Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) may have been ousted from her leadership position within the Republican Party for speaking out against former President Donald Trump and his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, but that's not enough for her to say goodbye to the GOP.
"I am not ready to cede the Republican Party," Cheney told 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl in an interview that aired Sunday night. "And I'm not ready to cede it to the voices of extremism, to the voices of anti-Semitism, and the voices of racism, and there certainly are some in our party. But I'm going to fight for this party. I believe in it."
Several Republicans have announced they are running against her in 2022, and Trump has already endorsed one candidate: attorney Harriet Hageman. Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has the backing of former President George W. Bush, and he'll hold a fundraiser for her in October. Cheney said her hope is that after the midterms, the "right Republicans" take over, as she doesn't believe House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) should be elected House speaker.
"What my party is doing right now in too many cases is coddling and enabling a man who does not believe in the rule of law and does not believe in the Constitution," Cheney said. "And that is a fundamental recipe to unravel the system."
Cheney made it clear to Stahl that she holds conservative views: she's pro-gun rights and anti-abortion, plus she backs waterboarding and doesn't think it is torture, and she views Democratic policies as "dangerous." But she has changed her mind on one issue: same-sex marriage. Her sister, Mary, is gay and married to a woman, and in 2013, Cheney said she believed in the "traditional definition of marriage." She told Stahl she was "wrong. I was wrong. I love my sister very much. I love her family very much. And I was wrong."