Liz Cheney dubs Trump ‘petty, vindictive and cruel’ as she campaigns with Harris and says she’ll vote Democrat for first time
The IndependentSign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Cheney, who recalled how she’d first voted for a Republican presidential candidate when she cast a ballot for Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election, told the crowd in Ripon that this year, she is “proudly casting vote” for Harris because the Democratic vice president is “standing in the breach at a critical moment in our nation’s history” and “working to unite reasonable people from all across the political spectrum.” open image in gallery Harris and Cheney shaking hands at Ripon College. The former Wyoming congresswoman, who served as vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the January 6 attack of the Capitol that Trump fomented after he lost the 2020 election, said the American republic “faces a threat unlike any we have faced before” in the GOP’s presidential candidate, “a former president who attempted to stay in power by unraveling the foundations of our Republic, by refusing to accept the lawful results —confirmed by dozens of courts — of the 2020 election.” “We cannot turn away from this truth in this election,” she said. “Any person who would do these things can never be trusted with power again.” open image in gallery Cheney served as vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the January 6 attack of the Capitol that Trump fomented after he lost the 2020 election Continuing, she said of the former president: “He is petty, he is vindictive, and he is cruel, and. In September, more than 200 former staffers for Republican presidential candidates — including former presidents George HW Bush and George W Bush, Utah Senator Mitt Romney and the late Arizona Senator John McCain — issued an open letter calling on “moderate Republicans and conservative independents” to join them in backing the Democratic candidate against Trump, calling the ex-president’s potential return to the White House “simply untenable.” Numerous officials who served in the Trump administration have endorsed Harris or have declined to endorse Trump’s third bid for the presidency on the grounds that he is unfit to serve because of his disregard for the US constitution.