Liz Cheney on the Cult of Trump

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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Trump tries to tank a bipartisan immigration deal because he wants to use the border crisis as a campaign issue.
Biden gets great economic news following a big endorsement from the United Auto Workers. and later I talked to former Congresswoman Liz Cheney about the dangers of a second Trump term and how she plans to stop it from happening.
Liz Cheney on Pod Save America. That's where we're at, Dan.
That's 2024. Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy, Liz Cheney.
You know what? Big 10. We're a big 10.
The left's answer to Fox News. Here you go.
But first, Donald Trump and all the MAGA goons are trying to push Nikki Haley out of the race. But as of right now, she's not just sticking around.
She's actually showing some fight. She's running ads in South Carolina.
Her super PAC had its biggest day of fundraising this week. And here she is at a rally in her home state having some fun with Trump's meltdown on Tuesday night.

So we got out there and we did our thing and we said what we had to say.

And then Donald Trump got out there and just threw a temper tantrum.

He pitched a fit.

He was he was insulting.

He was doing what he does.

But I know that's what he does when he's insecure.

I know that's what he does when he is insecure. I know that's what he does when he is threatened and he should feel threatened without a doubt.
You look at what's happening and out of everything that he said in his rant, he didn't talk about the American people once. He talked about revenge.
Well, Dan, looks like she didn't follow the DeSantis path of dropping out after a few days. Who would have guessed? I want to say two things.
One. Yes, go ahead, please.
Don't worry, I'll get to where you want me to get to first. It's been less than 48 hours.
It took DeSantis longer than that to get out of the race after Iowa. That's true.
So that's one. But two, I will acknowledge that perhaps I was overly negative, maybe put off by sort of the fanboy vibes that you and Levin were putting out on Tuesday night.
And maybe you're going to end up being correct and she will be in this through South Carolina and maybe beyond. My analysis of what her odds are under that has not changed, but I will stipulate that she has shown more fight in the 48 hours since the New Hampshire primary than I expected, which is a good thing for the process, for Democrats trying to beat Donald Trump, and for people who have to do three podcasts a

week. So kudos.
And again, I share your analysis of what the final outcome will be. Always have.
And I will separate what I want to happen and what I think will happen. Obviously, what I want to happen is for Nikki Haley to stay in this race as long as possible because anything that happens in this country or the world that even has a chance of damaging Donald Trump politically, I am for, which is why I really want her to stay in.
Now, what I think will happen, I also think she'll stay in through South Carolina for all the reasons that I talked about on Tuesday night. And I just think, you know,

I think she's going to lose some donors.

She's already lost some donors.

She's still down about 30 points in South Carolina.

She's got most of the Republican Party

pressuring her to drop out,

including the ostensibly neutral RNC chair,

Ronna McDaniel.

So she's got some challenges.

Yes.

The big one being Republicans have yet to vote for her in any of these races so that's the challenge well i'm not i'm talking about challenges of like does she stay in through south carolina so i still think there's so there's definitely a i still think there's a change she drops out before south carolina but i think i'm more likely than not i think she at this point is is gonna stick it out because i think even though she's losing some donors, you know, she's still raising money. Some other donors are staying in there, which is not totally surprising.
Like when have billionaires ever been known to make shrewd political decisions or have good political analysis? You know? And again, she is, she's thinking to herself, why not? She's like, she's been excommunicated from the party at this point. Like if she had dropped out after Iowa, maybe she could have gotten herself back in Trump's good graces and the party's good graces.
She chose to compete in New Hampshire, which is crossing the Rubicon. Now Trump hates her.
MAGA hates her. She is persona non grata in the party.
And I, at this point,

it's like,

what do you got left to lose?

Dignity.

I mean,

she was Trump's UN ambassador,

said he was bad,

said he was good again,

said he was bad.

She's lost that.

The reason why she would get out

if she were to get out,

which she very well may not,

I would like to stipulate for you,

is losing your home state

by 30 points.

That'd be personally painful for a lot of people. Does she have a political future in that state? Unlikely.
Does she have a political future in the Republican Party? Maybe, but potentially, probably unlikely. If Donald Trump loses in the general election, then maybe she does.
But people generally don't like to lose their home states by a lot. Now, I will say, I went looking through the quote unquote polling that we have on South Carolina, and we're all hinging this 30% number on one Emerson poll that when you click on the link, it comes out in an Excel spreadsheet, which is not to say that it's not a good poll.
It very well may be, but I would like to see some, and that poll was before Iowa. I'd like to see some more recent polling.
But if that poll is correct, you would have to just be very concerned for Nikki Haley because everyone – the point she made, everyone knows you. And they're currently choosing the other guy.
Yeah. But let's see some other – we may get some polling that shows it in a two-person race closer, right? Because there are, while most DeSantis voters are for Trump, there are some of them who were Haley voters.
There were some, you know, there's a percent or two of Ace Hutchinson voters or whatever. Some of the Tim Scott voters, even if he endorsed Trump, probably end up in Haley's camp.
There are whatever the seven people in South Carolina probably are going to vote for Chris Christie. They end up in Haley's camp.
She could a number that's more respectable than down 30, which would give it some juice and interest, even if she still has to find a way to win a state, a very Republican state, where in the 2016 Republican primary, 72% of primary voters were evangelical Christians, a group she's getting clobbered with. Yeah.
And that's, I mean, what's indisputable, whatever the polls show, is that not only is the South Carolina electorate worse for her than the New Hampshire electorate, it is like worse by a magnitude. Like it doesn't get much worse.
It was 20% of New Hampshire voters were evangelical Christian. It's tough.
Now look, Democrats and independents, of course, can vote in the primary if they want. There's not a ton of them in South Carolina either.
And a lot of them will be. A lot of Democrats will be voting in the Democratic primary that comes first for Joe Biden.
So although if I was a if I was a voter in South Carolina, I might just to keep keep the fun going. I might vote for Nikki Haley.
Sure. Why not? Right.
in the primary? Who cares? Jon Favre announces

he would vote for Nikki Haley

over Joe Biden.

Cool, cool.

I didn't say.

That's just fake news at the end.

I mean, you said

you would vote

for the Republican primary

for Nikki Haley.

In the Democratic primary,

I'm obviously going to

write in Dan Pfeiffer.

If you were parachuted

into Nikki Haley's campaign

as senior advisor, what do you do for the next few weeks? Well, first I would say, Nikki, you clearly have not taken my advice to drop out right now that I offered on Tuesday night. But since we are in it, here's what you have to come to terms with.
The odds of victory are quite long. For you to win would require an upset of a magnitude that has not happened in modern political history.
So there are two outcomes to this campaign. One is you win.
The other one is that your time in politics is over. You leave diminished, embarrassed.
You will never be invited to Republican Party function again. You will never run for office as a Republican again.

You will probably spend your days either outside of politics or hosting a podcast with Liz Cheney on the Crooked Media Network. That's not a bad future.
And so I would say to her, if you have any interest in the former winning, you have to be willing to accept the probability of the latter. And that means you have to be all in, 100% in.
You have to make an argument against Trump every day, a brutally honest argument about how you truly feel about him and how dangerously unfit he is, how people, Republicans who nominate Donald Trump are putting this election, their party, and the country at risk. You have to be willing to say that he could be running, that the Republicans are about to nominate someone who could be running for president from prison and go all in.
And then tactically, we have to begin looking beyond South Carolina. And that includes looking at states like Virginia, which you're not going to believe this, but you know who won Virginia in 2016? Marco Rubio.
Marco Rubio, right? But it's a state like Marco Rubio, like Michigan, a place where the independents go. They wrote this in their memo that we talked about on Monday.
You have to be willing to go all the way to the convention. Because if you were in, you were in through the Jack Smith trial.
You're in through countless hamburgers. You're all the way in and be ready to take it to the convention and say that.
And there's a small chance you could possibly win. It's going to require a tremendous amount of luck, some exogenous events, but you got to be all the way in.

There is no pulling your punches for how dangerous this guy is.

And you'll still probably lose.

But if you really believe he's this dangerous, the right thing to do is to make that case to the country.

Dan, that advice is music to my ears.

I thought it would be.

I want her to go out in a blaze of glory. Look, she's's not there yet who knows if she'll ever get there but I do think he didn't talk about the American people he's only talking about revenge she's tiptoeing closer to the Chris Christie message that Donald Trump is about Donald Trump he's about himself he only cares about himself he doesn't care about anyone else which I think is to me think is, to me, the most effective message.
I think it's great for Biden. I think it's great for Democrats.
It just happens to be true. It's true.
The best messages are also true,

which is that Donald Trump is a fucking narcissist who only gives a shit about himself,

his election, whether he wins. There is no such thing as loyalty.
There's no one he cares about

except himself. He is running for president to punish his enemies, enrich himself and reward his politically connected friends.
And so she should just, you know, go all out. What do you get? This is it.
What do you get to lose? You're like your career in Republican politics is already over. So, right.
You get the cricket podcast. Maybe you get an MSNBC slot.
You're you go to you're going to Davos. You're giving of speeches she'll be you'll be on boards it's fine she'll be fine she'll be embarrassed among republicans but like that's already the case yeah the embarrassing thing is being a republican right now also we know that she really thinks that trump is unfit for like she has told us this several times before she's changed her position for political expediency so So it's like, we know that she can do it.
She's done it before. Now she's just got to stay there.
And look, I mean, again, what do you get to lose? What do you get to lose? Clearly Donald Trump isn't happy about any of this. He took a quick break from attacking the woman a jury has held him liable for raping.
37 posts about E. Jean Carroll in just 20 minutes the other day.
He also, by the way, testified. We're recording this Thursday.
He testified for three minutes at the defamation trial today in New York before the judge shut him up because he was trying to say that he didn't do it, which the judge said we already adjudicated this at another trial. So just stop.
And they went off the stand. So that was Donald Trump testifying.
So he took a break from attacking E. Jean Carroll, and he started attacking the woman still running against him.
Quote, I knew Nikki well. She was average at best.
Anybody that makes a contribution to BirdBrain from this moment forth will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. What do you think that means? Does that mean that Haley's supporters won't be invited to Mar-a-Lago to help Donald Trump cover up more crimes? Does it mean they're not going to be able to take part in the next insurrection? What's MAGA camp? I don't think we want to know, John.
I really don't. I know that we're going to be in the other camp.
That's not the MAGA camp. I think the other camp is the one you really don't want to be in if Donald Trump wins.
We're going to see Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Mike Pence. They're all going to be in the other camp.
The re-education camp run by Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Waters that we'll be staying in. Yeah, that one.
Yeah, that's it. That's our camp.
I mean, look, this is a message clearly designed for about 30 rich people in America. And these rich people, they don't love Donald Trump.
Obviously, they do have not read the demographic. They have the delegate rules or the demographic makeup of South Carolina and are putting money in Nikki Haley's campaign.
But they also like being in the mix. And so what he's really saying is if you back Nikki Haley after today, you're not coming to the inauguration.
You're not coming to the White House, you're not getting invited to Mar-a-Lago, you got some special favors you need from a junior EPA official who's handing out waivers on pollution, you're not getting those, you're not going to be part of the mix. And that's why all these people who, we saw this in 2016, all these Republicans stayed off the sidelines because they were sure Trump was – all these Republican billionaires did not get involved in the general election because they assumed Trump would lose.
As soon as he won, they all wrote gigantic checks to the inaugural so that they could be part of it, right, and get invited to all this stuff. And so that's essentially the message he's giving to those people.
He's a mob boss. That's what it is.
That's how he thinks. I mean, it's just the Republican National Committee.
The dispatch broke the story today. The Republican National Committee is reviewing a draft resolution from David Bossie of Citizens United slash Trump campaign fame that declares Trump declares Trump the nominee before the 48 Other states have voted.
They just, they are so, Republicans are so afraid of people voting. They're even afraid of their own voters voting, that they want to just declare that the primary is over, the nomination over, and Trump has won.
Now, the rules say that Trump would still have to win the delegates, but if they pass this resolution, the RNC can start working with him, which, you know, I mean, Ronna McDaniel was on TV basically sounding like she was going to do that anyway. This is just more evidence that Donald Trump is essentially an incumbent president running for re-election.
Like that's the DNC is working with Joe Biden because he's the incumbent president and he is in charge of the DNC. All the people who work with the RNC, including Ronna Romney McDaniel, were appointed by him.
They exist. They're there because of him.
That piece of paper, as you point out, in terms of the delegate math, means nothing. It could be a tweet for all of its value.
But it's another way to go around to donors and others and the small handful of endorsers that Nikki Haley has and say, this thing is over. Get on board.
It's time to go beat Joe Biden, which is what their message is.

And that's usually what presumptive nominees do when they think they have this thing locked up.

It's where we were when Obama had to develop an insurmountable delegate lead over Hillary

Clinton in 2008. It's the argument that Hillary Clinton tried to make to Bernie Sanders in 2016.

So that part is unusual. The RNC doing the bidding of the leading candidate is unusual, but it doesn't really matter that much.
Trump has also been taunting Haley about how he already won Nevada, where there's a primary on February 6th and a caucus on February 8th. You want to tell people what that's all about? Yeah, this is pretty interesting and kind of stupid all at the same time.
So in the past, Nevada has had caucuses to decide as part of being one of the early states. In the 2020 Democratic caucus, there was a lot of chaos about how the reporting was done.
Wasn't really sure who got what votes, where they came from. A couple of campaigns sued.
There was also the disaster in the Democratic caucus in Iowa, a real blowback against caucuses generally. So just as a refresher, caucuses are run by parties.
Primaries are run by state, Secretary of State's and election offices. So Nevada passed a law.
Nevada liked being early in the process, and they liked the attention. So the Nevada state legislator passed a law that said, we're going to have a presidential primary on February 6th.
The idea would be candidates in both parties would compete in it. The Nevada Republican Party is run by Trump loyalists, so much so that the chair of the party, even though they are hosting this early caucus in primary, has already endorsed Trump, which is definitely not sketchy at all.
And they believed correctly, in my view, that a caucus would be much better for Trump than a primary, especially one that had same-day registration, where people could walk in and register and vote. And so what the party said was, sure, you can hold any primary you want, but it's not going to be worth anything.
Much like the New Hampshire primary had no delegates for Democrats. So we're just going to hold our caucus, and that's where all the delegates are going to go.
Everyone believed that that was

rigged for Donald Trump, as it clearly is. So Haley and DeSantis and the others didn't participate in it.
They didn't turn it into this contest where Trump would just win by a lot, and it would seem like a huge victory. It'd be easier to not compete because there's only a small handful of delegates compared to the 1,215 you need for the nomination.
But what is interesting is the reason Trump is not on the primary ballot is at Trump's urging, the Nevada Republican Party said, in order to participate in the caucus and be able to win those delegates, you cannot be on the primary ballot. This is the example of something that Nikki Haley will face if she stays in this race is Donald Trump's campaign has very strategically and cleverly rigged the rules, used party loyalists all across the country to rig the delegate rules in his favor.

And this is one very resonating example, which is why he's on the ballot. Nikki Haley isn't.
He gets all those delegates just for no reason. He doesn't do anything, and he gets free delegates.
it's almost as if trump and his supporters have a problem with people deciding things

because they think that whatever they decide, everyone else should have to live with. And so therefore, they want to take away people's right to choose for themselves.
Yes, that seems to be a theme that is running through a lot here. And if the voters do something that we don't like, then we will just- Again.
Violence, right? That's right. Do what we want or violence is essentially the MAGA ethos.
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Well, it also bleeds over to Congress, even though he's Trump is not an elected official right now. He is dictating the Republican Party's legislative strategy.
Punchbowl reported that during a closed door meeting on Wednesday, Mitch McConnell told Republicans that Trump doesn't want to deal on immigration that would address the border crisis because Trump wants to use the problem as a campaign issue against Joe Biden. And McConnell reportedly said, quote, we don't want to undermine Trump because he's going to be the Republican nominee.
This led to a lot of grumbling among Republican senators who were close to a deal with Democrats, including Mitt Romney. Let's listen.
I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump.

And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling. So McConnell doesn't like Trump.
He really wants to pass Ukraine funding, which won't get done if there's no immigration deal. Why do you think he seems to be giving up? It seems like there's conflicting reports about the meeting itself.
And some Republicans are now saying, McConnell wasn't saying we should defer to Trump, but he was just sort of bowing to the reality that this is what Trump wants. And therefore, they're not going to have the Republican votes to help pass the deal? I think it is McConnell bowing to two realities.
The first is that his caucus was pretty divided on this. There was a punchable report from the day before earlier this week that detailed how the Senate caucus lunch, Senate Republican caucus lunch, got very heated with the Josh Hawleys and Ted Cruz's of the world, Ron Johnson's being very upset about this immigration deal and being very aggressive, and the fact that they don't know what's in the deal.
Then the other reality here is the House is not going to pass it. If you're from McConnell's perspective, you're going to anger your caucus, you're going to anger your party nominee, who you now need to raise money and campaign for your Senate candidates to win in these red states where they're trying to do it like Montana and Ohio, for a bill that is very unlikely to become law because Mike Johnson, who is in the thrall of Trump in a way McConnell isn't all the time, has already said, we're not going to pass it.
We want HR2 or whatever it is, their border bill, which has no chance of passing the Senate or being signed by the president. So it's like, why take on all that water for no reason? Tom Tillis, who's been negotiating the deal, is also pretty mad in addition to what Romney said.
Tillis said, it's all about politics and not having the courage. He's talking about his fellow senators.
He said, it's all about politics and not having the courage to respectfully disagree with President Trump. I didn't come here to have a president as a boss or a candidate as a boss.
Tough news for you, Tom. Most of your colleagues very much enjoy having Donald Trump as a boss and see him as their boss, even though he is not.
I mean, it is just worth noting that all of these Republicans say the border is the biggest national security threat to the country. There is fentanyl coming across the border.
They make up these apocryphal stories about Hamas terrorists coming across the border and given the opportunity to do something about it now and something that would be pretty Republican friendly. It's kind of a once in a generation opportunity for them to do border security without comprehensive immigration reform.
On their terms, with a lot of leverage, they walk away from that in order to help Donald Trump win an election. When we know that the deal that if Trump were to win, they're not going to get that deal because, and Mitch McConnell has said that, that there's no way with unified Republican government without the leverage of the Ukraine bill, they're going to get such a deal.
So they are simply, they say this is the biggest problem in the world.

They talk about it every single day. They foam in about it.
It dominates Fox News. And given that

they would rather not solve it in order to win election, people will lose their lives. Dangerous

things will happen because of that choice. And it's like, you just have to hammer on

the dangerous cynicism of what happens when Donald Trump's in charge of the Republican Party. Yeah.
I mean, look, I know this might sound surprising to you, but it doesn't seem like the political genius who controls the Republican Party made a very strategic move here on this immigration bill. I know he wants to run on the issue, but but he's sort of by being so open about it, Trump has given, I think, Nikki Haley if she wants it.
And certainly Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, a huge opening to just hit him over the head with this from now until November, that every time that Republicans talk about the border now, Biden can say we were willing to meet you halfway, work with Republicans, get something done, and you wanted to campaign on it. You wanted to campaign on it.
So now he can throw it in Trump's lap, even though Trump's not the incumbent. Yeah.
I mean, the best thing for President Biden, subsequently, politically, I think, would be to get a deal, presuming the details of the deal are things that are acceptable to him and his party and get the aid for Ukraine. Like that would be a bipartisan accomplishment.
Like if your choice is stand on stage at this possible debate that may or may not happen and say, and Trump attacks the border and say, well, I actually did this bipartisan thing that did X, Y, and Z is a better argument than you bought you. You torpedo the deal, but you torpedo the deal is still a pretty good argument.
And it's one that Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot, I think should hammer relentlessly. And by the way, Nikki Haley should do it in South Carolina.
She should say, this is exactly what I'm talking about. He didn't fix the border when he was president.
He doesn't care about fixing the border now. He doesn't care about the American people.
He only cares about himself. He only cares about winning.
Biden should say the same thing if this ends up not happening. Donald Trump killed the border deal, not because it wasn't good enough for the country, because it wasn't good for him.
You know, I mean, you just say this all day long. I have a very prescriptive message box coming up.
I'll talk about this tomorrow morning. Oh, it's in the editing process now, John, just to bring you behind the curtain.
But meaning it's probably out right now. We're taking those on Thursday.
People are going to hear this Friday morning. Yeah.
Depending on how early you wake up East Coast time, you could be, have already read the message box by the time you listen to this. But one point I want to make is there will be this tendency among some Democrats to use this as a way to say, see, Donald Trump's the one who's soft on the border.
Right. Remember when Democrats went around saying that Republicans are the ones who defunded the police because they cut funding for local police departments, which is actually a substantively true statement.
It is substantively true that there was a chance to make the border more secure. Donald Trump opposed it.
Therefore, he is soft on the border. But the attack has to be believable.
And voters are not going to believe that Donald Trump, who is known for the wall and for cruel anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, you have to make it about Donald Trump putting himself and his interests over what's the best for the country. They will not believe he's soft on the border, but they will believe that he is a self-interested narcissist.
And that is the way to make this, that he is putting politics, he's putting his own interests above the countries. And that is the core of what I think that argument should be.
Which is, by the way, the narrative of almost all the news we've talked about today and a message that is available to Nikki Haley and Democrats. And the Biden folks have been doing a lot of this.
We haven't seen them talking about the border yet, but yeah. Not with the border because it hasn't come up yet, but for a whole bunch of other stuff they've been doing this.
So I'd say that Joe Biden is having a pretty good week. He won 64% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary despite not even appearing on the ballot.
We learned on Thursday that even though a lot of economists predicted a recession, the economy grew at a healthy 3.1% clip last year, which is higher growth than any year under Donald Trump, even before the pandemic. Biden also won the endorsement of the United Auto Workers, one of the biggest unions in the country.
And he joined UAW President Sean Fain in an event this week. Donald Trump is a scab.
Donald Trump is a billionaire, and that's who he represents. In fact, when Donald Trump was in office, six auto factories closed around the country.
Tens of thousands of auto jobs were lost nationwide during Trump's presidency. During my presidency, we've opened 20 auto factories and more to come.
We've created more than 250,000 auto jobs all across America. So not entirely unexpected endorsement, but still a pretty big deal.
What do you think? A huge deal and very important. And I think Biden should campaign with Sean Fain as often as possible in this election.
I think Sean Fain is an incredible messenger. I think what Biden has done for unions, he is the most pro-union president in modern history.
He has, through his administration, and we're existing in a time of resurgent union power with the organizing efforts are happening at Starbucks and Amazon, all these other places across the country, should make that part of his story. Because ultimately, all politics on the economy, message on the economy, is not about what policy to implement.
It's who you're fighting for. And the labor stuff is about Biden fighting for working people all across the country.
Big cities, small towns, white, black, Latino, everyone, right? And so I think that's an important story that should be told everywhere, right? And he should be with union members all the time. Unions have never been more popular than they are right now, right? At least in the last 30 or so years.
And take advantage of that, use that association to tell a story about the kind of president you have been and will be if you get a second term. I also think Donald Trump has always screwed over working people.
This seems like a good message, especially when you've got all these polls showing that most voters prefer Trump to Biden on the economy right now. How do you think the Biden campaign can break through with that message? Because that's always the challenge.
That is the follow-up question to everything we say about the messaging. One other interesting thing I want to say there is when Biden said about the auto plants closing under Trump, that is not just a throwaway line.
There was some internal polling done by Democratic groups that I saw last year that showed that one of the better message against Trump is that he said he was going to keep all of these plants and factories open and a whole bunch of them closed. And so that's not an accident that he's doing that.
And the Biden folks ran an ad in Michigan back when Trump was going to do that fake union rally that made this exact point. So I think we're going to see more of that.
And it's going to be, it's just, there is not like one thing you're going to do that's going to break through, get in the UAW endorsement, some attention. There's going to have to be a bunch of ads about this.
You're going to have to directly go at Donald Trump. You're going to have to do it all the time, every day.
And some of this will be the visuals you have, right? Being with these union members, which is why Biden going to the picket line was such a big moment because it was a moment that broke through. So you're going to have to find some of those moments as well.
But you're just going to have to do it all day, every day with the president, with ads, with surrogates to drive that message home. And you have to go right at Donald Trump on this.
It can't be subtle. Well, I was going to say I think it requires an evolution of the Biden message around the economy, which is like so far every time there's good economic news, the Biden folks sort of trumpet the good economic news.
You know, if the media doesn't cover it, they, you know, criticize the media for not covering it. And I get why they do all that.
But now that we're in the general election against Trump, I think, you know, you get this great economic news today about the economy growing. By the way, Joe Biden's been fighting for that.
He's going to continue to fight for a good economy. If Donald Trump gets in office again, he has already said he can't wait to give another huge tax cut to CEOs.
And for everyone else, he's going to increase the cost of your prescription drugs, increase the cost of your health care. And by the way, he's going to slap a 10% tax on every single good that's imported because this is he wants to bring back out.
He wants to do these tariffs, which has not been getting a lot of attention. But talk about inflation and the cost of living.
Imagine if anything that had any parts that weren't made in America had a 10% tax on it, what that would do to consumers and small businesses across the country. I mean, it's crazy.
I think there is a big strategic question that I do not know the answer to and do not have the data to give that answer, but that I think is at the core what we're talking about here is in order to make that case effectively that you are better than Trump, how much do you have to convince people about what you have done and how it's worked? and you sort of, and I think the Biden people, I'm just guessing this based on,

you know, they're not up on the air right now. So other than this abortion ad that you guys talked about the other day on the podcast, other than that abortion ad, they're not up on the air.
So we're not seeing their tested messages about the economy. We see a bunch of tweets and some throwaway stuff that's happening on social media.
But that stuff suggests they think it's very important to trumpet every bit of good economic news. Like a single economist goes on Fox News and says something positive about the Biden economy.
They're trying to get that to as many people as possible. Now, is that audience their own voters, right, to be tribunes of that good news? I don't know the answer to that.
But ultimately, do you need to, you know, do you need to invest that time and energy to convince people what you did and that it mattered in order to get people to believe that you are, to get to that equal footing enough where you can battle Trump on the economy? I just don't know. Yeah.
One other piece of news from the Biden campaign, our friends Jen O'Malley-Dillon and Mike Donlan are leaving the White House to help Julie Chavez Rodriguez run the campaign in Wilmington full time. What's your take on that move? Look, I think that people, if they have the opportunity to move to Wilmington, Delaware should do that.
I should have expected that take from you. I did not.
I did not. Yes.
I think that was something that was always going to happen. I don't know whether this was the timing that was always planned.
Maybe if the Republican primary had extended longer. Because the Biden people clearly think that it is over.
They basically said that in their statement on Tuesday night. But Jen and Mike are two of the smartest, most accomplished operatives in the Democratic Party.
The things that they do that they specialize in can't really be done from the White House in the way some of the stuff that you and I worked on can be done from the White House. Jen is a – I mean, she's obviously an extremely experienced campaign manager, ran his campaign in 2020, run lots of other campaigns.
But what she thinks about is organizing voter contact, how to use data to reach voters. That you can't really do from the White House.
And Mike Donilon is an admin. He's a message guy and a speech writer and all these other things.
You can do some of that for the White House since you were a speechwriter who worked on a campaign. You were a spare time for the White House.
What you can't do is make political ads for the White House effectively and efficiently. And he oversaw the billion-dollar paid media budget in 2020.
I'm sure he's going to do the same thing here. You've got to be in the campaign to do it.
So I think this was always inevitable, and I think it's a welcome sign that they are quickly ramping up to be on general election footing. Yeah, it certainly feels this week like all my Nikki Haley fantasies notwithstanding.
The general election has begun and the Biden people get that and they are ramping up as well. And everyone's starting to see a lot more of Trump.
So hopefully things start getting going from now on. All right.
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Subscribe to Strict Scrutiny wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget to check out full episodes on YouTube. Joining us today, the vice chair of the January 6th committee and author of the new book, Oath and Honor, a memoir and a warning, former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney.
Welcome to Pod Save America. Great to be with you, John.
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Yeah. I mean, so in 2004, I was working on John Kerry's campaign while you were working on the Bush-Cheney reelect.
And if someone had told me then, the two of us would be chatting about how to save American democracy from the former host of The Apprentice. I'd have a few questions.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

But here we are. That's right.
So it's the day after Donald Trump won the New Hampshire primary. What do you make of Nikki Haley's decision to stay in the race? And do you see a path for her? Yeah, look, I mean, I hope she stays in the race, you know, as long as she has to.
I think certainly, you know, through Super Tuesday, I think that we're in a situation where only two states have voted. And you had something like, you know, over 35 percent, I believe, of the Republicans coming out of the voting in New Hampshire said they would never vote for Donald Trump.
And so we're obviously looking at a significant portion of the Republican Party that is supporting him. But ultimately, this is going to be about being able to win independence.
And in a general election, surely Nikki Haley fares much better than Donald Trump does. And even more important than that is where you began, which is the threat that he poses, what we watched him do in the lead up to January 6th, his attempt to seize power, presents an existential threat.
And so we need to make sure that we're challenging him and

working to defeat him at every step of the way. And right now, Nikki Haley is in this fight, and I think she ought to stay in it.
Are you officially supporting Haley over Trump now that it's just the two of them left? Or do you not? Might that hurt her? I haven't made any formal endorsements at this point, but certainly I would never support or vote for Donald Trump again. You said you're considering a third party run for president, but that you won't do anything that would help Trump win.
Have you seen any data that suggests a run by any independent candidate would help defeat Trump and not help elect him? I certainly think that there are people on both sides of the aisle. There are Republicans and Democrats.
And you've seen all the polling that shows, you know, 70 percent of people are dissatisfied with having the choice be Trump versus Biden. And so I think it matters very much what the overall terrain looks like.
I think that we certainly are going to have more than two parties in this race. You've already got independents on the left.
And I think we'll see what happens. I, my number one priority is defeating him.
And I think that's going to guide whatever ultimately I decide I'm going to do. Does that involve, could you imagine telling Republicans and conservatives like you to vote for the Democratic nominee if it comes down to that? I mean, look, what I have done, certainly beginning in the 2022 midterms, is support people that I believe are going to defend the Constitution.
And I did that with respect to Abigail Spanberger and Alyssa Slotkin, two Democrats, members of the House that I know well and served with. and my message to people all across this country has been, look, this is not an election about partisan politics.
This is an election about whether or not we're going to stand up for our democracy and for the Constitution. So I'm not, again, I'm not endorsing anybody.
I'm not telling people whom they should vote for. But certainly they should not ever again entrust Donald Trump with the power that we watched him abuse once and that he tells us every day he will abuse again if he's ever entrusted with it.
I want to ask you about making the case against Trump. I've heard of focus groups where Republican and independent voters who supported Joe Biden last time say, you know, I don't like Trump.
I think he's a bad person, but I'm much more worried about cost of living or the southern border, or I just don't think Joe Biden can handle the job for another four years. And, you know, and I think Trump did a better job with the economy and the country survived Trump's first term.
So, you know, maybe I'll just hold my nose and vote for him. What do you say to that voter? And more specifically, how do you make the threat

that Trump poses to democracy real to voters who may not feel the urgency that you and I do? Yeah, it's a really important question. I think there are a couple of pieces to it.
One is, I would say, what's happening right now at the border is absolutely indefensible. And, you know, I talked to my new Democratic friends and I can't understand why the Biden administration doesn't take steps to secure the border.
It makes no sense to me. You know, the extent to which you've got Democratic mayors of cities across the country pleading with the president to secure the border.

You know, that is an issue that's a very real issue that understandably drives voters.

Now, I think that the overall message, though, is the nation is at a moment here where

hopefully we'll have other choices, but the choice can never be Donald Trump. And people have to understand that he's not the lesser of two evils.
If you look at some of the opinion polling from last summer, and again, most recently in the last couple of weeks, you see that there are significant numbers of people who say they don't know enough, they don't have enough information about what Donald Trump did, for example, to make judgments about whether or not some of the indictments against him are political or not. And so I do think that there's a big task in terms of helping educate people, helping make sure people understand specifically the steps that he took, the plan that he oversaw to try to overturn an election.
And I think that that education piece is going to be crucial. I also think that ultimately this election is going to be won or lost as they always are in a handful of swing states.
And those happen to be the states where Donald Trump attempted to nullify the votes of millions of those voters in 2020.

And so I think going into those states, making sure people there understand, this is the guy that tried to seize power last time.

And the method that he used to do it, one of the parts of his plan was to reject your votes, to say that members of Congress can decide they're going to reject your votes and instead install the person they want, which was him. And he's going to have to go into those states and make the case that those people ought to entrust him with power and with defending and protecting their vote.
And I think that's going to be challenging for him. Before we move on, you mentioned the border issue.
And, you know, there's been these negotiations. Biden and Senate Democrats have moved towards Republicans on this issue.
They say they want to do something about the border. I thought they were close to a deal.
And then, you know, just as we were talking, apparently Mitch McConnell said, well, Trump wants to run the border, so they don't want us to do anything about that. And that's what Mike Johnson's kind of been saying too.
So this is, it seems like that's part of the issue is that even when Democrats want to work constructively with Republicans, Republicans then want to block it and then blame the Democrats for not fixing anything. Yeah.
I mean, this, this particular just strikes me as really disgusting. If it's true that McConnell said, basically, we thought we had a deal, but now it looks like Trump's going to be the nominee and he wants to run on this.
I mean, that is so cynical and irresponsible and, you know, surprising, frankly. We all know how dangerous the situation is at the border.
I think, you know, as I said, the Biden administration, you know, deserves real criticism for the fact that they haven't secured the border. But now for the Republicans, the Republican leader to be saying, well, we're not going to take any action because Trump doesn't want us to, that just, I think, confirms what everybody's frustrations are about politics today and is just really, really cynical and sad that that's the position they're taking.
I'm sure you heard that Senator Romney was saying like, oh, Biden needs a new argument because the democracy thing is old. And I've heard a lot of people say it's just it's hard to make it tangible for people when their concerns might be more immediate.
Do you have thoughts on sort of how to make the threat of a Trump second term real to people? Yeah, I think that, you know, I have huge respect for Senator Romney, but I disagree with him on this. And I think, you know, part of this is making sure people understand what Trump did already.
And I think what making sure, you know, if you look at the extent to which, for example, he's working so hard to delay his January 6th trial and reminding people that the reason he's doing that is because he wants to suppress that evidence. The witnesses in that trial aren't going to be his political opponents.
The people that, you know, have testified about his attempt to corruptly pressure the Department of Justice, to corruptly pressure the Vice President to get him to do things that were illegal and unconstitutional, the people who are going to testify to the January 6th committee about Trump's refusal for hours to tell the mob to leave the Capitol. You know, those people are the ones who know Trump best.
And of course, he doesn't want that information out there before the election. But I think it's fundamentally important that people understand why he's trying to delay that.
And I think the more that we can make sure we have in front of people what those individuals have said, what his White House counsel said, what his attorney general said, what the head of his last campaign said, those aren't Democrats. Those are people Trump hired, what members of his family said about the depravity of his unwillingness while he watched on television that violent attack, his unwillingness to tell people to stop.
That gets to sort of a fundamental human question about what kind of a man is this. And I think that people will recognize and understand the threat that he poses.
You're a lawyer and probably know more about the election subversion charges against Trump than anyone but Jack Smith and his team. If you were them, what would be keeping you up at night? Look, I think if you if you look at the work that the select committee did and the criminal referrals that we made.
Certainly, obviously, Jack Smith has secured his own testimony and witnesses have come in and testified in front of his grand jury. And it's that process on which the charges are based.
But they track very closely with what the select committee was able to learn during our investigation. And I think that one of the things that we have seen to date that's been so important has been the extent to which our courts have played the role that they're supposed to play in terms of, you know, all the institutions of our government, you know, with a couple of exceptions, we've seen judges be very responsible and even-handed and approach this with the gravity that it deserves.
I think that, you know, what we're watching, what anybody who cares about the rule of law has to be deeply concerned about is Donald Trump's efforts really on a daily basis to tear it down, to use threats of violence, to attack fundamental individuals who are involved in these cases as well as the institutions themselves. and and I think that that that should cause grave concern the fact that you've got somebody who's

willing to do that, who's so close again to being the nominee of one of the two major political parties. Do you have any concern that the Supreme Court will decide that the charge of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding somehow doesn't apply to Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the election? Well, my view on that is very clear.
And I think, in fact, you know, the question has been one interpretation of that statute that would basically hold that it only applies in an instance where there was an attempt to destroy documents or an attempt to falsify documents that was very focused on this concept of documents. And of course, we know that what Donald Trump was doing included things like ensuring that there were fake, fraudulent electors submitted to the Congress, submitted to the vice president.
So even in a very narrow reading of 1512C2, I think it's pretty clear, as a select committee pointed out, that Donald Trump's, that that reading would cover Donald Trump's actions in this case. And I think it's also important to understand that, you know, the case that's in

front of the Supreme Court on that issue is not a case that involves Trump. It's a case that

involves one of the rioters. And so, you know, no matter how they hold in that case, Donald Trump's

connection to, in particular, the effort to falsify electors and ensure that those were presented to

Congress clearly fits within the plain meaning and the intent of that statute. What scares you most about a second Trump term? The extent to which we know that as president, he will refuse to enforce the rulings of our courts.
And I think it's really important for people to understand what that means. You know, we're only a nation of laws if the president enforces the rulings of the courts.
And to have someone like Donald Trump, who we know won't do that, who we've already seen, we've watched the extent to which he's talked about a president deserving complete and absolute immunity. The people that he would have around him, if you look at the story of January 6, and the days and weeks leading up to it, he was stopped from doing even worse things because of some of the people around him, and those people won't be around him again.
I also, you know, if you look at the people that he's likely to put in place, people like Mike Flynn, you know, those are the very people that were suggesting he ought to deploy the military in order to seize voting machines and rerun the election in swing states. So he presents an existential threat.
There's no question. I mean, the list goes on.
If you look at, for example, what he says every day about, you know, praising Xi, praising Orban, praising Putin, the threats that we're going to withdraw from NATO, for example, you know, you very quickly get into a whole series of very serious national security threats as well. But it's clear that, you know, the fundamental threat to the rule of law, to the republic itself, you know, it really is an existential one.
Yeah, I've heard you talk about that. And I hadn't really thought about it myself, is that, you know, a lot of people are concerned, like, oh will the court do this or that? It's a more conservative court.
But it's very possible that the court could just issue rulings and Trump ignores them. The court doesn't have any way to enforce those rulings.
He can appoint whoever he'd like. Obviously, there's Senate confirmed positions, but he can get around Senate confirmed positions by just putting people temporarily in place like Mike Flynn, put them in place at the Defense Department, you know.
And so that does seem like a real, real concern. Well, and sometimes you hear conservatives, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, for example, repeatedly says, well, you know, we have the balance of power.
We have these checks and balances. We don't have to worry about it.
But, you know, people really need to think about which which Republicans exactly in the House and Senate are going to stand up and stop him. You know, it's hard for me to think of any who will.
And so I think, you know, it's it's another another reason why I think, you know, what we're seeing go on today specifically, for example, with, you know, Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the RNC, suggesting that, you know, she's determined that this race is over. You know, that's inappropriate to say the least for the chairperson of the RNC to be asserting that, you know, the primary is over when it's not over.
And for her to be doing it when we know she was personally involved in the fraudulent elector scheme. Recently, we've learned that she was also involved in reportedly Trump's phone call to the officials in Michigan to try to get them to reverse their certification.
So this is activities and behavior that really are un-American and undemocratic. And I think it's important that we ensure that the system play out, but first and foremost, that Donald Trump be defeated.
You're out there speaking out against Trump. You hear Romney do this, Adam Kinzinger.
There's a lot more Republican politicians and former Trump officials who've criticized Trump in the past. Do you expect them to be out there more now that we're in 2024 speaking out against Trump? Do you think that would make a difference? I do.
I think it will make a difference. I think that it's going to be very important that we have in an organized way and also people doing it on their own, individuals who have seen him up close, who've worked with him up close and who know the danger that he poses.
And again, it's an unprecedented moment. Normally, particularly people who are retired military officers, as you know, would not be engaged in speaking out.
But it's really important for people to understand the facts and the truth. And in some cases, you've seen, for example, retired General Kelly confirmed some of the most horrible things that Donald Trump did and said about our men and women in uniform.
And those voices really, really matter. That credibility is really important.
You mentioned your former colleagues in the House. Are there any House Republicans you think are doing a good job right now that you would vote for? Sure.
I think that, you know, it's a big conference and there are good people. There are, you know, good Republicans, certainly, in office.
And I think that the Republican conference as a whole right now has allowed the most extreme voices control. And, you know, I'm not a fan of Mike Johnson, the current speaker of the House.
You know, I've watched him conduct himself in a way that he was doing things he knew to be wrong with respect to the efforts to overturn the election. So I think you've got a real problem with the way that the conference is led.
And with, you know, you've got over half now the Republicans in the House have endorsed Trump. And so I think that clearly, there are some significant problems, but there are also some really good people who are doing a good job and representing their constituents well, and who I hope will help come together once we get past 24 and help to rebuild the Republican Party or build a new party, frankly, that can really be focused on the substance of these issues.
You recently called Elise Stefanik a total crackpot. No disagreement from you there.
In your book, you write about how she underwent

this dramatic transition from being a reasonable and thoughtful lawmaker to a Trump sycophant. Can you talk more about what it was like to watch that evolution? Because I'm sure there are many other Republican politicians who have taken that same path.
Yeah, I mean, it never ceases to amaze me. I mean, we saw it again last night, for example, with Tim Scott.
I mean, you've got members who used to be responsible and thoughtful and honorable. And now, for some reason, they feel that they can sort of jettison all of that in the name of loyalty to Trump.
And I think there are a number of reasons why it goes on. But one of the episodes that I talk about in the book has to do with what we were hearing after the election, but before January 6th, when members would sometimes say, well, let's just do this one more thing for him.
If we just do this one more thing, you know, then that'll be it. And, you know, then he'll concede or, you know, we can all move on.
But, you know, that one more thing becomes a slippery slope. And, you know, once you've done just one more thing, and then you do just one more thing, you know, people begin to rationalize and, and you get to a point where you've sort of, you've crossed, you've crossed the Rubicon.
And if you rationalize defending him after he tried to seize power and overturn an election, it's pretty hard to walk, walk back from that. And so, So, you that.
But what I would say is all of the individuals who are doing that, history teaches us that when autocrats come to power, they have to have people who are willing to support them and enable them and collaborate with them. And and history will judge them, in my view, as harshly as it will judge Trump, because he can't do what he's doing without them.
I know a lot of never Trump Republicans whose politics and even policy views have changed as a result of Trump. Some of them are basically Democrats now, some are independents.
I know you're a proud conservative. You and your family have been

in Republican politics your whole lives. But I've even noticed that your rhetoric about

your policy and political differences with Democrats has softened over the last few years.

Has the Trump threat and the transformation of the Republican Party into a Trump party caused you

to rethink any of your policy positions or political approach?

Um, my policy views haven't changed. But living through the last three years and living through this moment in our politics has certainly caused me to think again and more carefully about how I engage in politics.
And, you know, I think you started talking about the 2004 race. You know, we've been involved in many campaigns, many partisan and ideological battles.
And I'm not opposed to, you know, our nation needs partisan debate. We need to be able to do that.
But I think the reflexive sort of, you know, well, if the Democrats are proposing this, let me pull my talking points out to find the harshest way I can attack that. And the Democrats do the same thing to Republicans.
And I think that that kind of reflexive attack and the kind of toxicity that we've seen really is something we all have to turn away from. And I think the best debates and the reason, for example, why I supported people like Abigail and Alyssa is because not because I agree with them on everything.
But but I know, like, look, if I'm going to be in a debate with Abigail Spanberger, I better be prepared because she's going to be prepared. And and I hope we'll both learn something.
And you want to be engaged with people. you can sit down and say, listen, tell me why you believe that, because I believe this,

and here's why I believe this. But I think the country needs a lot more of that.
And I think we have to we have to really walk back from the edge of of of the toxic nature of our politics. And the extreme of that is what Donald Trump has done with respect to bringing violence back into our politics in a way it hasn't been in the modern era.
Do you think that's possible to do at this point, even if Trump is defeated in 2024? I heard you talk about building possibly a new party after 2024. What would that look like? And what's made you hopeful that there is a critical mass of conservatives or Republicans like you who'd actually joined that party, just looking at the results of what Republican voters have been choosing over the last several of years Yeah, what makes me hopeful is as I travel around the country and I talk to lots of people, and the vast majority of Americans, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, they want their kids to grow up in a country that's free.
Um, they think America ought to have the peaceful transfer of power. Um, they, they want their elected officials to conduct themselves in a way that isn't embarrassing.
Um, you know, one of the things I think is really important is for us to get more people to run for office, because, you know, if you, and I used to talk a lot about this actually the republican impeachers you know if you look at the the challenges we're facing and the complexity of those challenges the both internationally and domestically and then you look at the caliber of the people that are getting elected today and the gap is huge. And we're like taking people that are not competent,

putting them in office and then saying,

now here, could you figure out these really complicated strategic issues

and think through this in a thoughtful manner?

And that's gonna lead to disaster.

So we need people to have better choices.

We need more people to run.

I think we need to look at things like rank choice voting. We need to look at how we conduct our primaries.
I think we need to look at term limits. I think there are some constitutional problems with term limits, and I have not been supportive of term limits in the past, but I think that if elected officials, in order to get them to do the right thing, need to not be focused on the next race, then it may be time for us to take another look at term limits.
Last question. What's it been like to become an unlikely resistance hero? Disorienting? It's, I mean, that's, yeah, it is.
It's, it's, I mean, look, it's definitely weird.

And so. Disorienting? I mean, that's it.
Yeah, it is. It's it's I mean, it's definitely weird in some ways.
But but look, it also it's it's one of the things that that does give me hope is how many people have sort of said like, you know, and especially young people like they don't really they don't think about, well, am I a Republican or Democrat? You know, they they're saying, you know, are we are we going to live in a country that's governed by the Constitution? And I think that kind of unity and understanding and desire to work on these issues, that gives me a lot of hope. And I really do, in a lot of ways, I look forward very much to the day when I can come on your show and we can have an argument.
And then we'll know like, okay, we got past this really huge threat. And so now we can talk about, you know, what our national security policy ought to look like.
And I think that's that'll that'll be how we know that we've succeeded here. Yeah, well, look, I've often over the last couple of years, I've done a thought experiment with myself, which is, OK, say there was a president who's a Democratic president and they're very progressive.
And, you know, we could get and there's a progressive supreme court and a progressive majority in the house and senate we could get everything we wanted policy wise as progressives but that president is doing what trump did and not respecting the rule of law and trying to overturn elections and trying to stay in power and i really hope that not only me but like everyone else who I know who are Democrats would stand up and speak out like you did.

So I know I know it wasn't easy. I know it probably hasn't been easy, both professionally and personally.

So I respect what you what you've done these last couple of years. Well, I appreciate your saying that.
And I think there are a lot more people out there who understand and will ensure by voting against him that we don't end up with Donald Trump in the White House again. But we're going to all have to work together to do that.
Yes. Liz Cheney, thanks for coming on Pod Save America.
And I hope next time that you're on, we can argue about policy. I know.
Me too. I'll look forward to it.
Take care. Thanks.
Bye-bye. Thanks to Liz Cheney for joining us today.
Everyone have a great weekend and we'll talk to you next week. Thanks to Liz Cheney.
Something I never thought I would hear on our podcast, but you know what? She's great. Legitimately, thank you to Liz Cheney.
Yeah, for sure. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review.

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