Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Wednesday criticized her party for what she sees as a growing sector of the GOP that supports Russian President Vladimir Putin as he wages his attacks on Ukraine.
“You know, the Republican Party is the party of Reagan, the party that essentially won the Cold War. And you look now at what I think is really a growing Putin wing of the Republican Party,” Cheney said at a McCain Institute event at Arizona State University.
The outgoing congresswoman, who lost her reelection bid in Wyoming to her Trump-backed Republican challenger, knocked Fox News for “running propaganda” and called out Fox host Tucker Carlson as “the biggest propagandist for Putin on that network.”
“You really have to ask yourself, whose side is Fox on in this battle? And how could it be that you have a wing of the Republican Party that thinks that America would be standing with Putin as he conducts that brutal invasion of Ukraine?” Cheney asked.
In a sweeping conversation with John S. McCain Democracy Fellow Sofia Gross, Cheney talked about the “stunning developments” she sees in the Republican Party that have stoked her concerns about the American republic and the democratic process.
The congresswoman quipped that she “never imaged” she would find herself “spending so much time with Democrats.”
Homing in her analysis on Arizona, where the McCain Institute event took place, she criticized Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for supporting Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who touts former President Trump’s false claims of fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
“It’s important for us as Republicans to demand from our Republican leaders that they not accept this unraveling of the democracy. … Glenn Youngkin should not come here and campaign for Kari Lake. Ted Cruz, who absolutely knows better, absolutely knows that what he’s advocating is unconstitutional, that what she’s saying is unconstitutional. They know it,” Cheney said.
She cautioned voters against voting for Lake and state Rep. Mark Finchem (R), who is running for Arizona secretary of state, underscoring that both Trump-endorsed candidates have backed the former president’s election fraud claims in the face of evidence that his allegations were unfounded.
“For almost 40 years now, I’ve been a voting Republican. I don’t know that I have ever voted for a Democrat. But if I lived in Arizona now, I would,” Cheney said.
“We cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections,” the congresswoman said.
