Dick Cheney calls Trump 'a coward' and grave 'threat to our republic' in new ad for Liz Cheney

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who is facing an uphill battle to win the Republican nomination in Wyoming's Aug. 16 primary, released an ad Thursday focused on the issue that may keep her from being re-elected: Former President Donald Trump. In the ad, her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, looks at the camera and calls the last Republican president "a coward" and one of the greatest threats to democracy the U.S. has ever faced. Liz Cheney has made similar points as vice-chair of the House Jan. 6 committee.

"In our nation's 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump," Dick Cheney says in the ad. "He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him." Trump "is a coward," Cheney adds. "A real man wouldn't lie to his supporters. He lost his election, and he lost big. I know it, he knows it, and deep down I think most Republicans know it."

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Wyoming Republicans are likely to replace Liz Cheney with her Trump-backed GOP challenger, Harriet Hageman, who led Cheney by 22 percentage points in a Casper Star-Tribune poll released in July. "I don't expect to lose," Cheney told CNN's Kasey Hunt in an interview broadcast Thursday night. "I'm working hard to earn every single vote and ultimately, I really believe that the people of Wyoming fundamentally understand how important fidelity to the Constitution is." Along with her father, Cheney has touted the backing of former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and actor Kevin Costner.

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Cheney also told Hunt she thinks Trump is "guilty of the most serious dereliction of duty of any president in our nation's history," adding that a federal judge found it more likely than not that Trump committed two crimes. But the Justice Department will "have to make decisions about prosecution," she noted, "understanding what it means if the facts and the evidence are there, and they decide not to prosecute. How do we then call ourselves a nation of laws?"

The Jan. 6 committee may make criminal referrals, Cheney told CNN, but "the question for us is: Are we a nation of laws? Are we a country where no one is above the law? And what do the facts and the evidence show?"

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