Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) offered a stark warning Monday to those planning to vote for former President Trump, suggesting it could be the last democratic election in the United States if the former president returns to the White House.
“I hope that there are options and alternatives that reflect the important challenges that we’re facing, and that reflect leadership to meet those challenges, but that choice can never be Donald Trump because a vote for Donald Trump may mean the last election that you ever get to vote in,” she told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie on “Today.”
“And again, I don’t say that lightly, and I think it’s heartbreaking that that’s where we are, but people have to recognize that a vote for Donald Trump is a vote against the Constitution,” she continued.
Cheney, a longtime critic of Trump, has been on a media blitz to promote her forthcoming book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning,” which details the state of the Republican Party and its response to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. She reiterated Monday that she “will never vote for Donald Trump” and “will do whatever it takes to make sure that Donald Trump is defeated in 2024.”
She did not rule out a potential 2024 bid for the White House, saying she will make that decision over the next couple of months.
Cheney served as the vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attacks. She later lost her August 2022 primary after becoming a frequent critic of her party and the former president.
She also said Monday that “there’s no question” that Trump would refuse to leave the White House at the end of his second four-year term if reelected.
“He’s already attempted to seize power, and he was stopped, thankfully, and for the good of the nation and the republic,” she said. “But he said he will do it again. He’s expressed no remorse for what he did.”
She added that it’s “a very, very real threat and concern” that Trump will make himself a dictator if he wins the White House.
“I don’t say any of that lightly,” she said. “And frankly, it’s painful for me as someone who you know, has spent their whole life in Republican politics who grew up as Republican to watch what’s happening to my party, and to watch the extent to which Donald Trump himself has, you know, basically determined that that the only thing that matters is him his power, his success.”