GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming received a warm welcome while speaking as part of the "A Time for Choosing" speakers series held by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
"I know at this moment we are confronting a domestic threat we have never faced before and that is a former president who is attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic and he is aided by Republican leaders and elected officials who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man," she said.
"Some in my party are embracing former President Trump and even after all we have seen, they are enabling his lies. Many urge we do not confront Donald Trump, that we look away, and that is certainly the easier path. One need only look at the threats facing the witnesses who have come before the Jan. 6 committee to understand the nature and magnitude of that threat, but to argue the threat posed by Donald Trump can be ignored is to cast aside the responsibility that every citizen, everyone must not do that, and we cannot do that."
"As the full picture is coming into view with the Jan.6 committee, it has become clear that the efforts Donald Trump oversaw and engaged in were even more chilling and more threatening than we could have imagined," Cheney said. "As we have shown, Donald Trump attempted to overturn the presidential election and attempted to stay in office and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. He summoned the mob to Washington, he knew they were armed on Jan. 6, he knew they were angry and he directed the violent mob to march on the Capitol in order to delay or prevent the counting of votes."
She addressed the choice facing the GOP.
"The reality we face today as Republicans, as we think about the choice in front of us, we have to choose, because Republicans cannot be loyal to both Donald Trump and to the Constitution at this moment," she said to applause.
"We must not elect people who are more loyal to themselves or to power than they are to our Constitution," she said, to more applause.
After praising Cassidy Hutchinson, Cheney trotted out what sounded like a 2024 campaign line.
"And I want to speak to every young girl watching tonight: the power is yours and so is the responsibility. In our great nation, one individual can make all the difference and each individual must try. There are no bystanders in a constitutional republic and let me say this to the little girls and young women watching tonight, these days, for the most part, men are running the world, and it is really not going that well," she said to cheers and applause.
Watch below or at this link.
