6 lessons from Liz Cheney’s book about Trump and his enablers
It was inevitable that Liz Cheney’s new memoir would cause a stir. As an outspoken Republican critic of former President Donald J. Trump in a party he otherwise dominates, she has shown over the past three years that she is willing to say out loud what most other Republicans say only in private, if at all.
The memoir, “Oath and Honor,” hits shelves just as Trump is poised to reclaim the Republican presidential nomination in the primaries that begin in a few weeks. It is intended as a five-alarm warning that returning him to power would endanger American democracy and as a scathing indictment of his “enablers” and “collaborators” in her own party.
But beyond the main arguments, the book offers a rare glimpse into the Republican wardrobe of what Ms. Cheney, a former representative from Wyoming, heard from her colleagues about “the Orange Jesus,” as one wryly called Mr. Trump. Here are half a dozen stories she tells in the book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times ahead of its publication on Tuesday by Little, Brown and Company.
Trump’s Republicans took Cheney’s position personally.
After Ms. Cheney spoke out against Mr. Trump and voted to impeach him, she faced a backlash from fellow Republicans who accused her of disloyalty. At a meeting called to decide whether to resign as head of the Republican Conference, the third-highest position in the leadership of the House of Representatives, a large number of male members attacked her.
The men, she wrote, didn’t like her “tone” and thought she wasn’t “repentant enough” to break with the party — effectively embarrassing them and putting them on the spot for questions about why they were still supporting a former president who had done that. tried to overturn an election and hold on to power.
“You just have such a defiant attitude,” Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina told her. Representative John Rutherford of Florida said she was too recalcitrant and not “driving for the brand.”
“John,” she recalled as she responded, “our ‘brand’ is the United States Constitution.”
Representative Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania made a memorable analogy when describing how betrayed he felt. “It’s like you’re playing the biggest game of your life and you look up and you see your girlfriend sitting on the opponent’s side!” he complained.
Several surprised women at the conference started shouting, “She’s not your girlfriend!”
Ms. Cheney agreed. “Yes,” she said. “I’m not your girlfriend.”
The Cheney family lost friends because of Trump.
Ms. Cheney comes from a storied political family, one that personified American conservatism, at least until Mr. Trump came along and redefined it in his own image. But her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and mother, Lynne Cheney, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities under President Ronald Reagan, have fully supported her break from the party they all devoted decades to.
Mr. Cheney was the first to call his daughter on Jan. 6, 2021, to warn that Mr. Trump mentioned her by name during his rally at the Ellipse. “You’re in danger,” he told her.
When Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Mrs. Cheney to ask her to join the House committee investigating the events of January 6, she happened to be with her father. After she told him she said yes, he replied, “I’m proud of you.” As Mrs. Cheney writes, “My father was disgusted and deeply disturbed by the behavior of our fellow Republicans.”
The former vice president accompanied her to the House of Representatives for the January 6 anniversary and was shocked to see they were the only Republicans there. “It’s one thing to hear what’s happening,” he said before leaving. Mrs. Pelosi embraced him, even though they had fought fiercely in the past over the Iraq war and other issues.
The family got a sense of how much Trump had influenced even Republicans they respected when Lynne Cheney texted one of her best friends, someone she had known since the 1950s, about the attack on Jan. 6. “I heard that, like BLM demonstrations, ANTIFA has been repealed,” the friend replied. Lynne Cheney pushed back, saying the rioters did not belong to the far-left anti-fascist movement, but her friend refused to believe her. “She threw away more than 60 years of friendship with my mother and my family for nothing,” Liz Cheney wrote.
Cheney forged an alliance of strange bedfellows with Pelosi.
Ms. Cheney ultimately forged an unlikely alliance with Ms. Pelosi, one that would have seemed unthinkable when her father was in the White House. “We were at opposite ends of the political spectrum, with very sharp policy differences,” Ms. Cheney wrote.
But the Democratic speaker brushed that aside and endorsed Ms. Cheney by appointing her to the Jan. 6 panel. She said she later discovered that Mrs. Pelosi’s staff had compiled a list of the 10 worst things Mrs. Cheney had ever said about the speaker. Mrs. Pelosi, she learned, just gave it back. “Why are you wasting my time on things that don’t matter?” said the speaker.
Toward the end of the investigation, Ms. Cheney noticed one evening that Ms. Pelosi’s chief of staff was wearing a “Team Cheney” hoodie. “We may have disagreed on almost everything else,” Ms. Cheney wrote, “but Nancy Pelosi and I agreed on one thing that was more important than anything else: defending our Constitution and preserving our republic.”
A Fox News host tried to broker a reconciliation with Trump.
Ms Cheney reveals a singular attempt to broker a reconciliation between her and Mr Trump after he left office – by none other than Fox News.
In March 2021, she received a call from Fox host Brian Kilmeade with what she considered “an odd request,” asking if she would consider sitting down with the former president.
“No thanks,” she replied. “Not interested.”
Mr Kilmeade pressed the issue, saying she should bury the hatchet with Mr Trump.
“Trump tried to overturn an election,” she said. “He was at war with the rule of law. He violated his oath to the Constitution.”
Mr Kilmeade did not deny that. “I know,” he remembered saying. “But what if he’s our only hope of defeating Kamala?”
Cheney knew her position would likely dethrone her.
Ms. Cheney realized that she was jeopardizing her political career by speaking out so aggressively against Mr. Trump. After all, she represented Wyoming, which Trump won by 43 percentage points in 2020, his strongest state.
Although she had collected many votes herself over the years, she did not consider running for re-election in 2022. She sought out an old friend whom she does not mention in the book and who had spent his career promoting democracy all over the world.
“Does disengaging from your race make you stronger or weaker in dealing with the threat Trump poses?” the friend asked.
Mrs. Cheney thought for a moment. “It weakens my hand,” she concluded.
“Then you have your answer.”
Ms. Cheney went on to lose the Republican primary to Harriet Hageman, a Trump-backed candidate, by two to one. But she did what Trump didn’t: she conceded defeat.
The Oath Keepers rallied behind Ronny Jackson.
The January 6 investigation revealed curious episodes that remain unexplained. On the day of the attack, members of the Oath Keepers seemed particularly focused on a Republican congressman, Ronny Jackson of Texas, Mr. Trump’s former White House doctor.
Throughout the day, members of the Oath Keepers texted each other about Mr. Jackson. “Jackson (TX) Capitol office – he needs good help,” one person wrote, using the initials for the Oath Keepers. “Is anyone in there?”
Another wrote that Mr. Jackson was “on his way. Needs protection. If anyone is inside, cover them up. He must protect crucial data.” Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers who was later convicted of seditious conspiracy, told a colleague, referring to Mr. Jackson: “Give him my cell.”
In their review of messaging that day, the Jan. 6 investigators found no other individual member of Congress who sparked a similar discussion. And the committee never determined what “critical data” Mr. Jackson supposedly “had to protect.” Mr. Jackson has said he had no idea how the Oath Keepers knew about him or why they were interested.
“If anyone can get to the bottom of these questions,” Ms. Cheney wrote, “it will be Special Prosecutor Jack Smith.”