The New Yorker Radio Hour - Liz Cheney: Donald Trump Should Go to Jail if Convicted

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Liz Cheney has been Republican royalty, and a conservative stalwart in Washington—a daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney and culture warrior Lynne Cheney. But after protesting Donald Trump���s election lies, and voting for his impeachment after January 6th, she found herself in exile from the G.O.P. Cheney is contemplating a Presidential campaign on a third-party line.  As she promotes her new book, “Oath and Honor,” she is raising the alarm that Americans across the political spectrum have become “numb” to Trump’s overtly dictatorial aspirations. “People really understood that what he had done [on January 6th] was unacceptable, not to mention unconstitutional and illegal,” she tells David Remnick. “That recognition quickly dwindled.” She finds herself frustrated with former allies on the right who have become shameless enablers of Trump; she does not trust Speaker Mike Johnson, a former friend, to perform his constitutional duties during the electoral process. She is also concerned that the left is squandering an opportunity to defeat Donald Trump in 2024 by alienating some of the voters whose support they need on issues such as crime and immigration. Trump “has figured out a way, as dictators have in the past, to make those people think he speaks for them,” she says. Still, Cheney’s faith in the country’s institutions and judiciary has not been totally shaken. Asked if Trump should go to jail if convicted—on any of his ninety-one federal charges—she says yes without hesitation; but we must not presume that “someone else is going to save us from him.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. There was a time not very long ago that Liz Cheney was a big deal, a serious contender in Republican politics. She obviously came from a Washington power family. She was the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney and her mother is Lynn Cheney, who chaired the National Endowment for the Humanities. early on Liz Cheney worked in the State Department before running for office from the state of Wyoming. In Congress, she quickly rose to be the number three Republican. In other words, Liz Cheney was every bit the conservative Washington insider.

She was totally on board when Donald Trump came to town and voted with his positions a remarkable 93% of the time. But finally, at the end of the Trump administration, she broke with Trump. She balked. She wouldn't go along with Republicans. who ignored or amplified the stream of dangerous lies about the 2020 election. And in the aftermath of January 6th, she voted to impeach Donald Trump, something that only 10 Republicans did. And that was it. Republicans in Washington and back in Wyoming

stripped Liz Cheney of her party positions. They censured her, and finally, she lost a primary election very badly. Cheney recounts all of this in a new book with the top of her. title, Oath and Honor, we spoke last week. I think we should start out with the most important thing of all in 2024. Would you say that the United States is poised to potentially elect an aspiring dictator? I think there's no question. And I think one of our challenges, those of us who recognize the threat, is to be able to convey how perilous the moment is, because it's something we've never faced before, as you know, in this country. And so it can be very challenging to convince people that that's, in fact, where we are, but it certainly is where we are.

You've used the phrase sleepwalking, sleepwalking toward dictatorship. What does that mean? It means that we're gradually accepting things that we would never have accepted previously. even if you just look at January 6th and at what people agreed right after January 6th. Certainly almost every Republican in Congress knew Donald Trump was responsible and, you know, had prepared on the House side a censure resolution that mirrored the language of the impeachment article. I mean, it was a moment where people really understood what he had done was unacceptable, not to mention unconstitutional and illegal. And that recognition very quickly, though, dwindled.

And we've come to accept things now in terms of what he says, what he's doing. And in his playbook, in some cases, is to say things that are so extreme that many people listening sort of have discounted it and have said he can't possibly mean that. many dictators have been elected to their perch. Hitler was elected. What is the potential for Trump to be elected? I mean, what do you think the odds are? And once elected, how would he be different in 2024, 2025 than he was from 2016 to the end of his term?

I think the potential is very real. He obviously is leading by a significant margin in the Republican primary race, and anybody who thinks that he can't win the general, I think is, that's wishful thinking. We know that he's willing to seize power. He's had a dry run. You know, if you look at the story of the Select Committee, for example, the witnesses that we put on, at the time when I heard, for example, General Mike Flynn suggests the president should deploy the military to rerun the election in swing states, I had no idea that he, you know, know, actually was contemplating doing that. And if you think about what it means that he's talked

already about putting Mike Flynn back into positions of power, I think there's no question that he'll do that if given the opportunity if he needs to. General Flynn, do you believe the violence on January 6th was justified morally? You believe the violence on January 6th was justified legally? Yes. General Flynn, do you believe in the peaceful transition of power in the United States of America? Sure. In a second Trump term, he won't obey the rulings of the courts.

He'll offer pardons to people who do his bidding. People need to take very seriously the fact that he has practiced. He's told us what he'll do, and he'll certainly do it again. And he'll be better at it, and he'll be surrounded by people who will help him, rather than prevent him. I think it's fair to say in 2016, when he was elected, people on my side of the political bloc were appalled. Paul, terrified, full of warning and foreboding, and all the rest.

Did you not feel the same way right from the get-go with Trump, or did your sense of him evolved? Did you have optimism about Donald Trump? It's, you know, what I remember thinking was, and part of this is informed by the fact that I'd worked at the State Department. I certainly, you know, grew up around politics and, you know, in and out of the White House. So I knew about the structures. that are in place that that that are there to help serve american presidents the structure at the national security council the structure of the executive secretariat in the white house and i thought trump would grow into the job i thought like i think many republicans did uh that those those structures

around him would inform him um and and that he'd grow into the job but what in his behavior led you to think so, or was it you just hoped, you wished it would be so? It was what I had seen happen before. And I think that was the mistake. You know, you start to think about the things that he did. And these were things that I spoke out about as they were happening, you know, when he stood next to Putin in Helsinki and said he trusted Putin more than his own intelligence services or when he suggested America should, you know, pull out of NATO, that NATO is obsolete.

It's the same thing that we're suffering from now in some ways. It's hard to imagine an American president as dangerous as he was. We have not ever faced a danger like this, and we've seen what it'll do. I guess I want to get a sense of what it was like in private meetings among Republicans and the Republican caucus, how Trump was talked about, beginning in 2016 right through 2020, because obviously people would come, you yourself voted with him over 90% of the time. But how were you and your colleagues talking about him as opposed to what they were saying in public? I think there was a view that the policies in many ways were policies I agreed with,

policies that many Republicans agreed with. I would say up until really the 2020 election, and there were periods of time certainly leading up to that where he said things like maybe we can delay the election. But the real sort of turning point, in my mind, obviously, came in the days after the 2020 election, as it became clear that he was taking steps that increasingly looked like he might not leave office. Well, you said that the cause of our time is not to become numb. As somebody who's inside the Republican Party, inside those cloakrooms, what has allowed your colleagues or former colleagues in the party to become numb? Is it personally? ambition? Is it a strange sense of idealism gone wrong? Is it so great being a congressman or a senator that you'll

keep, like, cling on to your job no matter what? Is it so swell? It's all of those things. I don't think that there's a lot of idealism in there, though. I think that the very small number, and I think it's single digits of members who actually believe Trump, you know, that's one group. But you have a much larger group. You've got over 80 Republicans. You think it's in single digits that they actually believe him. And everybody else is just pretending. Yes.

Yes, for sure. Now, I think that beyond that, though, you've got people who, some of whom have made a calculated decision, look, this is my political future. If I want to survive, I've got to be an aggressive supporter of Donald Trump's. And, I mean, look, psychologically, if you're not. you've embraced him after he tried to seize power and, you know, launched a violent mob to assault the Capitol, then, you know, you really can never go back because you've sort of accepted a line that can never be crossed. But then I think you also have a lot of Republicans

who really just don't want to deal with it, who, who believed that he was going to fade away, that we didn't have to deal with it, that talking about it was what gave him power. And so sort of put their head in the sand and hope for the best. Let's talk about the election for a second. The Democrats obviously are running their incumbent, Joe Biden. Are the Democrats making a mistake running someone in their 80s? Is this part of sleepwalking toward disaster? I think there are a whole range of issues right now that are causing independence to have real concern.

And I don't hear from people who say to me that they might vote for Trump. I hear from people saying to me, if the Democrats don't get their act together on the border, for example, you know, you're going to have people who vote for Trump because they think that he's the lesser of two evils here. I don't think either party's nominee is, you know, all sewn up yet. But I think that we face a situation where people could decide. They think, you know, it can't possibly be that Trump is this bad. So we're going to go ahead. and cast a vote for him. And those are the people that we really have to reach and convince. Are you ready to pull the lever for Joe Biden or are you considering running yourself? I have said that I'm going to do whatever it takes to stop Trump. And I haven't made a decision yet about whether or not I'm going to run. I'll make that decision in the next couple of months. But I think all of those options have to be on the table. But I do think that we're at a moment in American politics where a third-party option has got to be given consideration that it wouldn't

have been before. I'm assuming neither Cornell West nor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. excite you? No. That's a correct assumption. Liz Cheney's new book is called Oath and Honor. Our conversation continues in a moment on the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And I'm speaking today with Liz Cheney, the form of... Republican representative from the state of Wyoming.

Cheney is a dyed-in-the-Wool Republican. She voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and in 2020, but she broke with him after the 2020 election. And ultimately, she played a major role on Congress's select committee investigating January 6th. She didn't pull any punches in those hearings or in her new book, which is called Oath and Honor. Earlier in our conversation, I asked if

assuming Republicans nominate Donald Trump, she would support Joe Biden, or if Cheney is going to run for president herself on a third party line, she told us she's weighing those decisions right now. You're an ardent conservative, always have been. You've spent a lot of time lately with Democrats. You've been sitting next to Jamie Raskin

and all the people on the committee, not your normal allies in the past. What do you want to say to them about the Democratic Party in order to broaden its appeal? In other words, What, in your view, as a conservative, what mistakes in terms of policy or appeal or rhetoric or tactics, do you want to see the Democrats correct in order to prevent Trump from winning? When I think about what's happening right now in the Democratic Party, the first thing that causes me deep concern is rising anti-Semitism. And, you know, I've been very, very open and clear about anti-Semitism on the right.

we certainly saw that as a big part of January 6th, white supremacy. But what's happening now today is terrifying. When I see people threatening that they're going to take their support away from Joe Biden, away from Democrats, if they stand with Israel, if they stand against anti-Semitism, that's a really dangerous place for the country. I think across the board on policy issues, what's happening at the board, I would say is just, you've got Democratic mayors and governors around the country saying to the Biden administration, you have to get control. And that kind of the policies that we're seeing or the lack of

policies that we're seeing at the border are exactly the kind of thing that could lead people to say, this chaos is something we can't sustain. We're going to vote for Donald Trump. I think on issues like crime around the country, I would tell the Democrats, you've got to get your act together on some pretty basic things that ought to be common sense. And on the Democratic side, I think people have lost the ability again to talk about the goodness and the greatness of this country. And I think that has an impact. There are a lot of interesting moments in this book.

One of them is you write about turning down an invitation to talk to Trump in March 2021. Why did you turn down that opportunity, if that's what it was? I was very surprised by this phone call. this was a call from Brian Kilmead who of Fox News. Yes, I'd known Brian. I was myself an analyst or a contributor at Fox News for a number of years. And Brian called me to say, I think you guys essentially need to bury the hatchet.

And when he called me, I was surprised. But I also was surprised when I laid out for him why I wouldn't talk to Trump. His response was not. What was your reasoning? Forgive my interrupting, but what was your reasoning? I said, we're not having a disagreement here. He violated the Constitution. He went to war with the rule of law. You know, this isn't about burying the hatchet. What he's done is, you know, a line that can't be crossed. You're not disagreeing about tax policy. Right. And, and, but, but Brian's response was essentially not to disagree with me. He basically said, yes, I realize that. I know that that's the case. He said, but what if he's our only hope to beat Kamala? Which, which, with. surprising to me that somebody would sort of say out loud, you know, okay, he might be that bad.

He might have violated the Constitution, but, you know, we got to beat the Democrats. Well, what does that tell you about him? Killmead. I mean, I think that he was expressing a view that not only he holds. And I think this is where, as people who believe in conservative principles, we have a special duty to say, you know, we aren't going to torch the Constitution in order to to win the next election. And yet you voted for Trump in 2020. It was your rationale that really only winning matters here from an ideological point of view, or had the scales not fallen from your eyes yet?

It wasn't until the election drama, post-election drama. Well, I certainly wish that I hadn't. But I wouldn't say it was about winning is the only thing that matters. I mean, it goes back to what we were discussing earlier in terms of, you know, the policies that really mattered from my perspective, for the people that I was representing. There were many moments where I thought, all right, look, you know, this is going to proceed now. We've had the election.

He lost. And this is going to now become a normal transition. And it became clear sort of day by day that that wasn't going to be the case. You write quite a lot about Mike Johnson, who is now the Speaker of the House. As you write, he was one of the main architects of the House's effort to support Trump in overturning the election. how concerning is it to you that he's now the speaker, a collaborator, as you put it, in the speaker's chair? It's very concerning. The Speaker of the House is second in line to the presidency behind the vice president. And if you think about where we could be, you know, the new Congress will be sworn in on January 3rd, 2025.

And the electoral votes will be counted on January 6th if no candidate has reached two-seventh. then we could have a contingent election. And Johnson in the Speaker's Chair, then in my view, given what I have seen, given what I know about how he operates, how he operated, he cannot be counted on to put his duty to the Constitution ahead of his determination to appease Donald Trump. And I don't say that lightly. I say that as someone who used to be a friend of Mike's. I considered him a friend, but it's a very real concern. And look, it's not only me. I mean, during the period of time that we were having these debates,

I was working very closely with Kevin McCarthy's chief counsel. And she shared my view, and I tell those stories in the book about Johnson's willingness to advocate positions that he knew were constitutionally infirm. How does he square that with his... immense moral bearing. I mean, I think that is the question. He says everything he believes is in the Bible. Yeah.

Well, look, I certainly I don't want to question his faith, but what I can tell you is that I watched him operate and the way he operated was destructive and advocated things. I mean, if you just look at the fact that he stood on the floor of the house and objected to the area,

Arizona electoral votes in a way that would suggest certainly that we should throw out those votes, which would mean throwing out the votes of millions of Americans. And he had never before January 6th that I knew of expressed any concern about Arizona's votes. His concerns were all focused on four other states. And he had no answer to a really important question that a number of Republicans asked, which was, if you're worried about rule changes, why aren't you talking about those states that have changed the rules prior to the election that elected in states where Trump won. You know, the objections were only focused on states that Biden had won. And certainly, you know, the objections were being made despite the fact that the courts had ruled already. But I think

that's, you know, an important insight into what was driving those objections. I have to ask you, does it feel a little strange to you, considering your political career and your voting record to be lionized, at least by some on the left at this point? I mean, it's, yes, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's concerning. It's disconcerting. I'm sure, I'm sure, I mean, I'm sure people on the left find it strange also. But I, I think that it really reflects the, the, the unique peril of the moment that we're coming together to say, put politics and partisanship aside, there's something much more

important that we have to do here. And that's the first line of the book. This is the story of the moment when American democracy began to unravel. Was it in such good shape before that? Look, it is not a perfect system, obviously, but it's a system that we have been blessed ever since the presidency of George Washington with presidents who, you know, presidents who who recognized and understood their obligation and duty, and particularly their obligation and duty, to ensure the peaceful transfer of power. And we have never had someone who was willing to sort of blow through all of the guardrails.

I think that there are always things we can do to help improve our system. You and I might disagree on what some of those are, but you can put in place the most sort of well-organized series of laws. And if you elect somebody who doesn't care, if you elect somebody who's willing to refuse to abide by the rulings of the courts, those structures won't save us. It's really the people that do that. We know from testimony in the select committee,

and I talk about this in the book, that on January 6th, as he sat in his dining room and watched the violence on television, one of the White House employees who testified to the committee told us they saw the note sitting in front of him that said that there had been a civilian who'd suffered a gunshot wound at the entrance to the house chamber, sat on the table in front of him, he knew it, and yet he still wouldn't tell the mob to stop. He wouldn't tell them to go home. And I just, I think that's so important for people to remember

you know, what kind of a human being does that. And it seems so clear and so obvious that we can't take the risk of entrusting him with power again. He has been charged as liable for rape. He has 91 federal counts against him. I could go on and on. Do you think of convicted he should go to jail? I do.

Again, that's going to be up to our justice system, to a jury of his peers. to the judges involved. I think it's fundamental to who we are as a country that no person's above the law. And if he is convicted and sentenced to serve time, I think certainly that that's what has to happen. Liz Cheney, thank you very much. Thank you, David. Wonderful to be with you.

Liz Cheney is a former representative from the state of Wyoming. Her new book has the title, Oath and Honor, a Memoir and a Warning. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program. I want to thank you for joining us. See you soon. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Walton, Adam Howard, Calla Leah, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, and Louis Mitchell,

with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable and Alejandro Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.