Her lightning-quick removal as Republican No. 3 all started in the Sunshine State.
House GOP leaders were preparing to walk on stage for a press conference in Orlando sixteen days ago when one of Liz Cheney’s colleagues delivered her a warning. Cheney was bound to get asked about Donald Trump and Jan.6, her fellow Republican cautioned her, counseling her to pivot away from the question. She didn’t take the advice. Cheney buckled down, splitting with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on the scope of a commission to probe the Capitol riot and citing “ongoing criminal investigations” when asked if Trump should be charged for inciting the insurrection. That dismissal of her colleague’s advice, recounted by a Republican source briefed on the conversation, ultimately changed the trajectory of Cheney’s political future. Cheney’s actions at her conference’s policy retreat in Florida, including other interviews where she challenged Trump, did more than make headlines — they broke the dam, releasing pent-up frustrations with the Wyoming Republican. “It was death by a thousand cuts” that ultimately claimed her, said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), who came to Cheney’s defense earlier this year. This account of Cheney’s demise is based on interviews with more than a dozen GOP lawmakers and aides, who say McCarthy will likely suffer few internal consequences for evicting the party’s highest-ranking woman. But the next 18 months will test the value of the points he just earned with his right flank. With Democrats eager to yoke congressional Republicans to Trump — and an emboldened Cheney now unbound — McCarthy may discover a whole new set of landmines lining his path to the majority. If McCarthy’s lightning-quick removal of Cheney helps score him the House’s top gavel, he can say it all started in the Sunshine State. Calls for her demise as House Republicans’ No.3 leader escalated quickly there, as members approached McCarthy at the retreat to complain that Cheney had stomped on their carefully crafted message and was threatening to undermine their efforts to win back the House. “The GOP is a big tent party. There is room for debate. But there is a difference between a big tent and having a disagreement at the leadership table, and the spokesperson overseeing messaging having a public disagreement with the leader of the party,” said Reschenthaler, who backed and began whipping for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) last week. Stefanik, a Trump loyalist, was one of a few names that surfaced at the retreat as a potential replacement. Not long after, she would emerge as the consensus pick. The campaign to dump Cheney — blessed and even orchestrated by the upper echelons of the GOP leadership — culminated Wednesday in a speedy voice vote to recall her as conference chair. McCarthy’s handling of the moment marked a 180-degree shift from February, when he vouched for Cheney as conservatives tried unsuccessfully to take her down for her vote to impeach Trump. This spring, McCarthy calculated that booting a leader whom Republicans largely viewed as a constant distraction would not only alleviate some of his headaches, but also unite his divided ranks around a cohesive message. „I’m looking forward to being speaker in the next Congress,“ McCarthy confidently told reporters Wednesday. But Cheney, who now has an even bigger platform to push back at Trump while McCarthy embraces him, has vowed to “do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office.
