The GOP infighting over Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House, is both about President Trump and the direction of the party going forward if he is defeated in November.
“Nobody has given up,” said a Republican strategist who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “There’s still time. But you’d have to be a fool not to at least think about life after POTUS at this point.”
Trump remains a colossus within the party, which is why Cheney finds herself on trial among House conservatives over her loyalty to the president. She has most recently clashed with Trump over foreign policy and coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci. “House Republicans deserve better as our Conference Chair,” tweeted Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and top Trump ally. “Liz Cheney should step down or be removed.”
Trump has been trailing Democratic challenger Joe Biden for weeks both nationally and in the battleground states. Trump has been pulling between 37% and 44% of the vote in polls dating back to late June.
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has tried to position herself as a Trump loyalist despite disagreements. She told Fox and Friends on Wednesday that she votes with him “something like 97% of the time,” a figure borne out by FiveThirtyEight’s legislative Trump tracker. But she would likely represent a return to the Bush-Cheney years on foreign policy after four years of a Republican president who talked about “America First” and ending “endless wars.”
Many of Cheney’s intraparty foes do not want to see the Republican Party return to a more hawkish foreign policy. “I think one of the good things about President Trump is he’s tried to end the war in Afghanistan after 20 years,” Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, told CNN. “Liz Cheney was one of the main obstacles to ending the war.” He added, “I don’t think she’s good for the country.”
Gaetz, in addition to being close to Trump and the White House, has also been a critic of Bush-Cheney-style foreign policy. He even voted against the Trump administration on a resolution that would have stopped the president from waging preventive war with Iran after the Qasem Soleimani killing earlier this year. He also voted for a resolution to stop U.S. support for the war in Yemen, which Trump vetoed.
Despite her grilling by the House Freedom Caucus earlier this week, Cheney has her supporters. “I know [Liz Cheney] as a principled leader who puts her country first,” tweeted former national security adviser John Bolton on Tuesday. “In the coming months, we are going to need lots of leaders to step up, speak their minds, & stand for their beliefs.”
Bolton has lost some of his clout with Republicans as a result of his tell-all book in which he broke with Trump in decisive fashion. But an attempt to make him a boogeyman in a recent GOP primary campaign failed, as the libertarian-leaning candidate whose supporters did so lost the election.
Cheney also offered initial support for a primary challenger to Rep. Thomas Massie, a libertarian Kentucky Republican who also briefly ran afoul of Trump over the coronavirus economic rescue package, before controversial comments by the challenger were reported. Massie wound up winning his primary in a landslide.
Donald Trump Jr. has attacked Cheney both for perceived disloyalty to his father and over policy differences that are likely to persist even after he is gone from the White House. “We already have one Mitt Romney, we don’t need another … we also don’t need the endless wars she advocates for,” he tweeted.
When Trump was elected, it was thought he might usher in a new populist and nationalist era in the GOP. But many of the aides he originally brought in, led by former chief strategist Steve Bannon, have since been sidelined. Vice President Mike Pence and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley are among the Trump officials best positioned for a run in 2024. “It’s like the Bush Republicans never left,” said a Bannon-friendly operative.
Some populists have pinned their hopes on Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, or even Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican once associated with the neoconservatives. But Cotton, along with Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who ran unsuccessfully for the presidential nomination in 2016, have embraced certain Trump-era trends in the party. And there is speculation about Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a populist.
Much is still riding on Trump’s fate. His reelection would delay any recriminations, but party strategists expect a free-for-all if he loses to Biden. The Republican National Convention is scheduled to take place in Jacksonville, Florida, next month.
