Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in a new interview responded to questions about the link between former President Trump’s claims of voter fraud and her own party’s efforts to change state voting laws by saying voters should instead look to the contents of individual bills.
In an interview airing Sunday on “Axios on HBO,” Cheney, who lost her position as House Republican Conference chairwoman over her continued insistence that Trump lost the election and bears responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, danced around questions from Axios’s Jonathan Swan about the connection between Trump’s words and widespread Republican state-level efforts to tighten voter requirements.
Asked by Swan about what existing problems the legislation was meant to address if not the former president’s claims about voter fraud, Cheney demurred that each of the more than 300 bills should be looked at separately.
“Well, I think you have to look at the specifics of each one of those efforts,” she said.
Swan countered that he doesn’t “think anyone doubts” that there is a link between Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen and the new legislation, to which Cheney responded that “everybody” should want a voting system where fraud is prevented.
“I think everybody should want a situation and a system where people who ought to be able to vote and have the right to vote can vote and people who don’t shouldn’t,” she said.
Asked again by Swan why the new laws were necessary, Cheney said that “every state is different.”
The comments are some of the first extensive remarks Cheney has made since her removal from leadership, and they show the conservative Republican largely sticking to the GOP side of major issues.
Republicans in numerous states have introduced bills since the 2020 election that would cut access to mail-in ballots while introducing other restrictions seemingly aimed at discouraging voter participation, including legislation in Georgia that bans volunteers from offering water or food to those waiting in line to vote.
Trump, meanwhile, has maintained that his election defeat in November was a sham in repeated statements.