be a situation where people, you know, lost their courage, I suppose, lost their commitment to dealing, not everybody, but too many members lost their commitment to dealing with the truth of what

had happened and the danger of what had happened. And, you know, then you began to see efforts to whitewash it. So, you know, that is, that's something that's very difficult, frankly, to explain. Well, let's talk more about that because publicly we could point to a number of moments that illustrate this. But I wonder if for you there was a quieter, more private moment in the days or weeks after January 6th where you personally realized that your party was not going to stand together on this. And in fact, that you were going to be more or less isolated within your party in condemning it. I think it was, it evolved. I mean, I think there were some major moments, you know, before the month of January was over, Kevin McCarthy had gone to Mar-a-Lago to basically rehabilitate Donald Trump. That was, you know, inexplicable from my perspective. Did you have conversations of that nature with the Republican leadership, with Congressman McCarthy at the time? I mean, honest ones where you said just that?

We all had a number of conversations. I don't want to go too far in terms of revealing those, but we did, in fact, have a number of conversations. Nobody was unclear about where I stood. I'll just leave it at that. Mm-hmm. And I guess you became clear on where they were starting to stand. That's right. Do you think that the dissolution of the party's agreement at first on what January 6th was had anything to do with the fact that very quickly,

just a week or so after the siege of the Capitol, this became about a very big choice Republicans were going to have to be asked to take, and that was whether or not to impeach the president for his role in that day. It's occurred to me that in setting it up as a dichotomy like that, vote to impeach, vote not to impeach, it accelerated the party's breakup over this? Well, first of all, I think there's no question that we had to move articles of impeachment. I don't think there was any choice. I think it was our duty to do that. I think that the Senate should have convicted him. I think that part of what happened was there was a moment where members of the Republican Party,

particularly people in leadership, had to decide whether they were really going to lead or whether they were going to be bystanders. And I do think that there was a period of time in the immediate aftermath of the attack where if more people had decided to lead, we could have. And I think, you know, if you look at the period of time in January, we could easily have said, look, you know, the House has voted its article of impeachment. The Senate is having the trial. And we as Republicans need to get focused on the future. the trial. And we as Republicans need to get focused on the future. We need to be focused on substance and policy and our concerns about the Biden administration's policies. But as soon as, you know, Ken McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago, it, you know, began the process of rehabilitating Trump and bringing him back into the discussion and into the politics and, frankly, into the future in a way that made it impossible, frankly, for us to say we're going to move forward here.

Because then moving forward became, you than a capitulation, a visit to Mar-a-Lago? Because voters at this point, many of them in the Republican Party, are already embracing the big lie. I think many people would argue it was too late. January 6th showed it was too late. January 6th showed it was too late. Well, I think you certainly, you know, once the election was over itself, we have a process for candidates to challenge results if they believe that there has been fraud. There's a process to do that in state and federal courts. And the Trump campaign did that.

And that was legitimate. And the Trump campaign did that. And that was legitimate. But when it began to shift was when the campaign did that and lost, I think, 60 of 61 or 61 of 62 of those cases. And you get to the point where the Electoral College has met and voted, then it has to be over. And it wasn't. Got it. And so I think at that point, it became clear the claims that they're making are not borne out by the evidence and not borne out by the facts. And so I think certainly there were opportunities and people needed to be saying that. Absolutely.

Once you get through January 6th, though, and you see firsthand what the lies led to, I think to me that that was the moment where you sort of said, this is a place that politics cannot go. And so we have an obligation to voters to say, no, that is a lie. What Donald Trump is saying about the election is a lie. And to say, look, here's the truth. Here's what happened. Here's why Donald Trump lost the election. You know, here's what really happened. And instead, the leaders in my party, you know, either embraced the lie and worked to help spread it or sort of looked the other way and hoped it would go away. Right. And I do think it would have mattered. I think if more Republicans in Congress back in January

had maintained their commitment to what they know is the truth and maintained their commitment to conveying to voters what they know is the truth, it would have made a difference. The president of the United States incited this insurrection. to voters what they know is the truth, it would have made a difference. The president of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion against our common country. He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love. The U.S. House of Representatives has every right to impeach the President of the United States. But what we're doing today poses great questions about the constitutionality of this process. No investigations have been completed. No hearings have been held.

We will reject this incoherent case that comes nowhere near justifying the first presidential removal in history. They have charged the president with incitement of violence and insurrection. Nothing he said meets the legal standard for incitement. A vote to impeach will further fan the flames of partisan division. I think I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to end the impeachment trial. This partisan impeachment will end today. Tonight, the Senate has acquitted the former president

by a vote of 57 to 43, seven Republicans joining every Democrat in voting guilty but falling short of the two-thirds majority required to convict. It is therefore ordered and adjudged that the said Donald John Trump be, and he is hereby, acquitted of the charge in said article. I love Wyoming! Congressman Gates caught a flight from Washington to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to speak out on the steps of the Capitol to call for Liz Cheney to be thrown out of office because she dared to vote to impeach Donald Trump.

And how can you even call yourself a representative when you don't represent the will of the people? I mean, I figure maybe we ought to ask the same question of a Beltway bureaucrat turned fake cowgirl who supported an impeachment that is deeply unpopular in the state of Wyoming. So just a few weeks after the impeachment vote in early February, largely because of the impeachment vote, your colleagues meet House Republicans to decide your future. And they do this in a closed-door meeting that culminates in a vote on whether you will remain in Republican leadership as the number three in the House chamber. And you are in that room, Congresswoman. What can you tell us about what it was like to be in that room that day? What it's like to be in a room as your future is being debated right in front of you? Well, you know, I wasn't just in the room.

I presided. I stood up at the podium at the front of the room and answered questions. There were colleagues who were going to the microphone to express support for me and colleagues who were going to the microphone to express their opposition to what I'd done and express their view that I needed to be voted out. I think it went on, I want to say, for close to four hours. We took a break because we had to go vote and then came back at it again. And it was an opportunity for the conference to have a discussion. And as conference chair, that's why I was presiding over the discussion. But I suppose probably the easy thing to do to have avoided that would have been to do what so many were asking me, which was to apologize for having voted for impeachment, which certainly I wasn't going to do that. that Kevin McCarthy, as House Minority Leader, stood up for you that day and said,

look, I had chosen Congresswoman Cheney for this leadership team for a lot of reasons, and he vouched for you, but implicit in his standing up for you, I always imagined, was the understanding that you, even if you wouldn't apologize, would stop criticizing President Trump, that you would basically kind of cut it out. Am I right in sort of understanding that

as being perhaps his expectation? You'd have to ask him. I mean, certainly that is not a commitment that I made or would ever make. And... But were you asked? Well, I mean, look, I... Let's just leave it at that.

I was very clear I was not going to apologize. You know, there were suggestions, well, if you're not going to apologize for the impeachment vote, could you apologize for putting the statement out about the impeachment vote? And I said, no, I wouldn't do that. There was just no, you know, what I did was right. I knew that it was right. You know, it was very clear where I stood on the issue. Right.

And, you know, we had done a whip count in terms of where I thought the votes would be. And it was near the end of the meeting when I said, look, I want to call the vote. And I said it to the group. My view was, I believed I had the votes, but my view was, look, we're calling the vote. And if the vote is going to be to remove me, then the vote's to remove me. I've explained my position. I've explained my views. I've explained how important the truth is in this matter and how important it is that we be a party that's based

on policy and substance. And so at the end of it, I said, I want to call the vote. Right. And you survive. Prevailed. Right. We really did have a terrific vote tonight, a terrific time this evening,

laying out what we're going to do going forward, as well as making clear that we're not going to be divided and that we're not going to be in a situation where people can pick off any member of leadership. It was a very resounding acknowledgement that we need to go forward together and that we need to go forward in a way that helps us beat back the really dangerous and negative Democrat policies. It's just an example. This Republican Party is a very big tent. Everyone's invited in. Breaking news. Congresswoman Liz Cheney is taking direct aim at former President Trump again. I think that what happened on January 6th is unprecedented in our history.

I have heard from members concerned about her ability to carry out the job as conference chair, to carry out the message. With her House Republican leadership job in jeopardy, Liz Cheney remains defiant. People have been lied to. The extent to which the President, President Trump, for months leading up to January 6th, spread the notion that the election had been stolen or that the election was rigged. In Trump's Republican Party, Cheney is clearly the outlier, but she does speak for some Republicans. It looks like, however, McCarthy speaks for more of them. I think she's got real problems. I've had it with her. I've lost confidence.

So, of course, in May, there's a second closed-door vote, essentially an identical vote to the one in February. And this time, you are ousted from leadership. Given everything we've discussed, you must have understood that the second vote was probably going to go different than the first, right? Well, and the second vote, by the time we got to May, it was clear that to stay in leadership, I would have to be willing to perpetuate the lie. And I wasn't going to keep my head down. I don't know that the republic, frankly, can long endure if that's the position elected officials take. take. So at that point, you were more consciously giving up your leadership position, given what you now understood to be the requirements of remaining in leadership. And that requirement was to either perpetuate or abide the claims of a fraudulent election. Correct. It's becoming increasingly

clear that your colleagues are starting to see all of this—criticism of Trump's rule on January 6th, calling out false claims of election fraud, the big lie—as a serious political liability. Obviously, there's the shift in messaging from people like Kevin McCarthy and Senator McConnell, but I'm also thinking of more rank-and-file members. Take someone like Nancy Mace, right? She's a freshman from South Carolina, endorsed by Trump in 2020. She'd been in Congress just a few days when January 6th occurred. And at first, she speaks out very strongly against the president over his role. And then in response, Trump calls for challengers to run against her in South Carolina. Three Republicans enter that race, all of them citing her comments about the president in January 6th as their reason for running, by May, around the time you are being ousted from leadership, she has totally quieted her criticisms on the matter and is working to win back the Trump base. And as part of that,

she's one of the people who votes to remove you from leadership, seemingly for her own political survival. So is everyone else other than you starting to see that there's no political path forward on the path that you are on? Look, I don't want to group all of my colleagues in one basket. But I think that our constituents elect us, you know, in part because, you know, they value our judgment. And so, you know, we have a duty to tell the truth about these things and to recognize that we can influence events. And I just think that there are too many of my colleagues who looked at the grief that those of us who voted to impeach, for example, were taking. And they decided, you know what, that we just, we're going to hope, we're just going to try to not talk about what happened and not talk about Trump and sort of keep our heads down here.

But the problem is when so many people do that, you end up in a situation where the voters don't know the truth in ways that, you know, I just, I think is very, very dangerous for the country. Well, I want to talk about the fact that it, of course, remains to be seen. But we now may be in a moment where speaking out, where, in your words, doing the right thing is equivalent to losing your seat. And if that's the case, didn't the party cause that reality for itself? There's been a lot of reporting over the past few years about how behind closed doors, many Republican politicians will acknowledge that things have gone too far. They'll acknowledge that Trump is damaging the party. They'll acknowledge that Joe Biden won and Trump lost. I'm sure you've heard from many

of your colleagues yourself along these lines. And it's almost got this quality of, oh, don't worry, we say these things in public, but we don't actually believe them. But isn't that turning out to be, Congresswoman, the whole problem? That years of complicity and allowing the president's false claims to go unchallenged has resulted in a reality in which the majority of Republican voters now believe in the big lie. And isn't the very fact that the party was too afraid of publicly challenging the president what brought you and the party to this moment?

I certainly think that that is true post-January 6th. You know, look, pre-January 6th. Look, pre-January 6th and pre the election, my voting record in terms of Donald Trump's policies, I voted with him like 93 percent of the time. Right. And, you know, if the party, well, if elected officials aren't going to take seriously what it really means to be in these offices, then we are in a bad place. And I think that right now the Republican Party is allowing the toxin of Donald Trump and what he did and his lies to continue to infect the party and not standing up against it. And I don't minimize the difficulty and the challenges that come with standing up and speaking out. But if you don't want to do that, then you shouldn't be in these jobs because, you know, our fundamental structure and fundamental system depends upon people of good faith doing what they believe is right. And, you know, if you're just going to

get elected to office to say you're in the office, but when the chips are down and when the test comes and you're unwilling to do what you know is right, that really does then create the potential that the system can unravel. And I think everybody's got to come to grips with the role that they play in preventing that from happening. can unravel. And I think everybody's got to come to grips with the role that they play in preventing that from happening. You know, if you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit. They're staying within the rope lines in the rotunda. That's not what an armed insurrection would look like. Nancy Pelosi bears responsibility as Speaker of the House for the tragedy that occurred on January 6th. Knives out for Cheney. She is defiant. Cheney's own voters despise her.

Her career in Congress is over. She is looking backwards. Republicans are looking forward. over. She is looking backwards. Republicans are looking forward. To try to erase Donald Trump from the Republican Party is insane. And the people who try to erase him are going to wind up getting erased. We'll be right back. The House of Representatives voted today to form a special committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the Capitol. The vote was 222 to 190. All Democrats voted in favor and joining them, just two Republicans, Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. We want to find out what went on in the run up to January 6th. We want to find out what happened on January 6th. We want to know what was going on in the White House and the administration, if there were discussions about how to overturn the election. As you can see, I am very proud to be able to announce the members of that committee this morning.

Congresswoman Liz Cheney of the Armed Services Committee has patriotically agreed to serve on the committee. We're very honored and proud that she has agreed to serve on the committee. We're very honored and proud that she has agreed to serve on the committee. So this all brings us to the January 6th commission, I think. Soon after, you are removed from Republican leadership. And in defiance of Republican House leaders who have just ousted you, you agree to serve as the number two on the Democratic-led special committee investigating January 6th. And you are appointed by none other than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Was that complicated for you at all? That at the same moment your own party is turning away from you and strips you from power, that at the same moment your own party is turning away from you and strips you from power,

the Democratic Party asks you to join them to take a leading role in what turns out to be their efforts to hold former President Trump responsible in a way that your party has now made clear that it will not be doing? Well, I could not have imagined that that is where I would end up. I could not have imagined that that is where I would end up. And, you know, I certainly think it would have been preferable, for example, if we'd had a bipartisan commission. I voted for that in the House. We had 35 Republicans who voted for a commission that looked like the 9-11 commission that was not made up of current House members and was equal numbers, Republicans and Democrats. But, you know, there, again, Leader McCarthy, you know, basically told the Republican ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, John Katko, who was one of the 10 who voted to impeach, told Katko to negotiate what a commission should look like with the Democrats. The Republicans got everything that we asked for. And then McCarthy pulled his support for the commission. And then it went over to the Senate and McConnell wouldn't support it and lobbied against it in the Senate. So it failed in the Senate. So we ended up in a situation where you cannot let January 6th go

uninvestigated. And the bipartisan commission has failed. So the only thing that's left is this select committee. And so by the time we got to the select committee and I voted for the resolution that created it on the floor, when Speaker Pelosi called and asked me to be on it, I didn't hesitate. I just, I think it's, there's no way that you can justify

not investigating the worst attack on our Capitol since the War of 1812. And so I was honored to be asked, and I'm honored to be part of the committee. So, a couple of weeks ago, we get some explosive news out of this commission. news out of his commission. There is written textual evidence that some Republicans, including members of Congress, wanted to overrule or throw out the election results in 2020. We see it in the just-released correspondence with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Involving former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who turns over some key communications to you all. Those communications reveal a direct role that Republicans and conservative leaders played in January 6th. A Trump ally texts White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Here's an aggressive strategy. Why can't the states of Georgia, North Carolina,

Pennsylvania, and other R-controlled state houses declare this is BS, where conflicts and election not called that night, and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the Supreme Court. Another lawmaker to Meadows, yesterday was a terrible day. We tried everything we could in our objection to the six states. I'm sorry, nothing worked.

On January 5th, Congressman Jim Jordan sent Meadows a message, quote, on January 6th, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all. And one of the key figures implicated is Jim Jordan, this man who on January 6, you turned to and said, you did this. People like you did this.

and said, you did this. People like you did this. So I wonder, as you learned these details about his role in all of this, how you thought about what this evidence amounts to. You have talked about your colleagues placating and allowing President Trump's behavior. But I think for many, what you all have revealed, for example, a message that Congressman Jordan

passes on to Meadows about how Vice President Pence could discount electoral votes, just kind of toss them aside, that doesn't just feel like placating or allowing. It feels like a kind of effort to collaborate in overturning the election. And so from what you've seen so far, did some of your Republican colleagues, and I'm not sure what the right word would be for this, and maybe you haven't put your finger on it either, but did they perhaps participate in something approaching sedition or treason? Well, I don't want to say that. I don't want to go that far. I think those are obviously very, very serious charges. And I certainly don't want to make those kinds of claims.

I think that the committee is clearly looking at all of the different pieces of the effort to overturn the election, all of the different pieces, the effort to delay the electoral vote, the efforts to pressure local government officials. So I, again, I think the facts will lead where they go. I'm not making the kinds of claims that you made, but I think any effort to substitute, you know, the judgment of Congress for the judgment of the people of the states and selecting the president, in my view, was unconstitutional. And of course, we saw ultimately what happened when people were lied to and summoned to Washington. So it's now been exactly one year since January 6th. And I want to talk about where things stand for you and the Republican Party, because not only are you increasingly alone in continuing to insist on accountability for that

day within your party, a pretty shocking statistic has emerged that one third of Republicans running for Congress in the coming year are running on some version of the big lie that the election was stolen from President Trump. There's no question, and it's widely reported, that there was widespread fraud and irregularities across this country. Many of us were warning about the fact that the Democrats unilaterally fundamentally altered our voting system inside 90 days. altered our voting system inside 90 days. We warned that the state of Nevada was just simply not ready to give us a fully fair and secure election. Who in this room doubts that Google would like to swing a presidential election? Well

who's to say they didn't? I don't know. I don't want to make a baseless claim, but I don't have access to Google's changes in their master search algorithms. If I was a United States senator on the day of the certification, I would have stood with Senator Cruz and Senator Scott and that small handful of senators who had the courage to stand up and say, wait, let's hold up on the certification of this election. Let's hold up on the certification of this election. And what that says to me is that not only is the party no longer condemning what happened, in fact, its identity is solidifying around it. And of course, unsurprisingly, given the amount you've spoken out, one of the races this fall that now features this dynamic is yours, your reelection in Wyoming. Liz Cheney doesn't know what writing for the brand means. We sent her to D.C. to be loyal

to the outfit that hired her, be loyal to Wyoming and our values. Instead of fighting for us, she's fighting against President Trump. She betrayed us. She betrayed our values. against President Trump. She betrayed us. She betrayed our values. She betrayed the brand. You now face a Republican primary challenger who seems to embody much of this new version of the Republican Party that you have been so critical of.

Right now, the most important job Republicans have in Washington, D.C., is to stop Nancy Pelosi and the radical Democrats from destroying our country. I'm Harriet Hageman, and I know what it means to ride for the brand. And President Trump has endorsed her and encouraged voters in Wyoming to see her as a vehicle for ousting you from Congress. And from the conversations we've had with our colleagues and political analysts, it looks like you could be in for a pretty tough race this fall.

In fact, one of our colleagues tells us, so far, and please correct me if I'm wrong, you're not doing some of the typical things a candidate does ahead of the election. So are you intending to seek re-election? Absolutely. And I'm not sure which of your colleagues, what they're talking about, but I am absolutely committed to my reelection in Wyoming. And I welcome the race that you've described. I think that it will be an opportunity for the people of Wyoming to decide whether they want to cast their vote for somebody who's pledged allegiance to Donald Trump over allegiance to the Constitution and, frankly, to the people of Wyoming. So it's going to be an exciting race, but it's one I'm very much looking forward to and engaged in and intend to prevail.

Well, prevailing depends in part on the idea that voters are still willing to support this version of a Republican candidate like you and break this cycle that's been created in the party. I still question if it's now too late for that to be possible within the Republican Party. Let's presume for a minute that the party wants to get out of this cycle, this cycle in which it's now in many ways afraid of its own voters, afraid to challenge their beliefs that the 2020 election was stolen, a belief that Republican politicians undeniably helped to establish and uphold in the first place. Those voters now control the party through their votes. If, again, the party wants to, how does it even go about possibly breaking free of this cycle? You know, I believe fundamentally that the vast majority of

Americans, Republicans and Democrats, want to live in a country that continues to be characterized by the freedoms that we enjoy and that they are fundamentally faithful to the Constitution. And I think of it less as, you know, what the party has to do and more about what we all have to do as Americans together, because it's a dangerous moment. The stakes are really high. If Donald Trump becomes a Republican nominee, if Donald Trump is elected president again, I think that the Republic is at risk. And the notion that someone who has shown as little commitment to the Constitution as he did would be entrusted with its preservation once again is something that, you know, I think we have to avoid at all costs. And that means

demanding of your elected officials that they act with faith to the Constitution. And that means demanding of your elected officials that they act with faith to the Constitution. And that means every individual American themselves doing what you know is right and making sure you're supporting people who are going to do the right thing, even when it's tough, even when it's difficult. Okay, but how do you do it? I mean, how do you see your way out of a cycle in which it now appears the voters control the party and the voters believe an election was stolen? I think a lot of people see it as very difficult to find a way out of that dynamic. and watch our system be unraveled. And I think that the effort to make sure that we, as I said, elect people who are faithful to the Constitution, people who will defend the system,

stand up against the lie, all of those things matter hugely. You believe that continuing to speak the truth and stand up for what you believe, somehow that will win out. And hopefully you think that will happen before the democracy collapses. I know that it is my responsibility and my duty and my obligation, and I'm going to continue doing it because I know it's what's right. And I believe fundamentally in the goodness of the vast majority of the American people and in the greatness of this country.

And I'm not going to cede our party and I'm not going to cede the republic to Donald Trump or those forces who have shown themselves unfit and have shown themselves unwilling to carry out their duties to the Constitution. And if they cede you, what happens? If they say, Congresswoman, we appreciate your service and we like that you stood up for what you think is right, but ultimately we expel you from our party and from your seat in Congress as a result of everything you've done, then where will that leave you? And how will you view this all? Look, I do not anticipate that's going to happen,

but there's no choice here. Well, Congresswoman, we want to thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it. Well, great to be with you. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Well, great to be with you. Thank you very much. I appreciate being on. Okay. Good luck to you.

Thanks. Bye-bye. The Times reports that Donald Trump is preparing to hold a series of events intended to establish himself as a key player in the 2022 midterms and possibly lay the groundwork for another presidential run in 2024. Among the events is a forum at Mar-a-Lago, which will bring together candidates whom Trump is endorsing in the midterms, including Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Liz Cheney in Wyoming.

Tomorrow, in part three of our series, a check-in on the state of American democracy, one year after January 6th. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Chicago's public school system, the nation's third largest, was shut down on Wednesday over a dispute between the city and its teachers union over teachers' safety amid surging infections from the Omicron variant. Teachers had voted not to show up to work, despite pleas from the city's mayor, Lori Lightfoot, who said that classrooms are safe

and has accused the teachers of an illegal work stoppage. There's no reason to shut down the entire system, particularly given the catastrophic consequences that will flow. One week, two weeks, it doesn't matter. And Mr Djokovic failed to provide appropriate evidence to meet the entry requirements to Australia

and visa has been subsequently cancelled. On Wednesday, the world's number one tennis player, Novak Djokovic, was denied entry into Australia, where he had just arrived and was scheduled to compete in the Australian Open, because he has refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The decision prompted fury from Djokovic's home country of Serbia, but Australian officials said that it was consistent with its vaccination policies

for Australians. And it's not unreasonable to have exactly the same requirements of all who enter this country. So fair and equitable for all. Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung, Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung, Rob Zipko, Rachel Quester, and Eric Krupke, with help from Diana Nguyen. It was edited by Lisa Tobin, contains original music by Chelsea Daniel, Dan Powell, and Marian Lozano, and engineered by Corey Schreppel. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bilbaro. See you tomorrow.