Rep. Liz Cheney hasn’t made up her mind about launching a 2024 presidential bid, the Wyoming Republican said Wednesday, one day after losing her primary to a challenger backed by former President Donald Trump.
“I will be doing whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office,” Ms. Cheney told NBC’s “Today.”
She said running for president “is something I’m thinking about and I’ll make a decision in the coming months.”
Ms. Cheney lost to Harriet Hageman by more than 30 percentage points with most of the vote counted.
Mr. Trump backed Ms. Hageman, a lawyer from Cheyenne, as he tries to punish Ms. Cheney for voting to impeach him and serving on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Ms. Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, said she could have rolled with the times and gone along with Mr. Trump’s assertions about the 2020 contest and other matters.
SEE ALSO: Rep. Liz Cheney may not be finished with politics or with Trump after defeat
“But that path would have required that I accept, that I embrace, that I perpetuate the ’Big Lie,’ and I’ve been very clear at every moment since January 6 that there are some things that have got to be above politics — that there’s no political office that is more important than the principles that we take an oath to defend,” she said.
Ms. Cheney said she will do everything she can to make sure that Mr. Trump is not the Republican nominee in 2024.
“I believe that Donald Trump continues to pose a very grave threat — a risk to our republic — and I think defeating him is going to require a broad and united front of Republicans, Democrats and independents and that’s what I intend to be a part of,” she said.
Mr. Trump crowed over Ms. Cheney’s loss and framed it as a referendum on the Jan. 6 hearings that revealed a string of unflattering revelations about Mr. Trump’s actions that day.
“I assume that with the very big Liz Cheney loss, far bigger than had ever been anticipated, the January 6th Committee of political Hacks and Thugs will quickly begin the beautiful process of DISSOLUTION? This was a referendum on the never ending Witch Hunt. The people have spoken!” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, the social media platform he launched after being kicked off Twitter.
Ms. Hageman thanked Mr. Trump for his “clear and unwavering support” in a victory speech late Tuesday.
SEE ALSO: Liz Cheney compares herself to Abraham Lincoln: ‘Now the real work begins’
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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