Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert debated Monday night whether former President Trump was an “aberration” in the Republican Party.
While on her book tour promoting her book “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning,” Cheney and Colbert disagreed about the former president’s role in the GOP and how the party came to the point of electing him in 2016 and has the potential of doing so again in 2024.
Colbert asked Cheney if she had “done any self-examination” of the party’s leadership “as to why he is not an aberration, but rather an avatar.” Cheney disagreed and said she does think Trump is an aberration in the party.
“Look, I think what Donald Trump has done is, first of all, he tapped into a sense among a lot of people in this country that their voice isn’t heard,” she said. “But he then lied to them, and he preyed on their patriotism and told them, ‘You know what, I’ll speak for you.’”
Colbert fired back, saying Trump told voters he would speak for them “very specifically, through things like racism.” The comedian said the former president’s undermining of the media was “a very fascist thing.”
Cheney, who has warned of a Trump dictatorship if he were reelected, agreed. She said “there’s no question that he’s using a fascist playbook.”
Colbert said Trump’s undermining of the media “was a project of the right for the last 20 years” and that the GOP has held the mantra that “the government is a problem for so many.”
Cheney, who has been a vocal critic of Trump and was vice chairwoman of the Jan. 6 committee, attempted to separate the former president and the Republican Party.
“It’s really important, in my view, that we not sort of slide into saying everything the Republicans have ever done, you know, is somehow the same as what Donald Trump is doing,” she said, later adding that Trump is “existential and unique” in American history.
Colbert disagreed and said there are breadcrumbs within the GOP that led to Trump’s presidency. Cheney said she and Colbert are “just not going to agree on that.”
The former congresswoman made a public exit from Congress last year after attacking her own party for supporting Trump. She lost her August 2022 primary after being one of the most vocal Republican critics of Trump’s involvement in the insurrection.
She said lawmakers of the Republican Party and Americans have a duty to stand against “where we are today.”
“We have to understand — this is a very real threat, and there’ll be a lot of time for us to debate how we got to this place,” she said. “But right now, we have to stand together as Americans to stop it. That’s the most important thing.”