House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday that it is a “shame” that Republicans are on the verge of ousting Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) as a member of House leadership because she rejects former President Trump’s false claims about election fraud.
“I think Liz Cheney’s greatest offense apparently is she is principled and she believes in the truth,” Hoyer told Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty during a Post Live event.
“She’s obviously a very conservative Republican from the state of Wyoming, so it’s not a question of ideology. It’s a question of cult. It’s a question of cult of personality — that if you’re not 1,000 percent for Donald Trump, somehow you’re not a good Republican, you’re not worthy of being in the leadership,” Hoyer continued.
“It is a shame that the party has fallen to the place where a Liz Cheney, as I said, principled, committed to the truth and a conservative Republican, is somehow not accepted as a leader in the Republican Party,” he said.
The top two House Republicans, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.), have both begun publicly breaking with Cheney in recent days as a growing number of GOP lawmakers call for removing her from the third-ranking leadership post.
McCarthy said on a hot mic before a Fox News interview on Tuesday that he’s “had it with her” and “lost confidence,” while Scalise is openly expressing support for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to replace Cheney as GOP conference chair.
McCarthy said on air during the Fox News interview that Republicans are concerned that Cheney, who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, isn’t carrying the message that most members of the party want.
“There’s no concern about how she voted on impeachment. That decision has been made. I have heard from members concerned about her ability to carry out the job as conference chair — to carry out the message,” McCarthy said.
A Cheney spokesperson responded to McCarthy by saying she won’t “perpetuate lies” or “whitewash” the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“This is about whether the Republican Party is going to perpetuate lies about the 2020 election and attempt to whitewash what happened on Jan 6. Liz will not do that. That is the issue,” Jeremy Adler, a spokesperson for Cheney, told The Hill.