The Dispatch Podcast - House GOP Set to Oust Cheney

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

With Rep. Liz Cheney’s days as the No. 3 ranking House GOP official numbered, Sarah and Steve are joined by The Dispatch’s own Haley Byrd Wilt and Audrey Fahlberg to talk about what that means for the party. Next Wednesday, the Republican caucus will meet and a vote to oust Cheney is expected to take place. The four lay out what they see happening on Wednesday and what they expect the aftermath may be. Show Notes: -Haley’s latest Uphill -Audrey’s piece from the GOP Orlando retreat -Elise Stefanik on Steve Bannon’s show -Ruthless Podcast -Steve’s piece on the GOP leadership issues -Liz Cheney’s op-ed in the Washington Post Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I am your host, Sarah Isger, joined this week by Steve Hayes, Haley Birdwilt, and Audrey Falberg from our dispatch Hill reporting team. We are going to talk about the tension in the House GOP conference as Liz Cheney currently the number three faces ousting in the next week. Haley has covered this in her fantastic newsletter for the dispatch called uphill, which you can subscribe to on the website, the dispatch.com. First of all, Haley, when is this vote expected to happen? Members are meeting next on May 12th, a Wednesday. Their members are saying that, you know, a vote could come up as soon as then.

At this point, you know, it seems like there's enough momentum him that it could happen pretty quickly. Jim Jordan was on Fox the other day, and he said, you know, I expect her to be out of the job by the end of the week next week. Steve? Yeah, I expect her to be out of the job by the end of the week next week, too. I think she expects to be out of the job by the end of the week next week, too. Look, this was, I think, virtually inevitable.

And it's been inevitable for not just the past few days, but the past couple months. She was never going to stop talking about her concerns as it relates to Donald Trump and the things he said about the election. They're not true. She's very committed to making people understand that they're not true. You've got a majority of Republicans still in virtually every poll who believes that they're true. And when Donald Trump continually says that he won the election and that it could be relitigated even today, you can expect that that. that she would speak out about it. And so will that same vote in Elise Stefonic as the number three position?

Is there any competition for that, Audrey? I mean, I don't think so. I think that Steve is right that it's inevitable that she was going to get removed from this position. It is really interesting to think about how quickly this has progressed, though, because remember, I mean, at the end of April, you know, the House COP conference had their meeting in Orlando, their issues conference that they have every single year. You know, they talked a lot about unity and about opposition to the Biden administration. Obviously, when probed on that, it became very clear that leaders weren't very enthusiastic about,

you know, endorsing her primary. You know, they said that they were, you know, that they could work alongside her in leadership. But, you know, it became pretty clear that, you know, during press conferences, when people asked Kevin McCarthy, when Jake Sherman from Punchball asked Kevin McCarthy whether she made a good fit for the leadership team, who said, you know, anyone who's distracting from our priorities is, you know, a problem. And, you know, obviously that's unraveled a lot more in the past week and people are clearly rallying behind Elise to Fanix. So I don't think that there's really in a competition. I think that she's not going to survive this, unfortunately. I mean, there are some, there's some talk. I mean, this is sort of

interesting because you hear a lot of talk, as Audrey said, at the conference, which Audrey covered for us, was down there asking a lot of these questions. The emphasis was on unity. But you're already seeing dissension in the ranks about who will replace Liz Cheney. I mean, Donald Trump has endorsed Elise Stefonic. You've got Steve Scalise, the number two Republican endorsing Elise Stefonic. But you've got some frustration among others in the Republican conference about her rise or her sort of the anointing of Elise. You've had outside groups that pointed out that her voting record is very moderate, far more moderate than Liz Cheney's, which again suggests this isn't about policy, but about loyalty to Donald Trump. You've had

reports this morning that Mike Johnson, who Audrey interviewed last week, and is the vice chair of the current vice chair of the Republican conference is frustrated that he wasn't really given an opportunity to step up and run for this. Jim Banks, who's the head of the Republican Study Committee, the largest group of conservatives in the House of Representatives, was interested in running for the office, was interested in taking the position. But I think once he understood that Elise Stefanik was likely to be anointed and was likely to be endorsed by the president. He sort of took himself out of the running. But, you know, the idea that all that had to happen to unify the Republican House conference

was to get rid of Liz Cheney is a bit fanciful. And we're seeing that play out now. Haley, let's back up a little. What actually does the number three in the GOP caucus do? What is that position? Right. So it's not super powerful. It is primarily messaging.

They run these meetings on a weekly basis, the conference meetings. They appear at leadership press conferences. They help whip votes for members on important bills and things like that. But, you know, in today's house, it's not a super powerful role, especially when you're in the minority. So for Stefanik, you know, people have said, you know, she'll do a good job because of the messaging. She's helped more Republican women, you know, run for office in the past few years.

But to the extent that the party, members of the party have said, you know, Liz Cheney needs to go because she's focused on the past. Stefanik was just on Steve Bannon's show the other day, relitigating the election, too. So it's not very, it's pretty disingenuous the way that they've handled this. So, Steve, there's been some discussion over what leadership, what the term leadership means in the House GOP caucus. Is leadership unifying your caucus? Is it leading?

And I just want to read something else, Elise Stefonic said during that interview that Haley just mentioned. This is about being one team. And I'm committed to being a voice and sending a clear message that we are one team. And that means working with the president and working with all of our excellent Republican members of Congress, the president here, of course, referring to former President Trump, not the current president. Does she have a point? I mean, if Liz Cheney keeps getting dragged into conversations where she is disagreeing with some members of the GOP caucus and disagreeing with the former president, the last Republican president, can she lead the caucus? Yeah, look, I think there's a fair practical question to be asked that involves just those

issues. You know, if Liz Cheney is leading in a direction that others aren't following, is she really leading? Is that an effective person to have, especially given the way that Haley just described the role? It is primarily a messaging role. So if it's primarily a messaging role and she's messaging on things that other Republicans are or at least divided on. I mean, I think a lot of House Republicans actually agree with her on substance. They're just mostly afraid to say so. So I do think that that's a fair question is whether that kind of leadership would have been effective. But again, the whole idea of unity here, you know, the idea that if Liz Cheney's voted out next Wednesday, Republicans will suddenly be unified is absurd. Donald

Trump, around whom they're supposedly unifying, put out a memo the other day attacking Mike Pence, his vice president. He's attacking Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate. Donald Trump is not a unifying figure. He doesn't want to be a unifying figure. He wants Republicans to be entirely loyal to him. And if they're not, he's perfectly happy stirring this up. So I think the whole unity thing is a bit of a canard, and it doesn't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. On the separate question of what is leadership, this is a really, I think a really interesting question. I was listening yesterday to the Roofless podcast, which is a podcast that is hosted by Josh Holmes, who's a former chief of staff to Mitch McConnell and other Republicans. And I think

it's fair to describe it as a more partisan Republican podcast. And they were talking about, But they talked, got into this whole issue and had a very interesting discussion about what leadership is and whether Liz Cheney could be a good leader for Republicans in the House. And Holmes, who said, you know, he intends to vote for her in her primary and likes Liz Cheney, but nonetheless argued she was not an effective leader. And the way that they defined leadership was fascinating. They say that the job of a leader in Congress is to protect party members, to make their lives as easy as possible. Now, it's not hard to imagine why if you were chief of staff to Mitch McConnell, you would believe that.

I mean, I imagine that that was that a lot of Josh's day-to-day job was keeping Republicans under Mitch McConnell happy and on the team and unified to the extent that he could. I guess I have a very different idea of what leadership is. If you're talking about leadership, doesn't it involve something beyond the day-to-day management of what happens on Capitol Hill? In my view, leadership is trying to persuade people that what you believe is correct and getting them to follow you and making an argument. And I think that's especially true as in this moment. if you have if you're confronted by a leader leader of the party in Donald Trump who's committed to lying and selling conspiracy theories about what happened in the party and I would say you can't be a good leader if you're not willing to at sort of the most

basic level say you know what the president the former president of the United States the de facto leader of the Republican Party shouldn't lie about the election, about the outcomes. And I think what you're saying, Steve, about members wanting their lives to be easier as like a big part of this, you know, push to get Cheney out. I don't think that's true. They're going to, this just brings up the whole election question all over again. I've seen people saying, you know, Pelosi or Cheney or somebody should put a resolution on the floor. just saying Joe Biden won the election and see how Republicans vote.

Because a lot of them, when they objected to Arizona or Pennsylvania, they said, oh, I'm just, you know, asking questions because my constituents are worried about this. But it really would be interesting to see, like, how many members are willing to say that and the pressure that they would feel because of how Trump has been, you know, approaching this. And he continues to spread these lies. And reporters are going to keep asking, Stefanik, when she's the conference chair at Every one of those leadership press conferences, reporters are going to ask her, number one, she said that there were tens of thousands of votes that were invalid in Georgia with nobody

knows where she got that number, but it's not true. So they're going to ask her about the lies that she, you know, shared. But they're also going to ask her, you know, it was Joe Biden elected lawfully? And it will be more stress for rank and file members here. who don't want to be answering these questions. Audrey, what do we actually expect from the vote on Wednesday, aside from the fact that Liz Cheney will be voted out of leadership, Steve on Wednesday ran through how that vote would look in terms of whether we would find out how people vote

and what those numbers are. Are you hearing what the caucus could look like that votes in favor of Liz Cheney staying in that position, even if they're in the minority? I mean, we're definitely going to see the, you know, other nine House Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump voting on behalf of Liz Cheney. I interviewed Adam Kinsinger the other day about his country first pack. And he said that, you know, not only is Liz Cheney's reelection a critical marker for the future of the Republican Party, but, you know, all of our elections are. And, you know, they're constantly looking out for each other. But

I also interviewed Mo Brooks yesterday. I'm writing a profile of his race. And I asked him about Liz Cheney and whether he'd vote to keep her in leadership next week. And he dodged the question, as most people do, because it's a secret ballot. And he said, I'll vote in accord with what I believe is best for the conservative values that I hold dear to my heart, which I thought was a really interesting question because, you know, as someone has mentioned already, you know, Elise DeFonic, she has a more liberal voting record than Liz Cheney does. I mean, Liz Cheney is as conservative as it gets. And so, you know, it'll be interesting. I mean, I'm assuming that Liz Cheney is going to be booted from leadership, but I think it might be actually closer

than we might think. Who knows? I also wonder, Steve, whether how this will look in terms of, you go into that vote on Wednesday and you assume that Liz Cheney is getting removed from office. Will that cause a stampede to join the majority? Or, in fact, will that allow some people to sort of vote their conscience knowing how the vote's going to turn out anyway, which could actually change the vote? Yeah, that's a really good question. To a certain extent, I think it depends on how many members of the House GOP conference view leadership in the way that Josh Holmes described it, right?

If leadership is making their job easier, at least in the short term, I think Haley's right about the long-term complications there, but at least in the short term, you know, or if they hold her responsible for raising these things, even though she's, she was, in this instance, responding to something that Donald Trump said, it's easy for me to see that they would, even people who like her and have supported her, would. I believe that the House leadership, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and their team will be doing everything they possibly can do to make this an overwhelming vote. They want it to look. I mean, they've made no secret to the fact that their priority is unity in the conference. The more that the vote is

overwhelming against Liz Cheney, the more it's an endorsement of their decision here and the more that they can pretend that there is actual unity in the conference. I think we can't lose sight of the fact, though, that however this turns out, just what we're watching right now is a huge indictment of Kevin McCarthy's leadership of the conference. Remember, he gave a speech talking about how it was important to keep Liz Cheney in her role as number three. when the no-confidence vote came up in early February, he endorsed her. He talked about how this was going to be the best leadership team to take the conference forward. Did he just make a colossal misjudgment? Did he expect that Liz Cheney was going to sit quietly and not raise these

objections, even after she had said in January that she considered what the president did, one of the most grievous assaults on his oath of office or oath to the Constitution of any president. I think it suggests that Kevin McCarthy is not a great people reader, if that's the case, and not a great leader in any event. It's also just embarrassing for the conference. They spent four hours debating this, which was not fun for me to have to stake out, by the way. I hope this one will be faster. But they spent four hours debating this in this late-night conference meeting just three months ago and they overwhelmingly voted to keep her. And now they're having this debate all over again. And just at Kevin McCarthy's word, they voted to keep her last

time and they're going to do it. They're going to change their minds this time just because he's tired of her. It's just sort of embarrassing for them. Haley, what happens with what I've been calling the Chip Roy caucus, the folks who were adamant that the election had not been stolen, that there had been no evidence provided by the Trump team in any of those lawsuits and refused to go along with that part of the president's messaging, but then did not vote to impeach the president, felt that the article of impeachment was inappropriately drafted, included the wrong things, didn't include others. Where are they going to fall on this vote? Right. So I actually talked to Thomas Massey was on that letter with Chip Roy leading up to January 6th where they said

the election, you know, this effort to overturn the election is, you know, not what we should be doing in Congress. And I spoke with him at that conference meeting. And Massey and a lot of conservatives have issues with Cheney. They disagree with her on foreign policy. Cheney has clashed, especially with Massey in the past. And so, I mean, they're not going to be sad to see her go. But I also think some of those people will have issues with Stefani because she is, she's not conservative. You know, Chip Roy and people like Thomas Massey, they're looking for someone who shares some of those viewpoints about the economy, taxes, things like that. And Stefanik has voted against them on several different bills. She voted against the 2017 Republican tax bill because of the state and

local tax deduction, the cap that they put on the state and local tax deduction in that legislation. But she also split with the president on a bunch of other occasions. She, I believe, yeah, she voted just with a handful of Republicans against his national emergency declaration that he used to divert funding to the border wall. She also voted for legislation to stop him from withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. There were several instances like that. And so I think you'll see some conservatives who, you know, maybe take issue with her policies and still prioritize that over personal fealty to Trump. But there are others like Jim Jordan who, because Trump has endorsed her, because he's

worked with her in the past, you know, defending Trump in impeachment trials, things like that, they're fine with Stefanic. I mean, this could split the House Freedom Caucus in, too. potentially, but again, it's like, I was speaking to someone who's, you know, familiar with their conversations about this. And, you know, even if they said even if there's people who don't like her, which there are, it's not going to make a difference. She has a lot of support within the conference as a whole. So they said she's, you know, at this point, has shored up enough support to win the job. Audrey, Kevin McCarthy finds himself in an unusual position. He is

almost certainly going to be Speaker of the House in 18 months or whatever it is now, Republicans only need five seats to take back the House with redistricting, you know, roughly speaking, they've picked up three already. And yet, he himself has kind of a tense relationship with the president. At times, the president has called him my Kevin. But most recently there was reporting out of Mar-a-Lago that he was the president, Trump, was complaining about how Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney needed to go, that they were rhinos insufficiently loyal. And one anonymous Republican aide said, quote, it's not like the my Kevin days anymore. So Kevin McCarthy is leading this very disruptive issue within his own caucus, to what end,

if then in a couple weeks, Donald Trump decides it's not my Kevin anymore. I think that's a great question. I think this entire chainy debacle kind of reveals the fact that Kevin McCarthy and the other GOP leaders and pretty much everyone in the GOP conference, House conference, is terrified of Trump and terrified of Trump's voters because they know that they fall out of step with Trump. You know, Trump could endorse someone in their primary and they'll lose their race. And so it'll be interesting to see, as Steve pointed out in his recent piece on the side about this whole debacle, you know, Kevin, Kevin McCarthy has gone so far as to separate different starburst flavors for the president.

You know, that's how much he's willing to suck up to the former president. I think obviously he cares a lot about Trump's ability to help, you know, the House win them midterms. As you mentioned, they only need to flip five seats and Trump can really help with fundraising. So it'll be interesting. to see how that plays out over the next few months. But I think right now he's doing everything he can to stay in Trump's good lives. Steve, considering that we do have 18 months plus until Republicans would, it seems, have won their five seats needed to take back the majority and get the speakership, is there any chance that it would be at least Stefanic and not Kevin McCarthy? I mean, that would be ironic, right? If Donald Trump, if Republicans retake the House and Donald Trump decides that at least Stefanik, who is, who's never had a moment, right? Kevin McCarthy on January 13th from the House floor said that Donald Trump bears responsibility for the assault

on the Capitol on January 6th. Kevin McCarthy was boasting to local newspapers and others that he got in Donald Trump's face, that they had heated conversation about what had transpired on January 6th. And Kevin McCarthy had bragged that he told the president he needed to stop with the election lies, that the election was over, that he lost the election. So whether or not Kevin McCarthy actually did those things, and I will say I'm a little dubious that Kevin McCarthy stood up and got in Donald Trump's face. But whether or not he did or not, he said that he did. So there are these moments where he hasn't been perfectly publicly aligned with Trump the way that Elise Tefonic has. I mean, at least DeFonik, the fact that she would, the day that she's endorsed or the day

after she's endorsed by the number two in the House GOP conference would choose to go on radio programs of Steve Bannon and Seb Gorka, who are, you know, alt-right conspiracy theorists who goaded her into pushing this absurd Republican recount in Arizona, partisan Republican recount where they're now looking for bamboo in the paper because of rumors that 40,000 ballots may have come from Asia. I mean, this, the level of absurdity here is almost beyond belief. And yet that's what she's doing. She knew that she had to do that to shore up not only her, her position among sort of the base, but also to please Donald Trump. I think that's not a small thing. And one, one sort of final note on that. And I, and this goes back

to your previous question, which I think in some ways is like, is the most important question that we've discussed here. We have seen Donald Trump consistently in public take off after Liz Cheney, right? He has been doing the same thing in private. You know, it's not just that Kevin McCarthy suddenly decided without any prompting, oh, I think Liz Cheney shouldn't be saying these three things she's saying now that are the same things I've said before and now she can't be a leader anymore. We can be sure that Donald Trump has been calling, I mean,

has been reported that Donald Trump was calling Kevin McCarthy, expressing his frustration with Liz Cheney. He has said for, you know, on January 6th, the speech at the rally, Donald Trump said Liz Cheney has to be thrown out. We can't have people like Liz Cheney. So this is, I think, best viewed less as a bottom up series of frustrations from the House GOP membership, which is how Kevin McCarthy originally tried to sell it, you'll remember. He went on Fox and friends and said, well, I'm hearing from my members' concerns about her being off message. Maybe. This is far better understood as Donald Trump badgering Kevin McCarthy to get rid of Liz Cheney. And Kevin McCarthy, who, as I said, gave a speech on the House floor on January 13th saying Trump bears responsibility for

the assault on the Capitol one week earlier, traveled to Mara Lago. Two weeks later, to kiss the ring. And he did so without telling other members of leadership or other members of the House that he was going to meet with Trump. So they were surprised to see Kevin McCarthy after having seen his public scolding now bending the need of Trump at Mara Lago. Haley, Liz Cheney published an op-ed in the Washington Post discussing her position, almost assuming that she was already out of leadership. There was no fight to stay in leadership in this op-ed. But she said, For Republicans, the path forward is clear, and she laid out three things that she thought Republicans needed to do. First, support the ongoing Justice Department criminal investigation of the January

6th attack. Second, support a parallel bipartisan review by a commission with subpoena power to seek and find facts about what happened on January 6. And finally, we Republicans need to stand for genuinely conservative principles and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality. Is Liz Cheney going to have anyone standing behind her on any of those three, or is Liz Cheney the cheese standing alone after this vote? I think one of the most interesting ones, which may have, you know, helped spark this issue even further at the GOP conference meeting in Orlando was she publicly split with both McCarthy

and McConnell on the January 6th commission. debate, which is she said that commission should be narrowly focused on January 6th and leading up to it and everything that happened. Whereas other Republican leaders have said, oh, it should also, you know, dedicate resources and time looking into the violence that happened over the summer after George Floyd was murdered. To a very small extent there is overlap to the extent that the D.C. National Guard and the military, because of the public reaction to their response to those riots over the summer, was more hesitant to, you know, have a show of force on January 6th. They said publicly, like, oh, this is not going to be like

over the summer when we had, you know, troops at the Capitol and helicopters flying low over neighborhoods. To that extent, yes, there was some overlap, but, you know, No, in a common definition, it is not the same thing. And, and, you know, Democrats view those attempts as sort of distracting from January 6th and, you know, President Trump's, former President Trump's role in that. So I think Cheney's stance on that is interesting. And, you know, there's been other partisan issues with that commission because Pelosi initially proposed a very partisan makeup of that commission, whereas, you know, even people who, who were in charge of the 9-11 commission.

We're telling her, you need to have an equal partisan split so that this can actually have credibility. Reportedly, she is now proposing something with an equal split, but I think there's still a lot of disagreement over the scope. So I would be interested to see, Sidney Hoyer in a letter the other day said that they could take up legislation on that front this month.

So I'm interested to see what an agreement looks like if they're going to put something on the floor that only Democrats will support. or if they're able to find, you know, some sort of common ground on that issue. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones

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That's a fantastic. question. You know, it was interesting. I asked, I had, I sat down for interviews with Gary Palmer, he's the number seven House Republican and Mike Johnson, number four House Republican. I asked him that question, what are your top three policy priorities? You know, border security definitely came up fighting the Biden administration spending agenda, you know, and I can't even remember the other one because they just went back to talking about how crazy Nancy Pelosi was. You know, I think during these meetings, they talked about how unified they are against the Biden administration. But, I mean, clearly, there's just, there's so many fissures in the

ranks and fault lines over the whole Cheney question and, you know, the whole Trump thing. And I don't know. It's just going to be interesting to see if they can, how this is going to play out over the next, you know, a couple months because the messaging is tough when there are so many fissures in the ranks. All right, Steve, I have my next easy question for you. Why is Liz Cheney doing this? Yeah, that is actually an easy question, although it appears to be confounding virtually everybody in Washington and everybody who has a view on this. I think the simple answer is she's saying what she believes. She fundamentally believes that Donald Trump and his continued presence of the Republican Party

and potential return to leadership is a threat. It's bad for the party. It's bad for the country. And so she's saying it. And what's so interesting is, you know, you read some of the commentary, particularly on the Trump supporting right, and they can't quite figure this out. They accuse her of poor political judgment and then, some cases in the same sentence accuser of wanting to run in 2024, which you'd think might be

intention. But they don't understand. They sort of scratched their heads. Why would she do this? Why would she say this? Did she think that she was going to outmaneuver Kevin McCarthy? Did she think she was going to bring, you know, a bunch of people along? I think she really just believes sort of fundamentally the guy shouldn't go out and lie about the election results. And some somebody somewhere, at some point, has to stand up and say it. And the problem is you haven't had Republicans willing to do that. But it goes back to this idea of that we've seen so many people argue through the Trump administration in Republican circles.

Yeah, but if not me, I'll be replaced with someone much worse. So I'm going to sort of, you know, pull back a little. It's more important for me to stay the number. three and to be able to maneuver the GOP caucus where I can at the margins. Elise Stefonic will take it in such a different direction, such a pro-Trump direction. We can't have that happen to the Republican Party. So, yeah, I said what I was going to say about what happened on January 6th and about Trump's impeachment, but I'm done with that now.

We've moved on as a caucus. Why hasn't Liz Cheney followed that path that so many others have? Well, look, I think to a certain extent, you can look back at what she did over the four years of the Trump administration and suggests that maybe she did, right? That's part of, I think, what probably guided her over those first four years. And that's, by the way, not a crazy argument. You know, I think there are some Never Trumpers who want to just dismiss people like that. And it's, it's, you're, they're outraged that not everybody quit en masse on the same day. That's a real calculation for some of these folks. Now, I happen to think that most of the people

in the House Republican conference are not saying, are not voicing their objections to Trump and to what he's doing publicly because they're chicken shit. They're not really actually doing this kind of deeper calculation,

but it is a factor for some of them. And I would say, you know, the point is well made, I think, on the question of trading Liz Cheney for Elise Stefani. That said, at some point, I do think you have to have people who are willing to stand up, particularly on something as, you know, as demonstrably, provably untrue as Donald Trump won the election. He didn't win the

election. There's, there's no question about that. It's obvious. You can look at the numerous recounts. You can look at the fact that his team, his legal team couldn't provide any evidence, real evidence when they were asked. You can look at the court decisions. This is as clear as as it's going to be that what he's saying is just not true. At a certain point, I do think you have to have people who stand up and say that. And I think, you know, I think Ms. Janney is sort of like waiting into the ocean from the beach and turning around, kind of waving people forward and saying, hey, the water's warm. Join me.

And you're seeing everybody sprint in the other direction. and that's that's pretty frustrating i think for cheney too i just want to emphasize a part of her thinking on this is this could happen again and if republicans ignore trump while he continues to do this for the next several years if he runs again i think she's worried about the very real damage that that can do it's not people say just move on like just move on it's in the past it's not in the past. He on a regular basis continues to share these lies, continues to spread new conspiracy theories trying to make the case that he won the election. And for her, it's, you know, it's an important principle in terms of safeguarding democracy to not go along with that, to not just ignore it

while it sort of festers in the background. I do think it's interesting to think about how her political trajectory might have played out had she decided to run for a Senate seat last year. I mean, got a lot of flack in 2014 when she announced she'd be primary Mike Enzi, former GOP Senator of Wyoming. But, you know, he retired in 2020. Had she decided to run in that race against Cynthia Lemish, she's the current senator who got that seat, you know, she would have had a good shot of winning and she could have had six years to recover from all of this, all of her criticism of Trump and, you know, the January 6th debacle. And I don't know, it's just interesting to see how that might have played out.

because now she's facing a really tough primary in 2022. Trump's already said that he's going to endorse a primary challenger to her. He hasn't endorsed anyone yet. He's really concerned about splitting the ticket. But had she become a senator, you know, maybe her political future would have played out very differently. That's possible. I will say, I think, if you go back and look at what that race was likely to be, particularly in a place like Wyoming where Donald Trump won with 70% of the vote.

and the primary there against Loemus, who was already declared, was likely to be a contest over who was trumpier. And I can imagine Liz Cheney looking at that contest and looking at the prospect of spending months and months and months trying to prove to people that she was trumpier than Cynthia Lemis might not have been very appealing to her. And the other factor, I think, is that her dad was a creature of the House of Representatives, loved the House,

really actually disdainful of the Senate. And I think she had listened to him talk about his reverence for the House of Representatives over all these years and was very comfortable in the House. So I think it was both that she didn't want to run, necessarily run for Senate, though it would have probably afforded her a bigger voice on national security foreign policy issues, but also that she didn't want to have to do the things that Republicans in this day and age have to do to be elected. to the Senate and other offices. Steve, you talked about people pro-Trump folks within the party saying that she's making

a political mistake here. You know, what did she think? She could out maneuver Kevin McCarthy, you said that. But what about another political mistake for folks who are not big Trump supporters who say that she's elevating Trump, she's empowering him, she's going to get removed from her leadership position, and that will emboldened the Trump world. And that even her criticisms of him, I mean, we know what happens. When you attack Donald Trump, his support surges.

You elevate him. You make him the conversation that he really hasn't been for the last three months. What about that political mistake? Yeah, I mean, I guess it assumes that Donald Trump would sort of just fade away. And, you know, we've seen reports of him moving his political headquarters to Bedminster, New Jersey, to prepare for a 2024 run. President Trump has talked openly about looking at different potential running mates for a 2024 bid. He's made very clear that he intends to weigh in loudly and authoritatively in primaries, both Senate and House, across the country this year.

I don't think Donald Trump was going anywhere. And I don't think Liz Cheney speaking up against his continued election lies is going to give him a much bigger megaphone than he would have already had. I think, you know, in terms of the political judgment here, I don't think it was poor political judgment. I've seen that in an article at National Review. There were some other pieces suggesting as much in less credible, more Trumpy, Trump boostery places. I don't think it's poor political judgment. I think she knew exactly what the politics of this were. If she had wanted, if what really mattered to her was advancing politically, she wouldn't

have said anything. She would have kept her mouth shut. She knows what the story was here. I think she did this because she thought it was the right thing to do, despite the fact that it had such immediate short-term negative political consequences. Now, I happen to think, and I may be crazy, we may look back on this in five years, and we'll be able to prove that I was crazy to believe this. I think that there probably is some long-term political upside.

I think people will look at this and say, you know what, finally somebody's willing to take a stand. Finally, somebody's willing to say what he or she believes without regard to whether this was going to cost a leadership seat and potentially a seat in Congress. That's worth doing. And I think the fact that she's not running away or quitting, like we've seen others do. We've seen a lot of good people in the Republican Party leave, you know, for a wide variety of reasons.

You know, Paul Ryan left as as speaker, Trey Gowdy left. He's now with Fox News. You've seen Pat Toomey. You've seen Rob Portman, Roy Blunt, Jeb Hensseling. Lots of the people who I would have listed. as movement conservatives in elective office, among the more valuable members of the Republican Party, if you believe in ideas and limiting the size of government matters, chose to leave. I think she's not going to choose to leave.

I can't imagine that she won't continue to run for re-election, and I think she's going to do everything she can to stay in the fight. She's going to keep fighting. And I think she'll probably have a pretty big platform to do it. We all know that, you know, there's very little that the mainstream media loves more than a Republican criticizing Republicans. She will have a pretty big megaphone, too. So, you know, she's not going to be Donald Trump. She's not going to rival Donald Trump.

Donald Trump can, you know, say and do anything and get a ton of attention for it. But I think she's going to continue the fight. And I expect that she'll have, eventually, you'll see people coming out to support what she's saying. All right, Steve, last question to you. We've talked about all the reasons that Liz Cheney has earned the ire of her Republican caucus and Donald Trump specifically, who is egging it on. But there's one thing we haven't talked about, which is Donald Trump has attacked the McCain's. He's attacked the Romneys, the Murkowski's, obviously the Bushes.

She's a Cheney. How much of this is about Donald Trump removing the Republican Party. ties to its past so that the Republican Party is wholly the Donald Trump Party. And Liz Cheney stands in the way of that because of who she's the daughter of. I mean, I think it's more about her criticism of him and more about the criticism of him that we've seen from folks in those other families. I think ultimately he cares much more about people being nice to Donald Trump or people being mean to Donald Trump. That's really what drives him. But I don't think it's any mistake that he has worked hard to rest control of the Republican Party from the people who were its leaders in the

past. And it's one of the reasons why, you know, going back to the very good policy question you asked earlier, it's one of the reasons why you can have people like a Gary Palmer or a Mike Johnson in the House articulate some issues that they might focus on. going into the 2022 elections. But there's no coherent policy message from the Republican Party. It's a jumbled mass. I mean, we talked about this on Wednesday, but, you know, the 2020 Republican platform was literally a letter

saying that we basically believe whatever Donald Trump believes. And that increasingly appears to be true on policy questions. It's, you know, he hasn't, I would say, won over the party on, his policy preferences to the extent that he has any that are consistent. But he has certainly moved to the party away from the policy traditions of Republicans over the past 50 years, I think, without question. And that's another place where I think there will be a continued fight. And a lot of elected Republicans seem willing to just go along with whatever Donald Trump wants.

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All right, listeners, as a reminder, Sunday is Mother's Day. So, Audrey and Haley, what are you getting your mothers for Mother's Day? So my mom is, she doesn't like surprises. So she always is very clear about telling us

what she wants. So she wants a manicure. So I've told my sister that she had, one of my sisters, I have four siblings that she has to get her, you know, a nail certificate thing. But I've gotten my mama bellows for her fire because that's our favorite activity to do with each other sit by the fire. And then I also got her a high heel like wine bottle stopper thing. It's like a red high heel that kind of looks like Dorothy's slipper. So kind of weird gifts. But those are, Very specific. When does this podcast, I don't want to scoop the gift. My mom will totally listen to this.

Oh, you're right. I mean, this podcast will air Friday afternoon. So if she's going to listen to it beforehand, you can save it as a, give us a hint. Sorry, Joni, I'm not letting you know. It's a secret. Steve, what do you have in store? I still haven't decided. I'm working with my brothers and sister on what we are going to do for,

my mom. She is not with us locally, so we'll have to figure out something. We usually enlist one of my siblings who lives back in Wisconsin to help out and deliver the gift. For my wife, I don't think she's going to be listening to this before Sunday. Ever. Just ever is actually the answer. I mean, maybe. I feel pretty safe in saying, I think we're going to sign her up for an art class. She's wanted to try painting. She has a friend and business partner who paints and has gotten very good. And she's never done it. And my wife is very artistically inclined.

She's got a good eye for these things. So I think she could probably be very good. So I think we'll give her a shot there. I'm going to make the kids clean up their rooms. That'll be a huge present. They're going to write letters telling their mom why they appreciate her. and then we're going to go to brunch. So that's the plan. That's pretty good. What are you hoping for from Nate? I mean, because I know he's been thinking about it.

Yeah. No, he really has. He has not been the best sleeping baby for the last few days. And my husband has been at a trial in Dallas all week. He comes home on the weekends, but this trial is going to last for three weeks. So he's actually going to fly out on Sunday. What I asked for was that he would take the baby to the basement so that I could sleep. I thought you were going to say take the baby to Dallas. Oh, man, can I ask for that? That would be... Get some brisket.

Ooh, yeah, that would be real good. Yeah, so little father's son bonding time in the basement, I think. And then I will sit in bed and luxuriate on a Sunday morning. Yeah, just live in the life. That's all I want. Sounds good. All right. Haley and Audrey, thank you so much for joining us, giving your insights on what's going on in the Hill. And we will certainly all be watching to see what happens this week in the House GOP conference. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace.

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