By a voice vote, House Republicans have officially voted to remove Liz Cheney from her leadership role as Conference Chair:
BREAKING: Rep. Liz Cheney removed from House Republican leadership by voice vote. pic.twitter.com/y5kCnUWpoN
— Cheddar News ? (@cheddar) May 12, 2021
#BREAKING: Liz Cheney has been removed as the House Republican Conference Chair.
— Yasmeen Hassan (@YasmeenTV) May 12, 2021
BREAKING: Cheney has been ousted from her leadership post.#NexstarDC
— Raquel Martin (@RaquelMartinTV) May 12, 2021
It looks like the deed is done, that Cheney is ousted, and now they’ll vote to replace her with Stefanik.
Much of the media is claiming that she was ousted because she opposed Trump. That is partially correct, but it does not tell the whole story. Byron York wrote about this today, explaining that it was really because Cheney was only focused on Trump from November to January, continuing to relitigate issues, and not on Biden and the 2022 elections:
Go back to January 13. Cheney, nine other Republicans vote to impeach Trump. GOP leadership takes no action against them. When some members call for vote on February 3, Cheney receives big show of support, winning 145-61. 2/16 https://t.co/Ok2LJwDZLT
— Byron York (@ByronYork) May 12, 2021
York makes the point that Republicans simply weren’t all that angry with Cheney back in January, despite her vote to impeach Trump. So why are they now so angry that she has to go?
What happened? Did those members who were OK with Cheney’s impeachment vote back in February suddenly become so angry about it that they will now vote to remove her? That doesn’t really make any sense. 6/16
— Byron York (@ByronYork) May 12, 2021
Cheney’s current problems intensified *after* first vote on her leadership. She doubled down on campaign against Trump. Got friendly media coverage, but many Republicans saw her was distracting from GOP mission to oppose Biden, win House in 2022. 9/16
— Byron York (@ByronYork) May 12, 2021
Instead, Cheney seemed determined to re-fight battles of November, 2020 to January, 2021. 10/16
— Byron York (@ByronYork) May 12, 2021
So this leadership vote looks different from one in early February. ‘I think a lot of people have changed their minds since the first vote because she just kept it going,” says second GOPer, who voted to keep Cheney in February but plans to vote to remove her now. 11/16
— Byron York (@ByronYork) May 12, 2021
Finally, for her part, Cheney has become single-issue politician, and her single issue is Trump. CNN reports Cheney is ‘planning to wage a protracted political war’ against Trump. WP says effort to ‘name, shame and banish Trump’ is ‘fundamental’ to Cheney. 13/16
— Byron York (@ByronYork) May 12, 2021
Those reports–and their own observations–will confirm to many Republicans that they are right to remove Cheney from leadership. 14/16
— Byron York (@ByronYork) May 12, 2021
And that they did. Cheney has become so obsessed with Trump that she’s now seen by her colleagues as someone who could no longer do their job and represent the entire Republican conference. This isn’t about her voting to impeach Trump – that much is clear. And it’s not even about her disagreeing with Trump. It’s because she’s completely lose focus and has become a one issue Republican. Biden is the one in the Oval Office, but Liz Cheney still believes opposing Trump is the way forward and that’s why she’s been dumped.
