Former Wyoming Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney hasn’t abandoned her mission to make sure former President Donald Trump isn’t reelected.
Cheney has a new television ad targeting Trump that began airing Tuesday in New Hampshire, the first Republican primary state for the 2024 presidential election. Although she’s taken on a few different commitments for the upcoming fall, Cheney still hasn’t ruled out a presidential run.
In the ad, Cheney, as she has in many settings over the past two years, criticizes Trump for questioning the results of the 2020 election.
“He betrayed millions of Americans by telling them the election was stolen,” she says in a voiceover while images of Trump addressing supporters at his Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally and the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Cheney isn't doing well in theoretical presidential polls and has some significant ground to make up if she wants to be a strong contender in the race where Trump leads all other Republicans by a sizable margin.
Rise And Fall And Rise?
The former congresswoman rose to national prominence after she spoke out against Trump following the 2020 election and Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol mayhem, one of the few Republicans to do so.
Cheney was stripped of her leadership position in the U.S. House and was soundly defeated by U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman in the August 2022 Republican primary in Wyoming, a state that supported Trump with a larger margin of the vote than any other in 2020.
Hageman put out a statement Tuesday morning calling Cheney’s ad a regurgitation of “her same, tired arguments against President Trump.”
“There is one person who Republican voters wish would go away, and it’s not Donald Trump. It’s Liz Cheney,” Hageman said. “In Wyoming in 2022, we rejected the idea that a woman from Virginia could tell us what we should think, and the voters of New Hampshire will do that in 2024 as well.”
Cheney made it clear in her concession speech that she would not quiet on the topic of Trump. She continued these efforts after her loss as vice chair and one of the most prominent members of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack, and by endorsing Democrats running against Trump-endorsed Republicans in the midterm elections.
The Ad
Cheney never appears in the commercial, but narrates over darkly tinted clips of Trump and the Jan. 6 riot during the 1-minute ad, accusing Trump of “mobilizing a mob” for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, an event Trump let play out for 187 minutes before commenting publicly on.
“There has never been a greater dereliction of duty by any president,” Cheney said.
Cheney also said Trump “celebrates those that attacked the Capitol.”
According to VOA News, during a campaign rally in Texas in March, Trump stood on the stage as speakers blared out a version of the national anthem recorded by a choir made up of people convicted of various charges related to the attack. On a screen behind him, images of the Capitol during the Jan. 6 assault were displayed to a cheering crowd.
“Donald Trump has proven he is unfit for office,” Cheney said. “Donald Trump is a risk America can never take again.”
Cheney PAC Paid For It
The ad titled “Risk,” which was posted on YouTube early Tuesday morning, was put out by Cheney’s Great Task political action committee.
The Great Task PAC was set up shortly after Cheney’s Republican primary loss to Hageman, transferring about $7 million from her federal campaign into the new account.
“She’s taking the donations she’s gotten from Democrats and throwing them away on ineffective TV ads to settle a personal score,” Hageman said. “She might as well be setting the money on fire, because it won’t work, just like all her other attempts to silence President Trump.”
Contact Leo Wolfson at Leo@CowboyStateDaily.com.
