Former Rep. Liz Cheney said Monday she is considering running for president in 2024, with the goal of keeping former President Donald Trump out of office.
She spoke to USA Today for an interview published Tuesday and said she was interested in creating a new third party.
Cheney revealed that she was also open to a bipartisan ticket, as proposed by the moderate No Labels group.
She said: “I think the situation we're in is so dire, and the politics of the moment require independents, Republicans and Democrats to come together in a way that can help form a new coalition, so that could well be a third can be. -party option.'
At the same time, Cheney insisted she would not join the No Labels ticket if it appeared poised to siphon votes away from Democratic President Joe Biden.
That would help bring Trump, the leading contender for the Republican nomination, back into the White House.
Rep. Liz Cheney said in an interview with USA Today on Monday that she was interested in running for president in 2024 and would even run on a No Labels ticket, but not if it meant playing spoiler and bringing back former President Donald Trump into the White House.
A number of Democratic and nonpartisan analysts have warned that No Labels' efforts — recruiting a bipartisan, third-party ticket — would likely hurt President Joe Biden's (left) prospects more than those of former President Donald Trump (right).
Cheney told USA Today that the calculation — whether her votes would come from Biden or Trump — would influence her decision.
A number of Democratic and nonpartisan analysts have warned that No Labels' efforts would likely hurt Biden's standing more than Trump's in next year's general election, as Trump has a very reliable voter base.
Former Representative Liz Cheney's new book Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning hits bookstores on Tuesday
Democrats have urged Biden to take challenges from independents and third parties seriously Contact Cheneyas well as Senator Joe Manchin – who is also flirting with a No Labels bid – to bring them on board with his campaign instead.
She has not yet endorsed Biden, but has encouraged Republican voters to vote Democrats into Congress, fearing that the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, may not adhere to the results of the 2024 presidential election.
“It's not a position I came to lightly,” she said.
Cheney said her top priority is to defeat Trump and protect the Constitution.
“The president who is willing to ignore the rulings of the courts, the president who is willing to ignore the guardrails of our democracy, is an existential threat,” Cheney said of the ex-president.
The former Republican House member also said she hoped to “play a role” in forming a “new, all-conservative party.”
“And whether that means rebuilding the current Republican Party, which … seems like a very difficult if not impossible task, or creating a new party, I really hope to be involved in that.”
Cheney was the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives before her leadership post was removed because of her vote to impeach Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and her continued criticism of Trump.
She then joined the House committee on January 6, much to the chagrin of her GOP colleagues.
Cheney lost her Republican primary in August 2022 to Rep. Harriet Hageman, who supports Trump, and has been out of office since January.
“My only regret is supporting Donald Trump,” she told Page.
Her new book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, was released Tuesday.
She used it in part to shame Trump “enablers” and “collaborationists,” who are willing to be critical of the ex-president behind closed doors but appear to fall in line with him in public.
Cheney feuded with the office of Republican Tennessee Rep. Mark Green, who she wrote “sheepishly” saying “the things we do for the Orange Jesus” when he signed on to contest the results of the 2020 presidential election, on Trump's orders.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney inspired a Truth Social tirade from former President Donald Trump on Monday in which he said claims in her book — that Rep. Kevin McCarthy said he was “really depressed” and “wasn't eating” — were false.
Green's spokesperson denied that the congressman had said such a thing.
She also inspired a Trump rant on Truth Social on Monday for writing that former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told her Trump knew he lost the 2020 race.
Three weeks after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, McCarthy traveled to Mar-a-Lago to visit Trump, which he told Cheney was because the ex-president was “really depressed” and “not eating.”
'That statement is not true. I wasn't depressed, I was angry, and it wasn't that I wasn't eating, it was that I was eating too much,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “But that's not why Keven McCarthy was there. He was at Mar-a-Lago to get my support and to rally the Republican Party. Only good intentions.'
Trump also called Cheney “crazy” and said she “suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome at levels rarely seen before.”
The ex-president also falsely claimed that Cheney and other select committee members on January 6 destroyed the committee's evidence and findings.