Cheney tells Iowa crowd U.S. ‘can’t survive’ a second Trump term

DES MOINES — Liz Cheney, a former GOP leader in the U.S. House who’s now a leading critic of former President Trump, says the U.S. Supreme Court should reject Trump’s claims that as president he had legal immunity and let him stand trial on federal election conspiracy charges.

“It cannot be the case that a president of the United States can attempt to overturn an election and seize power and that our justice system is incapable of holding a trial, of holding him to account before the next election,” Cheney said last night during an appearance at a Drake University lecture series.

In 2021, Cheney was the third ranking Republican in the U.S. House when she voted to impeach Trump and the following year she lost her bid for reelection to a fellow Republican. Cheney has said she’ll travel the country this year, especially in swing states, to campaign against Trump.

“I certainly have policy disagreements with the Biden Administration. I know the nation can survive bad policy. We can’t survive a president who is willing to torch the Constitution,” Cheney said, to cheers.

Cheney, who interviewed on stage by the executive editor of The Denver Post, told the crowd in Des Moines that defeating Trump in 2024 isn’t the end goal, however. “It’s going to be necessary for all of us to decide we’re not going to just be bystanders,” Cheney said. “I can talk about what I’m going to do, but I think it’s much more important to talk about what we all have to do.”

Iowa GOP chairman Jeff Kaufmann issued a written statement several hours before Cheney’s appearance, saying Cheney “has done nothing but deceitfully push an agenda, tear at the fabric of the party and alienate GOP voters.”