Cheney’s book tops NYT print and e-book bestseller lists

Former Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-Wyo.) new memoir clinched the No. 1 spots on the weekly New York Times bestselling book lists for hardcover and e-book editions for the first week since its debut.

The New York Times book bestseller lists for the week ending Dec. 9 lists Cheney’s new book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning,” in the top spot for all hardcover nonfiction books and for combined nonfiction e-books and hardcover books. Her book was published Dec. 5.

The bestseller provides a window into Cheney’s time in the House during former President Trump’s last few months in office and details her perception of the state of the Republican Party — especially in the lead up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and the party’s subsequent response.

The former Wyoming lawmaker also warned of the danger to democracy that she says a second term with Trump in the White House could bring. The former president, despite a wide range of legal woes, maintains a commanding lead in the 2024 GOP primary race.

Cheney, who broke with her party when she publicly renounced Trump after the insurrection, became a leading critic of the former president among conservative lawmakers.

During her time in office, Cheney served as the vice chair of the House select committee on the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, which held a series of public hearings that gathered evidence of Trump’s alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.

While there is little evidence the hearings have had a lasting impact on public opinion of the Republican base, the efforts of the committee are largely credited with compelling the Justice Department to investigate the matter further.

Cheney lost her primary reelection bid to Trump-backed candidate Harriet Hageman and has now relaunched a media book tour sounding the alarm.

There are rumors that Cheney might run for president in 2024 on a third-party ticket, but she has not yet made an announcement. The former lawmaker says she will not do anything that would risk putting Trump back in the White House.

“The framers explicitly warned us that the checks and balances are only as effective as the people responsible for carrying them out,” Cheney wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal published Wednesday. “Those who try to dismiss the risk of a second Trump term do our country a grave disservice.”

“Our nation can endure bad policies for four or eight years. But once our constitutional system unravels, the damage is irreversible, and our republic fails just as so many others have throughout history,” she continued. “The framers understood this. We should too. The risk is far too great to elect Mr. Trump ever again.”