Liz Cheney Wins Big, Matt Gaetz Hardest Hit

O n Wednesday morning, Florida GOP congressman Matt Gaetz said on Steve Bannon’s podcast that a majority of House Republicans were ready to kick Wyoming representative Liz Cheney out of House GOP leadership because she voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the January 6 Capitol riot.

“My concern is that though today we have the votes to remove Liz Cheney, somehow the establishment’s going to find a way to kick the question, avoid a vote,” said Gaetz, who had flown to Wyoming last week to hold an anti-Cheney rally.

Hours later, House Republicans held the vote that Gaetz had been certain he and other Trump diehards in the GOP caucus were going to win.

Cheney won, and it wasn’t even close: When the secret ballots had been counted, 145 House Republicans voted to keep Cheney in her post, while 61 voted to oust her, and one voted present.

Perhaps sensing inside the room which way the vote was heading, the well-known media hound Gaetz left the meeting 15 minutes before the results were announced and didn’t linger to talk to reporters. Although media outlets and anonymous House Republicans hostile to Cheney claimed she had been fighting this week to prevent an up-or-down vote, a source familiar with the matter tells National Review that was not true. Cheney herself was the one to ask for a vote to be held Wednesday night when she spoke to the conference.

When Cheney spoke, she refused to apologize for voting to impeach Trump, and she refused to apologize for her withering statement indicting him.

Freshman Michigan congressman Peter Meijer, who also voted to impeach Trump, wrote on Twitter that at the GOP conference meeting, Cheney “faced four hours of blistering criticism and didn’t yield an inch. We may not always agree on policy but I respect the hell out of leaders like Liz who are unyielding in defense of their convictions.”

“We really did have a terrific vote tonight, a terrific time,” Cheney told reporters after the meeting. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who had delivered a speech imploring members to keep Cheney and let him lead, said Cheney had received a “resounding shot in the arm.”

The New York Times reported that Jaime Herrera-Beutler of Washington, another Republican who voted for impeachment, said: “This is about the direction of our party and whether or not we’re going to be a minority dedicated to just one person or a united Republican majority.” Although Cheney’s role in leadership is now secure in the 117th Congress, her GOP foes still intend to punish her for her impeachment vote by waging a primary campaign against her in 2022.

The other big story coming out of the GOP meeting on Wednesday was McCarthy’s decision to keep freshman Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia as a member in good standing despite wildly conspiratorial, bigoted, and violent remarks she made in recent years.

McCarthy said he “denounced anything” wrong that Greene had said in that past. “[Greene] came inside our conference and denounced [those comments] as well. She said she was wrong,” McCarthy said. “QAnon has no place inside our party. Marjorie Greene actually said that inside our conference today.”

McCarthy suggested that if Greene had made similar comments as a member of Congress, Republicans would strip her of her committee assignments, just as they had done to former Iowa congressman Steve King. “Now that you’re a member of Congress, now it’s a responsibility of our conference to hold people accountable,” McCarthy said. “We removed Steve King when he made comments as a member of Congress.”

McCarthy said he was willing to remove Greene — who had indicated on social media she thought school shootings in Parkland and Sandy Hook were staged — from her post on the Education Committee and add her to the Small Business Committee. Democratic leader Steny Hoyer rejected the offer, and House Democrats intend to take the matter into their own hands and pass a resolution on Thursday denying Greene any committee assignments.

As Gaetz of Florida walked out of the Capitol Visitors Center, he told me Greene had “pretty directly” addressed her social-media post suggesting the massacre at the high school in Parkland, Fla., was staged. She said “that these school shootings happen, that she’s deeply troubled by them, that she’s saddened people are victimized by them,” Gaetz said. Did she explain why she believed something that crazy in the first place? “I’m not her spokesperson, I’m gonna let her speak for herself.”

Some House Republicans said they wanted Greene to publicly apologize for her past comments. Texas congressman Dan Crenshaw told CNN: “I want to see more public statements along the lines of what we heard in private. I want to see her do it publicly.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated since its initial publication.