Liz Cheney ousted from GOP leadership role over Trump criticism

A source familiar with her comments said Rep. Liz Cheney told members this morning at the top of the meeting:

"I am going to take a moment of personal privilege and then we will have the prayer and pledge.

I have tremendous affection and admiration for many of you in this room. I know we all came to Washington to do important work for the nation. History has chosen every single one of us. And history has put us here together at this moment of challenge for our country.

Our nation needs this Republican Party as a strong party based on truth so we can shape the future.

To do that, we must be true to our principles and to the constitution. We cannot let the former president drag us backward and make us complicit in his efforts to unravel our democracy. Down that path lies our destruction, and potentially the destruction of our country.

If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I’m not your person, you have plenty of others to choose from. That will be their legacy.

But I promise you this, after today, I will be leading the fight to restore our party and our nation to conservative principles, to defeating socialism, to defending our republic, to making the GOP worthy again of being the party of Lincoln.

Let us pray,

'Dear God, Fill us with a love of freedom and a reverence for all your gifts. Help us to understand the gravity of this moment. Help us to remember that democratic systems can fray and suddenly unravel. When they do, they are gone forever.

Help us to speak the truth and remember the words of John 8:32 – Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

May our world see the power of faith. May our nation know the strength of selfless service. And may our enemies continue to taste the inescapable force of freedom.

In Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.'"

Rep. Liz Cheney is expected to lose her post in the House Republican leadership today after publicly rejecting for months former President Trump's lie that he won the 2020 presidential election.

The GOP conference is meeting right now. Any leadership vote is a secret ballot cast behind closed doors.

House Republicans are likely to replace her with New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, who has a less conservative voting record than Cheney but has emerged as one of Trump's top defenders. Cheney defended herself in a speech on Tuesday evening.

"We must speak the truth," Cheney said. "Our election was not stolen. And America has not failed."

Cheney defended her previous remarks as well as her conservative credentials amid criticism from Trump's allies in her conference who refused to accept the outcome of the election.

Despite her feud with Trump, House Republicans overwhelmingly voted in early February to keep Cheney as the No. 3 House Republican.

But a few weeks later, her renunciation of Trump drew a stark contrast with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who had traveled to Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort after saying that Trump bore responsibility for the attack on the Capitol in January, and supporting Cheney in her leadership vote in February.

When asked by a reporter if Trump should speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, McCarthy said "yes," while Cheney said, "I don't believe that he should be playing a role in the future of the party or the country."

Read more about today's expected vote here.

Rep. Liz Cheney walked into the room where the Republican conference is meeting. This was off camera.

The vote to remove her is expected to begin shortly when the conference meets at 9 a.m. ET.

The way it's supposed to work is that the House GOP Conference chair "generally communicates the House Republican message to the public," according to the House GOP website.

And specifically on this, Rep. Liz Cheney's message is out of step with a party that is in Trump's thrall.

Cheney has continued to communicate, factually, that fraud did not cost Trump the election, and that it's more important for Republicans to stick by their commitment to the Constitution rather than the appeal of Trump.

"History is watching," she wrote in The Washington Post. "Our children are watching. We must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process. I am committed to doing that, no matter what the short-term political consequences might be."

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney's repeated rebuttals of former President Trump's lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him has put her in a precarious position within the Republican Party.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is telling his Republican House colleagues to "anticipate" a vote on Wednesday regarding the current state of the House GOP Conference Chair position, which is expected to end with Liz Cheney being removed from her leadership role.

Cheney has no intention of stepping aside as House Republican conference chair, two people familiar with the matter tell CNN. This means that if she's ousted, it will have to be done through a conference vote.

Here's how that could happen:

Leadership can singled-handedly call for a vote: McCarthy has the power to call for a quick vote that would effectively seek Cheney's removal from his leadership team. A vote to oust Cheney from her leadership job seems all but certain and could happen as soon as May 12, according to several senior Republican members and aides. It can be approved by a simple majority of the full House GOP Conference.

Alternatively, members can petition for a vote: If McCarthy doesn't call for a vote, another Republican could. But there are also special procedures in place to ultimately force another vote, which could take more time. One path requires 20% of the House GOP conference — 43 members — to submit a petition for a special meeting. They would then schedule that meeting within 10 "legislative" days, or days they're in session in the nation's capital.

At the special meeting, the members can then bring up a resolution to remove Cheney. If two-thirds of the conference — 142 members — want, they can immediately vote. Otherwise, the petition would be referred to a committee that can then either report the petition to the conference for a full vote or kill the resolution.

Any leadership vote is a secret ballot cast behind closed doors.

Read more here.

Rep. Liz Cheney vowed Tuesday not to remain silent as former President Trump continues to spread lies that the election was stolen from him, arguing she had a constitutional duty to protect against a threat “America has never seen before” ahead of an expected vote to oust Cheney from House Republican leadership on Wednesday.

The Wyoming Republican struck a defiant tone on Tuesday evening ahead of the vote that is all but assured to end in her removal as Republican conference chair over her continued criticisms of Trump, warning that ignoring Trump’s lies embolden him and threaten democracy.

“Every one of us who has sworn the oath must act to prevent the unraveling of our democracy. This is not about policy. This is not about partisanship. This is about our duty as Americans. Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar,” Cheney said. “I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former President’s crusade to undermine our democracy.”

The House Republican conference is expected to vote to remove Cheney from her leadership role on Wednesday over her opposition to Trump. The vote comes after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy soured on Cheney in recent weeks while she was vocal in her criticisms of Trump for continuing to lie about the election.

McCarthy has backed Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York to replace Cheney as conference chair, and she currently faces no opposition for the position.

Cheney argued on the floor that Trump’s lies about the election have misled millions of Americas, undermining the democratic process and threatening more violence beyond the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

“Today we face a threat America has never seen before,” Cheney said. “A former president, who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol in an effort to steal the election, has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him. He risks inciting further violence.”

Cheney argued she is a conservative, in a swipe at Trump’s congressional allies who have been pushing for her ouster since her January vote to impeach Trump.

“I am a conservative Republican, and the most conservative of conservative principles is reverence for the rule of law,” she said. “The election is over. That is the rule of law. That is our constitutional process. Those who refuse to accept the rulings of our courts are at war with the Constitution.”

When Cheney walked out to the House floor Tuesday, the Republican lawmakers cleared out. Republican Rep. Ken Buck was the only member watching Cheney speak in person.

CNN's Annie Grayer contributed to this report.

As tensions within the Republican Party continue to mount on Capitol Hill, President Biden will meet today with bipartisan leadership of the House and Senate: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that Biden will approach his upcoming meeting with congressional leadership on both sides of the aisle by focusing on potential areas of consensus.

“His hope is that this can be a discussion about where we can find common agreement, where there is an opportunity to work together moving forward. There has been a discussion about infrastructure, investing in infrastructure, the importance of modernizing infrastructure. There’s been different proposals out there,” she added.

Some areas of shared concern, Psaki said, are semiconductor chip shortages and workforce competitiveness.

“I know that we expect that members will come with different items on their agenda and the President just looks forward to having a constructive meeting because he knows that there are common values among Americans and that if we just spend all of our time competing and snipping at each other we can’t help address the challenges we’re all facing,” Psaki said.

She did not say whether the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would be brought up during Wednesday’s meeting with Congressional leadership, telling reporters, “I expect that once the meeting concludes we’ll give you a sense of what the topics are that ended up coming up in the meeting.”

Pressed on why it’s taken so long for Biden to meet with McCarthy and hold a meeting with Congressional leadership altogether, Psaki pointed to the President’s frequent engagement with other members of both political parties.

“He did talk to him around the joint address, but the President also knows from being in the Senate for 36 years you’re going to work with and have discussions with a range of members. Hence, we have the meeting on Thursday to do just that,” Psaki said, referring to a Thursday meeting with Republicans on infrastructure. 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has endorsed Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New Yorker who is more moderate on policy as Republicans go but has solidified her bona fides by aiding and abetting former President Trump's conspiracy theories.

On the one hand, this makes complete sense. If the vast majority of the party is either pushing or willing to tolerate the false idea that the election was stolen from Trump, despite all the evidence to the contrary, their leaders should share those views.

McCarthy argues that members can have whatever views they want and their constituents will tolerate. But Cheney's leadership job requires her to unite the party against Democrats.

And the party leaders need to be united against Democrats, he said, arguing the other party has a socialist agenda for the country.

The House Republican Conference is expected to vote Wednesday morning to replace Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney as GOP conference chair. It's a dramatic turnaround for the conservative congresswoman, who was elected to the position less than three years ago at the encouragement of Republican leadership.

Despite Cheney voting in line with former President Trump's agenda 92.9% of the time, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has said he supports replacing her with New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. After the Jan. 6 insurrection, Cheney voted to impeach Trump while Stefanik voted against.

The events of the past few months stand in stark contrast to Cheney's decades-long career where she served the GOP in roles that ranged from the Department of State to guest hosting on Fox News.

Here's a timeline of key moments from Cheney's career: