House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced to GOP lawmakers Monday he will hold a closed-door vote this week to oust House Conference Committee Chairwoman Liz Cheney.
“Having heard from so many of you in recent days, it is clear we need to make a change,” McCarthy wrote Monday.
The vote will take place Wednesday morning when the conference meets for a weekly closed-door session.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, is expected to garner enough votes to succeed Cheney.
Cheney, of Wyoming, has increasingly frustrated fellow members of the leadership team by publicly criticizing former President Donald Trump. Cheney blames Trump for the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol that was carried out by throngs of his supporters. Cheney has continued to call on the party to dump the president and prevent him from playing any role in party politics.
McCarthy told Fox News on Sunday the House would vote this week on Cheney’s fate, and her GOP critics say the votes are there to push her out.
Stefanik backs Trump and said the GOP must embrace his agenda and seek to maintain support from Trump’s coalition of supporters in order to win back the majority in 2022.
Republican leaders said Cheney was not working to unite the conference in order to maximize chances of winning in 2022. Instead, they said, she was aggravating a divide between the pro-Trump wing of the conference and those who oppose the former president.
“If we are to succeed in stopping the radical Democratic agenda from destroying our country, these internal conflicts need to be resolved so as not to detract from the efforts of our collective team,” McCarthy said.
Cheney survived a vote to remove her in February after she voted along with 10 other Republicans to impeach Trump on a charge he incited the Jan. 6 riot.
McCarthy urged the conference to back Cheney in February, but he’s now supporting Stefanik, making Cheney’s chances of prevailing on Wednesday rather slim.
Cheney supporters say there are many Republicans who also want the party to steer away from Trump.
On the Senate side, Utah’s Mitt Romney has been the most vocal Republican in support of Cheney.
He tweeted quickly on Monday when McCarthy announced the vote.
“Expelling Liz Cheney from leadership won’t gain the GOP one additional voter, but it will cost us quite a few,” Romney tweeted.
