Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) recently likened former President Trump’s claims about American democracy to that of the Chinese Communist Party.
What she said: The Republican lawmaker made the comments during an interview on a podcast hosted by former Obama adviser David Axelrod, called “The Axe Files.” Cheney said that the way the former president speaks about the U.S. is how the Communist Party in China describes the nation.
“I think what Donald Trump did is the most dangerous thing, the most egregious violation of an oath of office of any president in our history,” Cheney said.
“When you listen to Donald Trump talk now, when you hear the language he’s using now, it is essentially the same things that the Chinese Communist Party, for example, says about the United States and our democracy,” the Wyoming Republican continued.
“When he says that our system doesn’t work … when he suggests that it’s, you know, incapable of conveying the will of the people, you know, that somehow it’s failed — those are the same things that the Chinese government says about us. And it’s very dangerous and damaging … and it’s not true,” she added.
Cheney also blasted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for meeting with Trump in Mar-a-Lago in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. She called the move “inexcusable.”
“I could not imagine any justification for doing that … the idea that a few weeks after he did that, the leader of the Republicans in the House would be at Mar-a-Lago, essentially, you know, pleading with him to somehow come back into the fold, or whatever it was he was doing, to me was inexcusable,” she said.
How we got here: Cheney’s comments come after House Republicans removed her from her leadership position in mid-May. She was replaced by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY).
The GOP argued at the time that her criticism of the former president and his claims of election fraud in the 2020 election is hindering the party’s efforts to take control of the House.
Shortly after, Cheney appeared on Fox News, where she condemned Trump, called him a “real danger,” and claimed his supporters were “misled.”
The Wyoming Republican also promised to “do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office.”
