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      Liz Cheney expected to be removed from House leadership over Trump criticism

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      Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming is facing removal from her leadership position in the Republican caucus of the House of Representatives on Wednesday morning in an internal battle seen as a bellwether of the future direction of the party.Cheney’s ouster is widely expected after she found herself at odds with other members of Republican leadership over her refusal to stop blaming Donald Trump for inciting the mob attack on the United States Capitol on 6 January.The daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney, Cheney has become a symbol of a dwindling band of Republicans largely opposed to Trump’s vice-like grip on the party. Even though she is a staunch conservative, she has faced implacable hostility from Trump and his loyalists.The vote is among members of the Republican caucus in the chamber and is set to be conducted by secret ballot.Cheney had faced the threat of removal from her leading role before, but she survived that handily, in part, thanks to support from other members of Republican leadership. This time is different though. Cheney has lost support from Congressman Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, and Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House minority whip.McCarthy has endorsed Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York to replace Cheney.“Yes I do,” the top congressional Republican said in an interview on Fox News when asked if the New York congresswoman had his support now instead of Cheney.McCarthy has been eager to oust Cheney from leadership. He was recently caught on a hot mic saying: “I’ve had it with her.”McCarthy set the vote for a new conference chair for Wednesday. In a letter announcing the new election, the California representative echoed arguments many Republicans made against Cheney – that her ongoing criticism of Trump was distracting from Republicans’ primary efforts to retake control of the House.“This is no time to take our eye off the ball,” McCarthy wrote in the letter. “If we are to succeed in stopping the radical Democrat agenda from destroying our country, these internal conflicts need to be resolved so as to not detract from the efforts of our collective team. Having heard from so many of you in recent days, it’s clear that we need to make a change.”The main driver behind the attack on Cheney, though, has been Trump, who has fumed about Cheney’s criticism and her decision to vote to impeach the president, alongside almost a dozen other House Republicans. Cheney has been the highest-ranking outspoken anti-Trump Republican in Congress. That stance looks to be felt back home where multiple candidates have jumped into the Republican primary to oust Cheney from her congressional seat.Trump and his allies are assessing who to support in that primary. The former president’s political operation is watching the primary field closely, looking to see who might emerge as the strongest challenger to Cheney.Cheney’s troubles are the latest sign that Trump’s influence is still hugely powerful within the Republican party, more so than any of the other recent Republicans who were elected president or were nominated to be president.Cheney herself is no newcomer to primary challengers. She once ran for Senate in Wyoming, challenging then-senator Mike Enzi. She ended up dropping out after failing to get serious traction. She was later elected to Congress as the sole representative from the state.Ahead of the vote, Cheney has some support from some like-minded Republican allies.Expelling Liz Cheney from leadership won’t gain the GOP one additional voter, but it will cost us quite a few.— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) May 10, 2021
      Late on Monday night Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington’s office said she planned to vote for Cheney to keep her leadership position.“Jaime will be voting to keep the House leadership in place,” Craig Wheeler, a Beutler spokesperson, said in an email to the Guardian.Congressman Adam Kinzinger, another outspoken anti-Trump Republican, has sent fundraising pitches and email list-building pleas in support of Cheney. More

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      Liz Cheney: why does the Republican party want to oust her?

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      The battle to unseat Republican congresswoman Elizabeth Cheney from her leadership position in the party is a dispute that goes far beyond simple jockeying for power by politicians.It is instead widely seen as a litmus test for the direction of the Republican party as it grapples with the enduring power of Donald Trump, the former president who remains hugely popular with its base and thus a force to be reckoned with by party leaders.Cheney has emerged as a vocal critic of Trump, especially since the attack on the Capitol on 6 January by Trump supporters. But her price for her outspokenness has been an attempt to oust her from party leadership – and maybe even to lose her congressional seat to a Republican challenger.Who is Liz Cheney?Cheney is a congresswoman from Wyoming and a staunch conservative who is also the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney – a man who previously occupied the position of “liberal hate figure” before Trump appeared. She is also one of the most senior women in a party with few in top positions.Why does the party want to oust her?Cheney has angered Trump, and by extension his base and other Trump-supporting politicians, by slamming the former president for the attack on the Capitol on 6 January. She also been critical of Trump’s propagating of false claims that the 2020 election that Joe Biden won was somehow carried out fraudulently.So what is happening?Congressional Republicans are meeting to hold a secret ballot to vote on whether to oust Cheney from her leadership position in the House of Representatives, saying she is out of touch with the grassroots of the party. She is also being challenged in her Wyoming congressional seat.What does it mean?Bluntly, Cheney should be untouchable on paper. She’s a high-profile woman in a party that desperately needs them. She’s a true conservative and daughter of a powerful party elder. On policy, she is widely seen as more conservative than the woman many now tip to succeed her, the New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik.But in the post-Trump Republican party none of that seems to matter as much. Policy and networking have fallen prey to one thing: a Trump loyalty test. And with her outspoken criticism of the former president, Cheney has failed that exam spectacularly.What next?If Cheney is ousted – as seems very likely – the few other prominent anti-Trump voices will see it as a chastening moment that will keep their already weak movement even more in the background of Republican politics. It will send a message that to thrive in the next few years in the current incarnation of the party, loyalty to Trump is the be all and end all as the US looks to the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 presidential contest. More

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      House, Biden Administration Reach Deal Over McGahn Testimony

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      A terse announcement signaled a possible end to a long-running constitutional lawsuit. But former President Donald J. Trump is not a party to the arrangement.WASHINGTON — The Biden administration and House Democrats have reached a tentative deal to allow President Donald J. Trump’s former White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to testify before Congress about Mr. Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Russia inquiry, according to a court filing late Tuesday.The deal appears likely to avert a definitive court precedent that would draw a clear line in an ambiguous areas: the scope and limits of Congress’s constitutional power to compel testimony for its oversight responsibilities, and a president’s constitutional power to keep secret conversations with a White House lawyer.An appeals court had been set to hear arguments on the case next week, but lawyers for the Justice Department, which has been defending Mr. McGahn since 2019 against a House subpoena seeking to compel his testimony, and for the House of Representatives asked the court in a joint letter to drop that plan as mooted by the deal.“The Committee on the Judiciary and the executive branch have reached an agreement in principle on an accommodation and anticipate filing, as soon as possible, a joint motion asking the court to remove this case from the May 19, 2021, oral argument calendar in order to allow the parties to implement the accommodation,” the letter said.What to do about the subpoena case, which President Biden inherited from the Trump administration, has been a rare locus of institutional disagreement among Democrats in the two branches.Lawyers in the Biden White House have been hesitant about establishing a precedent that Republicans might someday use to force them to testify about their own internal matters. House Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been determined to push forward after frustration that the Trump administration’s uncompromising approach and litigation strategy ran out the clock, preventing any testimony by Mr. McGahn before the 2020 presidential election.The two sides had been negotiating for several months, leading to delays in the appeals court case. The filing was terse and offered no details about the deal, including what limits, if any, there would be — like whether Mr. McGahn would testify in public and the scope of what lawmakers could ask him to disclose.But the filing also flagged a potential wild card: “Former President Trump, who is not a party to this case, is not a party to the agreement in principle regarding an accommodation,” it said.That absence leaves open the question of whether Mr. Trump could try to intervene to block Mr. McGahn from testifying by asserting executive privilege. An attempt to invoke it by Mr. Trump would raise novel questions about the extent to which a former president may assert the privilege when the incumbent president declines to do so.Should Mr. Trump try to intervene, a rare but limited precedent is a 1977 case, Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Richard M. Nixon could assert executive privilege claims over official records from his White House even though he was no longer the president — but it also weighed that assertion against the contrary view of Jimmy Carter, the president at the time.That dispute, however, centered on control of Nixon-era White House documents, not a subpoena for a former White House lawyer’s testimony.The present dispute centers on the House Judiciary Committee’s desire to question Mr. McGahn about matters related to his role as a key witness in the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, about efforts by Mr. Trump to obstruct the Russia investigation.After the Justice Department made most of the report public, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Mr. McGahn to testify. After he refused to appear, on Mr. Trump’s instructions, the committee sued.The case has gone through several rounds of convoluted legal fights over constitutional issues that have lacked definitive precedents because previous disputes had generally been resolved with a negotiated compromise, averting a need for a court ruling.But the lawsuit over the McGahn subpoena is one of an unprecedented number of cases pitting the two branches against each other in court that arose after Democrats took the House in the 2018 midterm elections and Mr. Trump vowed to stonewall “all” subpoenas.First, the Justice Department under Mr. Trump had argued that Mr. McGahn was “absolutely immune” from any compelled appearance before Congress to testify about his work duties. Last year, the full District of Columbia Circuit rejected that theory.The Justice Department then continued to fight the subpoena on other legal grounds, arguing that Congress had no “cause of action” that authorized it to sue the executive branch. (The executive branch has taken that position under administrations of both parties, and the Biden administration had signaled that it was prepared to keep arguing it.)The apparent resolution of the McGahn subpoena case — unless Mr. Trump disrupts it — is similar to a dispute in 2009, when President Barack Obama took office and inherited a House lawsuit over a subpoena for testimony by President George W. Bush’s former White House counsel Harriet Miers related to the firings of United States attorneys.The Obama administration, a lawyer for the House and a legal representative of Mr. Bush worked out a deal under which Democrats were able to confidentially interview Ms. Miers about the topic, with limits. That accommodation mooted the case, so the District of Columbia Circuit never issued a binding ruling, leaving the legal questions it raised unresolved. More

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      Democrats propose quick reaction force in $2.1bn Capitol security bill

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      House Democrats plan on Wednesday to unveil a $2.1bn supplemental bill to enhance security at the Capitol that will propose creating a quick reaction force to guard against future threats in the wake of the Capitol attack, according to sources familiar with the matter.The proposed bill will also include the construction of a retractable fencing system around the Capitol, the sources said.Rose DeLauro, chair of the House appropriations committee, is expected to unveil the proposal to House Democrats on a caucus call on Wednesday, amid growing calls urging the adoption of recommendations made by a taskforce in the wake of the 6 January insurrection in which a pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol.No lawmakers were injured during the attack, but several, such as Senator Mitt Romney and former vice-president Mike Pence had only a narrow escape from attackers looking for them. Meanwhile, nearly 140 officers suffered injuries and one, Brian Sicknick, later died after being assaulted.The proposed bill largely tracks recommendations made by retired Army Lt Gen Russel Honoré, who was appointed by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to examine security shortcomings, as well as critical flaws identified by the US Capitol police inspector general, the sources said.In the report released to House Democratic leaders last month, Honoré made a series of recommendations, including hiring more than 800 US Capitol police officers, the construction of mobile fencing around the Capitol, and an overhaul of the US Capitol police board.“We are trying to take into consideration understanding what happened, how do we account for that and what we need to do to prevent this from happening again,” DeLauro said of the taskforce recommendations after its release last month.The proposed bill, which could be brought to the House floor as early as next week, will also include a provision to reimburse the national guard deployed around the Capitol. The national guard and other security measures post-6 January is costing nearly $2m a week.Its prospects are still uncertain on Capitol Hill, with House Democrats largely going ahead with the security review alone and Republicans yet to indicate what measures, if any, they are willing to embrace.Lawmakers in both parties largely agree on the need for enhanced security but some – Republicans in particular – have been agitating to scale back the barriers encircling the area and troops patrolling the grounds despite lingering threats.“While there may be some worthy recommendations forthcoming, Gen Honoré’s notorious partisan bias calls into question the rationality of appointing him to lead this important security review,” Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, said of the taskforce in March.“It also raises the unacceptable possibility that the speaker desired a certain result: turning the Capitol into a fortress.”The issue has exposed the divide between members of Congress who want the Capitol to return to a sense of normalcy, and the concerns of US Capitol police and a raft of law enforcement agencies tasked with their protection. More

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      Sin redes sociales y con baja aprobación, Trump sigue mandando en el Partido Republicano

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      La difamación de Liz Cheney y un extraño recuento de votos en Arizona mostraron el daño de su asalto a la base de la democracia: la integridad electoral.Suspendido de Facebook, aislado en Mar-a-Lago y objeto de burlas por su nueva red social no profesional, Donald Trump estuvo gran parte de la semana pasada fuera de la vista del público. Sin embargo, tanto la capitulación del Partido Republicano ante el expresidente como el daño a la política estadounidense que provocó con su mentira de que le robaron las elecciones fueron más evidentes que nunca.En Washington, los republicanos le retiraron su puesto de liderazgo en la Cámara Baja a la representante Liz Cheney como castigo por considerar que las falsas aseveraciones de fraude electoral hechas por Trump eran una amenaza a la democracia. Los legisladores de Florida y Texas adelantaron nuevas medidas radicales para restringir las votaciones, lo cual respalda la narrativa ficticia de Trump y sus aliados de que el sistema electoral fue manipulado en su contra. Y en Arizona, el Partido Republicano estatal dio inicio a una extraña revisión de los resultados de las elecciones de noviembre al buscar rastros de bambú en las boletas electorales del año pasado.Estos agitados melodramas ponen de relieve hasta qué grado, seis meses después de las elecciones, Estados Unidos sigue enfrentando las consecuencias del ataque sin precedentes —por parte de un candidato a la presidencia que estaba perdiendo— al principio fundamental de la democracia estadounidense: la legitimidad de las elecciones.También ofrecen sólidas evidencias de que el expresidente no solo ha logrado sofocar cualquier oposición dentro de su partido, sino que también ha convencido a la mayor parte de esa agrupación política para que haga una enorme apuesta: que la manera más segura de volver a lograr el poder es adoptando su estilo pugilístico, el divisionismo racial y las inaceptables teorías conspirativas, en vez de atraer a los electores suburbanos indecisos que le quitaron la Casa Blanca al partido y que quizás estén buscando políticas de fondo para la pandemia, la economía, la atención médica y otros temas.La lealtad al expresidente continúa a pesar de que haya azuzado a sus partidarios antes del asalto del 6 de enero al Capitolio y sus seguidores ignoran, redefinen o, en algunos casos, aprueban de manera tácita el letal ataque al Congreso.“Nos hemos alejado demasiado de cualquier interpretación sensata”, dijo Barbara Comstock, una veterana funcionaria del partido a quien le arrebataron su escaño suburbano de Virginia cuando los electores castigaron a Trump en las elecciones intermedias de 2018. “Es una verdadera enfermedad la que está atacando al partido en todos los niveles. Ahora simplemente vamos a decir que lo blanco es negro”.No obstante, mientras los republicanos se refugian en la fantasía de unas elecciones robadas, los demócratas están concentrados en el trabajo cotidiano de gobernar un país que sigue teniendo dificultades para salir de una mortífera pandemia.Los estrategas de ambos partidos afirman que es probable que la dinámica discordante —dos partidos que funcionan en realidades diferentes— defina la política del país en los años venideros.Al mismo tiempo, el presidente Joe Biden enfrenta un reto más general: qué hacer con respecto al amplio segmento de la población que duda de su legitimidad y un Partido Republicano que busca el apoyo de ese segmento al promover proyectos de ley que restrinjan las votaciones y tal vez debiliten más la confianza en las elecciones futuras.En una encuesta de CNN publicada la semana pasada, se descubrió que casi una tercera parte de los estadounidenses, incluyendo el 70 por ciento de los republicanos, decían que Biden no había ganado de manera legítima los votos para obtener la presidencia.Se espera que la representante Liz Cheney, la tercera republicana de alto rango en la Cámara, sea destituida de su cargo después de expresarse en contra de Trump.Stefani Reynolds para The New York TimesLos colaboradores de la Casa Blanca afirman que Biden cree que la mejor manera de recuperar la confianza en el proceso democrático es demostrar que el gobierno puede otorgarles beneficios tangibles a los electores (ya sean vacunas o cheques de estímulo económico).Dan Sena, un estratega demócrata que supervisó las acciones del Comité de Campaña del Congreso Demócrata para ganar la Cámara durante las últimas elecciones de mitad de periodo, dijo que el enfoque republicano en cuestiones culturales, como la prohibición de los atletas transgénero, era beneficioso para su partido. Muchos demócratas solo enfrentarán ataques dispersos en su agenda mientras continúan oponiéndose a la retórica polarizadora de Trump, que ayudó a que su partido se impusiera en distritos suburbanos en 2018 y 2020.“Preferiría tener un historial de estar del lado de los estadounidenses en la recuperación”, dijo Sena. “¿Qué historia quiere escuchar el público estadounidense: lo que han hecho los demócratas para que el país vuelva a reactivarse o Donald Trump y su guerra cultural?”.Durante su campaña, Biden predijo que los republicanos tendrían una “revelación” cuando ya se hubiera ido Trump y que volverían a ser el partido que él conoció durante las décadas que estuvo en el Senado. Cuando la semana pasada le preguntaron sobre los republicanos, Biden se quejó de que ya no los entendía y parecía un poco desconcertado por la “minirrevolución” dentro de sus filas.“Creo que los republicanos están más lejos de lo que pensé de determinar quiénes son y qué representan en este momento”, comentó.Sin embargo, durante gran parte de la semana pasada, los republicanos mostraron de manera muy elocuente qué es exactamente lo que representan: el trumpismo. Muchos de ellos han adoptado su estrategia de inducir las quejas de los blancos con enunciados racistas, y las legislaturas controladas por republicanos en todo el país están promoviendo restricciones que limiten el acceso al voto de tal forma que los electores de color se vean afectados de una manera desproporcionada.También existen consideraciones electorales donde hay mucho en juego. Con su estilo tan polarizador, Trump incitó tanto a sus bases como a sus detractores y presionó a ambos partidos a registrar la participación de los votantes en las elecciones de 2020. El total que obtuvo de 74 millones de votos fue el segundo más alto de toda la historia, solo detrás del total de 81 millones de votos para Biden, y Trump ha demostrado su capacidad para poner a sus partidarios políticos en contra de cualquier republicano que lo contradiga.Eso ha hecho que los republicanos sientan que deben mostrar una lealtad inquebrantable al expresidente con el fin de conservar los electores que ganó.“Solo les diría esto a mis colegas republicanos: ¿podemos seguir adelante sin el presidente Trump? La respuesta es no”, comentó esta semana en una entrevista de Fox News el senador por Carolina del Sur, Lindsey Graham. “Estoy convencido de que no podemos crecer sin él”.En algunas formas, el expresidente está más debilitado que nunca. Tras haber sido derrotado en las urnas, pasa su tiempo jugando golf y recibiendo visitas en su desarrollo turístico de Florida. Le hace falta la tribuna de la presidencia, lo han bloqueado de Twitter y no logró recuperar el acceso a su cuenta de Facebook la semana pasada. Dejó el cargo con un índice de aprobación de menos del 40 por ciento, el menor porcentaje al final de un primer periodo de cualquier presidente desde Jimmy Carter.Sin embargo, su dominio se ve reflejado desde el Congreso hasta las legislaturas estatales. Los legisladores locales y federales que han presionado para que su partido acepte los resultados de las elecciones, y por tanto la derrota de Trump, han enfrentado una condena constante y disputas de sus escaños por parte de miembros de su propio partido en las elecciones primarias. Parece que esas amenazas están teniendo impacto: el pequeño número de funcionarios republicanos que han criticado a Trump en el pasado, incluyendo diez que votaron a favor de su enjuiciamiento político en febrero, guardaron silencio, se rehusaron a dar entrevistas y le brindaron poco respaldo público a Cheney.La representante Elise Stefanik, quien probablemente la sustituya, se promovió públicamente para ese puesto y, en entrevistas con partidarios de extrema derecha del expresidente, mostró la buena fe que le tiene a Trump al darle credibilidad a sus infundadas aseveraciones de fraude electoral.El Partido Republicano llevó a cabo una revisión quijotesca de los resultados de las elecciones de noviembre, en Arizona.Foto de consorcio de Matt YorkEl enfoque en las elecciones ha desplazado casi cualquier discusión sobre política u ortodoxia partidaria. Heritage Action, una organización que califica a los legisladores según sus registros de votación conservadores, le otorgó a Cheney una calificación del 82 por ciento. Stefanik, quien tiene un historial de votación más moderado pero es una defensora mucho más vocal del expresidente, obtuvo un 52 por ciento.Stefanik y muchos otros líderes republicanos están apostando a que el camino para mantener los logros electorales de la era Trump radica en avivar su base con las políticas populistas que son fundamentales para la marca del presidente, incluso si repelen a los votantes indecisos.Después de varios meses en que los medios de comunicación conservadores han dicho mentiras sobre las elecciones, una buena parte de los republicanos han llegado a aceptarlas como verdaderas.Sarah Longwell, una estratega republicana que durante años ha estado conduciendo grupos de debate de los partidarios de Trump, mencionó que desde las elecciones había descubierto una mayor apertura a lo que ella llama “una curiosidad por QAnon”, que es la disposición a considerar teorías conspirativas sobre el robo de las elecciones y un Estado profundo. “Muchos de estos electores de las bases están viviendo en una negación de la verdad en la que no creen en nada y piensan que todo podría ser mentira”, comentó Longwell, quien impugnó a Trump.Algunos estrategas republicanos están preocupados por la posibilidad de que el partido esté perdiendo oportunidades para atacar a Biden, quien ha propuesto los planes de gastos e impuestos más radicales en generaciones.“Los republicanos deben volver a los temas que realmente les interesan a los votantes, rociar algunos comentarios sobre la guerra cultural aquí y allá, pero no dejarse llevar”, dijo Scott Reed, un estratega republicano veterano que ayudó a aplastar a los populistas de derecha en elecciones pasadas. “Pero algunos están haciendo una industria basada en dejarse llevar”.Aunque aferrarse a Trump podría ayudar a que el partido aumente la participación de sus bases, los republicanos como Comstock sostienen que esa estrategia dañará al partido con una población esencial que incluye a los electores jóvenes, los de color, a las mujeres y a los residentes de los suburbios. Ya están surgiendo luchas interpartidistas en las elecciones primarias emergentes debido a que los candidatos se acusan unos a otros de deslealtad al expresidente. Muchos líderes del partido temen que eso dé como resultado que salgan victoriosos los candidatos de extrema derecha y que al final pierdan las elecciones generales en los estados conservadores donde los republicanos deberían dominar, como Misuri y Ohio.“No queremos llegar a declarar a Trump ganador de una minoría menguante”, afirmó Comstock. “El futuro del partido no será un hombre de 70 años hablándole al espejo en Mar-a-Lago y todos estos aduladores haciendo maromas para obtener su aprobación”.Sin embargo, quienes se han opuesto a Trump —y pagado el precio— afirman que hay pocos incentivos políticos para ir contra la corriente. Criticar a Trump, e incluso defender a quienes lo hacen, puede hacer que los funcionarios electos se queden en una especie de tierra de nadie política, que sean considerados traidores a los electores republicanos, pero también demasiado conservadores en otros temas como para ser aceptados por los demócratas y los independientes.“Parece que se está volviendo cada vez más difícil que la gente salga a hacer campaña y defienda a alguien como Liz Cheney o Mitt Romney”, afirmó esta semana durante una presentación en un panel de la Universidad de Harvard el exsenador Jeff Flake, quien respaldó a Biden y obtuvo el repudio del Partido Republicano de Arizona. “Es posible que cerca del 70 por ciento de los republicanos realmente crean que les robaron las elecciones y eso es incapacitante. En verdad lo es”.Lisa Lerer es una periodista que vive en Washington, donde cubre campañas electorales, votaciones y poder político. Antes de unirse al Times, cubrió la política nacional estadounidense y la campaña presidencial de 2016 para The Associated Press. @llerer More

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      Republican says party leader dismissed his warnings of Capitol violence

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      The Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger said on Monday he warned the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, about potential violence at the US Capitol on 6 January, but McCarthy dismissed his concerns.“A few days before Jan 6 , our GOP members had a conference call,” Kinzinger said on Twitter. “I told Kevin that his words and our party’s actions would lead to violence on January 6th. Kevin dismissively responded with ‘OK Adam, operator next question.’ And we got violence.”Five people died amid and after scenes of chaos at the Capitol, as supporters told by Donald Trump to “fight like hell” in his attempt to overturn his election defeat broke into the building, in some cases allegedly looking for lawmakers to kill.On Monday, Kinzinger also said he had considered trying to force a vote of no-confidence in McCarthy after the insurrection.“I don’t consider him to be speaking on behalf of the Republican party any more,” Kinzinger told Bloomberg News, adding: “I actually thought the person that should have their leadership challenged was Kevin McCarthy after 6 January because that’s why this all happened.”Kinzinger said he abandoned such plans to keep the focus on the impeachment vote against Trump which followed the insurrection. Ten House Republicans voted with Democrats to impeach Trump for inciting the riot but only seven Republican senators followed, too few to return a guilty verdict.Liz is the one playing defense, for what? Telling the truth and not ransacking the Capitol on 6 January?McCarthy did not immediately comment.Kinzinger has been outspoken in his criticism of Trump and others peddling the “big lie” that there was widespread fraud in the presidential election.But like most of his party McCarthy has sided with a former president whose grip on the party seems set to strengthen this week with the ejection from leadership of Liz Cheney, a Wyoming conservative who has also spoken against him.Kinzinger has been one of Cheney’s few Republican defenders in Congress. Speaking to Bloomberg, he said: “Liz is the one playing defense, for what? What’s she playing defense for? Telling the truth and not ransacking the Capitol on 6 January?“If you think about it from the forest, it’s ludicrous that she’s having to defend herself. That’s insane, but that’s where we are.”Speaking to CBS News on Sunday, Kinzinger said his party was “going to get rid of Liz Cheney because they’d much rather pretend that the conspiracy is either real or not confront it than to actually confront it and maybe have to take the temporary licks to save this party and the long-term [future] of this country”.McCarthy told Fox Business he was endorsing the New York representative Elise Stefanik to replace Cheney in “a position in leadership. As conference chair, you have one of the most critical jobs as a messenger going forward.”Trump weighed in on Monday, issuing a statement in which he said: “The House GOP has a massive opportunity to upgrade this week from warmonger Liz Cheney to gifted communicator Elise Stefanik.”The “warmonger” jibe was in part aimed at Cheney’s father, the former vice-president Dick Cheney, one of the architects of the Iraq war.“We need someone in leadership who has experience flipping districts from blue to red as we approach the important 2022 midterms,” Trump added, “and that’s Elise! She knows how to win, which is what we need!”Trump formally endorsed Stefanik last week. In congressional votes to recognize electoral college results, held in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, Stefanik objected to results from Pennsylvania. She did not object to results from Arizona, as many other Republicans did.Before the votes, she indicated plans to object to results in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. No senator supported challenges to results from those states, however, so none were mounted.Cheney is set to be replaced in a closed vote on Wednesday. On Sunday, Kinzinger also compared the trajectory of his party to the sinking of the Titanic, saying leaders were not acting responsibly.“We’re like in the middle of this slow sink,” he said. “We have a band playing on the deck, telling everybody it’s fine, and meanwhile as I’ve said, Donald Trump is running around trying to find women’s clothing to get on the first lifeboat.“I think there’s a few of us saying, ‘Guys, this is not good, not just for the future of the party, but this is not good for the future of this country.’”On Monday a new report warned that many lawmakers are receiving threats and worry for their safety after the Capitol was so easily breached by extremist Trump supporters.The Capitol police force was hobbled by inadequateintelligence gathering ahead of time, according to the inspector general, Michael Bolton.The House is holding hearings this week on what went wrong duringthe insurrection, as lawmakers contemplate overhauling congressional security.The Capitol police said that there has been a 107% increase in threatsagainst members of Congress this year compared to 2020 and “providedthe unique threat environment we currently live in, the department isconfident the number of cases will continue to increase”. More

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      in Elections

      McCarthy Officially Backs Stefanik to Replace Cheney in House Leadership

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      “We need to be united,” said the Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who worked behind the scenes for days on behalf of Representative Elise Stefanik of New York.WASHINGTON — Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, on Sunday officially endorsed Representative Elise Stefanik in her bid to oust the No. 3 House Republican, Representative Liz Cheney, who has hemorrhaged support over her repudiation of former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about election fraud.“Yes, I do,” Mr. McCarthy told the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo when she asked whether he supported Ms. Stefanik’s push to become the Republican conference chairwoman.“We need to be united, and that starts with leadership,” Mr. McCarthy said. “That’s why we will have a vote next week.”The endorsement from Mr. McCarthy — who had been working behind the scenes on Ms. Stefanik’s behalf for days — came after Mr. Trump and Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, endorsed Ms. Stefanik.The move made clear that fealty to Mr. Trump and willingness to embrace his false claims of election fraud have become the ultimate litmus tests among Republicans for holding a leadership position in the House. Ms. Cheney, who represents Wyoming and was once considered a future speaker, has a more conservative voting record than Ms. Stefanik. But Ms. Stefanik, a fourth-term congresswoman from New York, has joined in Mr. Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, made the case against Ms. Cheney on “Fox News Sunday.”“Right now it’s clear that she doesn’t represent the views of the majority of our conference,” Mr. Banks, who has co-sponsored legislation with Ms. Cheney opposing troop reductions in Afghanistan, told the show’s host, Chris Wallace.Mr. Banks — who like Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Scalise joined in objections to certifying Mr. Biden’s victory — added that his split from Ms. Cheney came after she criticized a memo he had written outlining a strategy for winning working-class voters.Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, helped Representative Liz Cheney turn back a challenge to her leadership post in February.Joshua Roberts/Reuters“Liz Cheney is the only Republican leader who attacked the memo about making the Republican Party the party of the working class,” he said.Some House Republicans tried to oust Ms. Cheney from her leadership post in February after she voted to impeach Mr. Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Ms. Cheney easily turned back that challenge — winning a 145-to-61 caucus vote — after Mr. McCarthy delivered an impassioned speech in her defense.But now it is other Republicans who are rallying to her side.Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who voted to convict Mr. Trump in his second impeachment trial, argued that the party needed to adopt a bigger-tent philosophy in which both supporters and critics of Mr. Trump were welcome.“You look at polls, there’s a whole group of folks that agree with Liz Cheney, and so for us to win in 2022 and 2024, we need everybody,” Mr. Cassidy said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, pointed out that Mr. McCarthy had said Mr. Trump bore responsibility for the Capitol riot — only to later insist that others stop talking about it.“It is incredible,” Mr. Kinzinger said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Liz Cheney is saying exactly what Kevin McCarthy said the day of the insurrection. She has just consistently been saying it.”“For me, I’m a conservative,” he added. “I’m going to fight for the soul of this party. But every member, not just leadership, every congressman, every state representative, every member of the party that pulls a ballot in the primary has to decide, are we going to exist on lies or exist on the truth?” More