Liz Cheney scorches House GOP leaders for making themselves 'willing hostages' to Trump

If you pull back a bit, things seem "pretty normal" in Washington, D.C., Politico's Playbook team writes Wednesday. Bipartisan support for infrastructure, "pretty typical" internal Democratic wrangling over social investments, and "even Tuesday's results in the off-year election in Virginia, which sent a message to the new president about overreach, were perfectly in line with recent history." But two stories Tuesday, Politico wrote, were a reminder that "outside of the (relatively) routine sausage-making on Capitol Hill, some enormously worrisome undercurrents remain in American politics."

One of the stories involved House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) publicly asking House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to condemn Rep. Paul Gosar's (R-Ariz.) "horrific video" in which his anime avatar murders Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). The other was Rep. Liz Cheney's (R-Wyo.) dire warning about former President Donald Trump and other GOP leaders during a speech in New Hampshire.

"At this moment, when it matters most, we are also confronting a domestic threat that we've never faced before: a former president who's attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic, aided by political leaders who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man," Cheney said. She described how Trump, invited by House GOP leaders to a fundraising dinner Monday night, once more whitewashed and justified the Jan. 6 riot by "a violent mob" trying to "overturn the will of the American people."

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"Political leaders who sit silent in the face of these false and dangerous claims are aiding a former president who is at war with the rule of law and the Constitution," Cheney said. She said she disagrees with every major decision President Biden has made in office and loves the Republican Party, but "I know this country needs a Republican Party that is based on truth" and "willing to reject the former president's lies."