Cheney says a Republican House majority in 2025 would present a ‘threat’ to the country
By Aileen Graef, CNN
(CNN) — Republican former Rep. Liz Cheney said she believes a GOP majority in the House in 2025 would present a “threat” to the country.
“I believe very strongly in those principles and ideals that have defined the Republican Party, but the Republican Party of today has made a choice and they haven’t chosen the Constitution. And so I do think it presents a threat if the Republicans are in the majority in January 2025,” Cheney said in an interview that aired on “CBS Sunday Morning.”
Cheney, who represented Wyoming in Congress from 2017 to 2023, said current House Speaker Mike Johnson was “absolutely” a collaborator in the effort to overthrow the 2020 election and he should not be speaker in 2025.
“He can’t be. We are facing a situation with respect to the 2024 election where it’s an existential crisis. And we have to ensure that we don’t have a situation where the election that might be thrown into the House of Representatives is overseen by a Republican majority,” she said.
If no presidential candidate can reach 270 or more Electoral College votes, the election would go to the House of Representatives, where each state’s delegation is granted a single vote. Two presidents have been selected by the House: Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams.
Cheney, who called Johnson once a “good friend,” said that after the 2020 election the Louisiana Republican “was willing time and again to ignore the rulings of the courts, to ignore what state and federal courts had done and said about the elections in these states in order to attempt to do Donald Trump’s bidding.”
In her new book set to release Tuesday, Cheney issues a strong rebuke of the Republican Party, its leadership and Trump, who she calls “the most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office,” according to a copy of “Oath and Honor” obtained by CNN.
She writes in her book that Johnson “appeared especially susceptible to flattery from Trump and aspired to being anywhere in Trump’s orbit.”
Cheney served a prominent role as vice chair of the House’s January 6 committee, which uncovered critical details about Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
She has vowed to do whatever is necessary to stop Trump from returning to the White House, including leaving open the door to a 2024 presidential run herself. If Trump is the party’s nominee, Cheney has said she will leave the GOP.
“What I believe is the cause of our time is that we not become numb that we understand the warning signs that we understand the danger and … that we ignore partisan politics to stop him,” Cheney told CBS.
CNN’s Jamie Gangel, Jeremy Herb and Elizabeth Stuart contributed to this report.
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