Liz Cheney in Madison says GOP needs to ‘recognize what it’s done’

Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney has a strong message to voters this November: “If you elect someone who isn’t going to defend the Constitution, then the survival of the republic is at risk.”

Returning to the city of Madison where she was born, Cheney said in a Cap Times Idea Fest session that conservatives and Democrats must work together to prevent another presidency under Donald Trump.

The once Wyoming congresswoman has gained widespread attention as a conservative who has continuously shined a spotlight on what she deems as Trump’s danger to democracy.

In conversation with New York Times journalist Peter Baker, Cheney told the crowd at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Shannon Hall that Trump is “clearly unstable.”

She spoke to a packed theater crowd just moments after Vice President Kamala Harris wrapped up a campaign rally across town at the Alliant Energy Center Coliseum, an event that drew an estimated 10,500 people.

Cheney and her father, former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, publicly endorsed Harris for president earlier this month. Over 100 former Republican officials followed suit in a public letter Wednesday, saying Trump has demonstrated “dangerous qualities” that make him “unfit to serve again as president.”

While she believes a “vast majority” of Republicans likely disapprove of Trump, she said many feel they cannot renounce him.  

“The party itself really has rejected the Constitution in the name of supporting Trump,” Cheney said. “I think those people will bear tremendous responsibility and blame when history looks back at this.”

“It’s hard for me to see how the Republican Party, given what it has done, can make the argument convincingly or credibly that people ought to be voting for Republican candidates, until it really recognizes what it’s done,” she added.

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Editor’s Note: This article is provided courtesy of a content partnership with The Capital Times, an independent news organization based in Madison.