Liz Cheney Sounds The Alarm On Trump's Recent 'Dictator' Talk
Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) warned about a potential round two of a Donald Trump White House after the ex-president said he’d act like a “dictator” only on “day one” if he returns to the Oval Office.
“I think we have to take everything that Donald Trump says literally and seriously,” Cheney said in a Friday preview for an upcoming episode of ABC News’ “This Week.”
“And I think that we saw, frankly, what he was willing to do already after the 2020 election, in the lead-up to Jan. 6, after Jan. 6,” she told interviewer Jonathan Karl, referring to Trump’s connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The comments from Cheney — a staunch Trump critic — arrive days after she told the “Today” show that a dictatorship is a “very, very real threat and concern” if Trump is reelected in 2024.
Those remarks aired before Trump participated in a town hall event with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday.
During that televised event, Hannity asked Trump if he’d promise America that he’d never “abuse power as retribution against anybody.”
“Except for day one,” replied Trump.
Cheney, elsewhere in her interview with Karl, said Trump expected he’d remain president when he woke up on the day of the 2021 Capitol riot.
″We saw the extent to which he was willing to attempt to seize power when he lost an election,” said Cheney, the former vice chair of a House committee tasked with investigating the riot.
Cheney, who is on a media tour for a new book she released, also pointed to the “wishful thinking” of people who suggest that Trump will now “abide by the rulings of the courts or be stopped by the guardrails of our democracy.”
The former congresswoman, when asked by Karl why a Trump presidency would be worse on another go, explained that Trump now has “practice.”
“And because those people who were around him who actually did stop the worst that he was trying to do would not be around him again,” she added.
“I mean, our institutions don’t protect themselves. It’s the people who do.”
Cheney’s “This Week” interview is set to air Sunday.
NEW: Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who is warning about the potential dangers of a second Trump presidency, tells @jonkarl Americans should take his recent dictator remark "literally and seriously." See the interview SUNDAY on This Week. https://t.co/odWftxazWmpic.twitter.com/ibHDqLstaL
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) December 9, 2023