One 12 months after Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, former Vice President Dick Cheney joined his daughter Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney on the ground of the House to take a lonely place commemorating the anniversary.
The Cheneys had been greeted warmly by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, then took their seats on the Republican aspect of the chamber. Looking round, they shortly realized they had been the one Republicans there. The former vice chairman was shocked.
“It’s one thing to hear about what’s happening in our party, but to see it, like this, in such stark terms,” Dick Cheney instructed his daughter, in accordance to her 2023 memoir.
Later that day, when reporters requested Dick Cheney what he thought of how Republican management had shortly reversed course and folded to Trump, he stated: “Well, it’s not leadership that resembles any of the folks that I knew when I was here for 10 years.”
The episode is illustrative of the seismic shift contained in the GOP since Trump grew to become its standard-bearer, and the story of how Trump expelled former get together leaders who broke with him after he tried to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
Liz Cheney says it is usually the story of how her father influenced her life and profession, and why she was in a position to stand up to Trump, a transfer which value her each her management place and her seat in Congress.
“I want people to know that my father raised me to have the courage of my convictions,” Cheney instructed NCS.
No doubt many individuals will keep in mind the 84-year-old Dick Cheney, who died on Monday evening, as one of the vital highly effective and controversial vice presidents in historical past. He grew to become a lightning rod for criticism over his position within the Iraq War and earned the nickname “Darth Vader” for his unapologetic assist for “enhanced interrogation” of US detainees after 9/11.
But Liz Cheney says she hopes individuals can even keep in mind that her father was one of many few Republican leaders who broke along with his get together and spoke out publicly in opposition to Trump. In a blunt political ad for his daughter’s 2022 main marketing campaign, the previous vice chairman blasted Trump as a “coward” and a “threat.”
Dick Cheney calls Trump a ‘coward’ in new TV advert supporting daughter’s marketing campaign
“I want people to remember that my father chose country over party,” Liz Cheney stated.
When Liz Cheney voted to impeach Trump after January 6, the disgraced former president nonetheless had sufficient affect to be sure she grew to become a pariah within the GOP. She was kicked out of Republican management then defeated in a main by a Trump ally.
But neither father nor daughter backed down. Liz Cheney accepted Speaker Pelosi’s invitation to be vice chair of the House January 6 committee and accused Trump of inciting the January 6 assault on the Capitol. Dick Cheney, as soon as vilified by Democrats, joined his daughter and endorsed Democratic candidate Kamala Harris within the 2024 presidential election.
The day Liz Cheney introduced that her father would assist Harris on the Texas Tribune pageant, the viewers responded with an enormous ovation.
In his endorsement, the previous staunch Republican vice chairman stated of Trump, “There has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic.”
In an interview with 60 Minutes in 2021, Liz Cheney underscored their shared dedication.
“I talk to my dad probably just about every single day. And he sees things the way that I see them.”
Still, when requested if she ever imagined that her father would sooner or later vote for a Democrat for president, Liz Cheney shook her head, smiled and stated “No.”
When Liz Cheney accepted the Profile in Courage award in May 2022 from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, she instructed a little-known story of how her father was impressed to go into public service. As a younger man, Dick Cheney had deliberate to get his PhD and turn out to be an educational, however in 1963, he attended a speech by President John F. Kennedy and was so moved by his phrases he went to work in Washington.
“I am tempted to stop here to say the moral of this story is if you don’t like Dick Cheney’s policies, you should blame John Kennedy!” Liz Cheney stated to laughter.
Dick Cheney went on to have a decades-long profession in Republican politics, serving because the youngest White House chief of employees in historical past to President Gerald R. Ford, then as a congressman from Wyoming, and protection secretary within the George H. W. Bush administration.
In photos: Vice President Dick Cheney
In 2000, Cheney was tapped to lead George W. Bush’s vice presidential choice committee — and finally, took the job himself.
Cheney added nationwide safety gravitas to the ticket. Once in workplace, he grew to become a robust and polarizing determine because the chief architect of the “war on terror” following the September 11, 2001, assaults and his position campaigning for the ill-fated battle in Iraq in 2003.
Democrats swept again into energy within the 2006 midterm elections and with the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, who campaigned on guarantees to finish the wars and different failed insurance policies of the Bush-Cheney administration.
Despite harsh criticism that “enhanced interrogation” was torture, Cheney by no means backed down. Discussing his memoir in 2011, Cheney stated he had “no regrets” and it was “the right thing to do.”
After leaving the White House, he grew to become a strident critic of Obama’s overseas coverage and wrote two memoirs, together with one along with his daughter, Liz, titled, “Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.”
Discussing the guide in 2015, Liz Cheney stated her father taught her the significance of getting “the courage of your convictions” and “how important it is to do what’s right for the nation.”
“I feel confident he will be remembered as a man of tremendous courage, and someone who did what he knew was right, even when it was tough, and even when people were criticizing him for it,” she instructed NCS.
When Trump introduced his candidacy for president in 2015 and shortly surged to the highest of GOP polls, Dick Cheney stated he was “surprised” Trump had executed in addition to he had.
While publicly, Dick Cheney endorsed Trump in May 2016, privately he all the time had reservations about Trump’s expertise, temperament and overseas coverage instincts. Early on in Trump’s first administration, Cheney stated privately that he was alarmed by the chaos in addition to Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Of course, Dick Cheney had purpose to maintain his considerations personal: His daughter was following in his footsteps. She was first elected to Congress in Wyoming in 2016, the identical 12 months as Trump’s shock victory over Hillary Clinton.
As Liz Cheney shortly rose within the ranks of House Republican management, she stayed true to the hawkish overseas coverage she shared along with her father. In basic, she backed Trump, however would problem him on nationwide safety. In 2018, Cheney stated she was “deeply troubled” by Trump’s embrace of Putin at a Helsinki press convention.
But each Cheneys grew to become much more alarmed after Trump refused to settle for his 2020 election loss.
They had been involved Trump would attempt to cease the peaceable switch of energy on January 6, the day Congress was scheduled to certify the election. As Liz Cheney was leaving her mother and father’ home on New Year’s Day, her father instructed her, “Defend the republic, daughter,” in accordance to her memoir.
She responded, “I will, Dad. Always.”
Liz Cheney wrote that her father helped to set up a letter signed by all 10 former defense secretaries, which stated that the election was over and warned in opposition to any use of the army.
On January 6, when Trump stated in his speech on the Ellipse that his supporters ought to do away with “the Liz Cheneys of the world,” Dick Cheney referred to as to warn his daughter that she was at risk.
Per week later, she was certainly one of 10 House Republicans who joined with Democrats to impeach Trump over the assault on the Capitol. That vote was the start of the tip of Cheney’s position in House Republican management. In May 2021, she was pressured out as GOP convention chair.
Asked afterward what recommendation her father had given her, Liz Cheney stated in an NBC interview that she discovered from him “the importance of having the courage of your convictions.”
“People say well this is courageous, you know, I’m not landing on Omaha Beach — that’s courage,” she stated. “This is duty, this is what our oath requires and what history requires, and I’m just incredibly proud to be Dick Cheney’s daughter.”
Ostracized from the House GOP, Cheney joined Democrats on the January 6 committee, giving the panel a bipartisan imprimatur because it uncovered surprising new particulars in regards to the assault and Trump’s position.
The day Cheney acquired the invitation from Speaker Pelosi, she occurred to be along with her father. When she shared the information, he stated: “I’m proud of you.”
“Every step of the way he was fully supportive,” Liz Cheney stated of her father. “He was heartbroken about what was happening in our country.”
On the primary anniversary of the January 6 assault, the Cheneys had been met with a line-up of Democrats thanking them for being there to honor the anniversary.
Pelosi particularly applauded the previous vice chairman for his look.
“That he would come this day with Liz Cheney, as you know, his daughter, was quite a statement on his part, one that was well received by the rest of us,” Pelosi instructed NCS’s Anderson Cooper that evening. “We’ve had our disagreements, but never a disagreement as to whether everybody was committed to honoring our oath of office to support and defend the constitution of the United States.”
Liz Cheney’s position on the January 6 committee put her additional at odds along with her get together as Trump shortly regained his affect over the GOP and vowed revenge.
When Cheney tried to maintain her seat in Congress, Trump did all the things he might to defeat her.
“There is no RINO in America who has thrown in her lot with the radical left more than Liz Cheney,” Trump stated at a Wyoming rally he held in May 2022 forward of the first.
In response, Dick Cheney made a tv advert attacking Trump to attempt to assist his daughter maintain the Wyoming seat he additionally held for a decade.
“He is a coward,” Cheney stated, talking straight into the digital camera. “A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters, he lost his election and he lost big. I know it, he knows it, and I think deep down most Republicans know it.”
When Liz Cheney was defeated, she vowed to do all the things in her energy to cease Trump from returning to the Oval Office.
“Two years ago, I won this primary with 73% of the vote. I could have easily done the same again,” she stated in her concession speech. “The path was clear, but it would’ve required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election, it would’ve required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system, and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take.”
In 2024, Trump simply received the Republican nomination and was going through off in opposition to Harris after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
The Cheneys had yet one more choice to make: Whether Dick Cheney would assist a Democrat. Breaking along with his Republican previous, he did.
In September, he issued a press release endorsing Harris: “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Liz Cheney went a step additional and appeared at a number of rallies with Harris, in an try to attain out to disaffected Republicans.
“I was a Republican even before Donald Trump started spray tanning,” Liz Cheney stated at a marketing campaign occasion with Harris in October 2024. “I have never voted for a Democrat but this year I am proudly casting my vote for Kamala Harris.”
When Harris and Liz Cheney appeared collectively, the vice chairman particularly thanked Dick Cheney as effectively.
“I also want to thank your father, Vice President Dick Cheney, for his support and what he has done to serve our country. Every endorsement matters, and this endorsement matters a great deal, Liz,” Harris stated.
On a lighter be aware, reflecting on her father’s legacy, Liz Cheney stated that the “Darth Vader” nickname he was given whereas vice chairman was all the time laughed about contained in the household.
“He’s really the opposite of his public persona,” she stated. “That’s why the Darth Vader caricature was so funny to us, and it became a family joke.”