Cheney Says She Won’t Vote for Hageman or Gray in Meet the Press Interview

Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney had an interview with NBC News' Meet The Press on Sunday about the midterm elections, the current state of the Republican Party, and the work of the January 6th Select Committee.

Get our free mobile app

Cheney said she will not be voting for Harriet Hageman, who defeated her in the August primary, or for Chuck Gray, who won the primary for Wyoming Secretary of State and is running unopposed because they both believe the 2020 election was rigged.

"I think that, as people go in to vote, they need to recognize that there are certain candidates who are anti-democracy," Cheney said. "They need to recognize that election deniers are anti-democracy. And they should not vote for those people."

While Cheney's press office sometimes sends releases through her Congressional office, the release sent about the interview and a few others are sent through a PAC she set up after losing her primary called The Great Task PAC.

That PAC, which according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has $4,623,773 cash on hand, had all of its funds come from the committee Cheney used during her campaign, Liz Cheney for Wyoming.

From Aug. 17 to the end of September, the PAC has raised tens of thousands of dollars, mostly from people outside of Wyoming, according to the raw FEC data.

A video of the Meet the Press interview was uploaded to the PAC's YouTube channel, which was started on Aug. 17, 2022, the day after Wyoming's primary.

Cheney said she doesn't think that Kevin McCarthy is fit to be the Speaker of the House due to his isolationism in regard to Ukraine and because of his support for Trump.

"Well, look, the speaker is second in line to the presidency," Cheney said. "And at every moment since, frankly, the aftermath of the election in 2020, when Minority Leader McCarthy has had the opportunity to do the right thing or do something that serves his own political purpose he always chooses to serve his own political purpose...And when you have the leader of the Republican Party suggesting that we can play with the fire of isolationism, suggesting that somehow the American people will not support the fight for freedom, which is the front lines of freedom right now happening in Ukraine in the battle between Putin and Zelenskyy, and the notion that he would be willing to embrace that, to enable it, tells you he's just not fit for the office."

After being asked about subpoenaing former President Donald Trump, Cheney said that they hope he shows up in front of the committee.

"So we are anticipating that the former president will understand his legal obligation, will comply with the subpoena," Cheney said. "We've made clear in the subpoena a number of things, including that if he intends to take the Fifth that he ought to alert us of that ahead of time. I would encourage everybody to go to our committee's website and read the letter that accompanies the subpoena because understanding what a grave and serious situation this is, the committee made a great effort to lay out in the letter itself the specific information we've already gathered about Donald Trump's personal and direct role in managing and overseeing and coordinating the sophisticated multi-part plan to overturn the election...it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves. We are not going to allow. He's not going to turn this into a circus. This isn't going to be, you know, his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus and the food fight that that became."

Cheney said there are several things that Trump did surrounding what happened on Jan. 6 that she believes were criminal.

"Look, I think that there are multiple criminal offenses, I don't want to get in front of the committee, but that we are looking at...But even if he thought that he had won, you may not send an armed mob to the Capitol," Cheney said. "You may not sit for 187 minutes and refuse to stop the attack while it's underway. You may not send out a tweet that incites further violence. So we've been very clear about a number of different criminal offenses that are likely at issue here. If the Department of Justice determines that they have the evidence that we believe is there and they make a decision not to prosecute, I think that really calls into question whether or not we're a nation of laws...I have confidence in the professionals of Department of Justice. I have confidence in the attorney general that they are taking very seriously their obligations with respect to every aspect of the potential criminal conduct by the former president. And let's just have the American people pause on that, that we are talking about multiple instances of criminal conduct by the former president of the United States."