OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) got into a tense back-and-forth with Fox News anchor Bret Baier during a discussion about former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden regarding the rule of law.
The interview started off with Cheney repeating her previous meritless warning that Trump will ‘destroy democracy’ and run roughshod over the rule of law if he manages to win another term, leading Baier to quote from a recent op-ed that accused Biden of doing exactly that.
“This is The Wall Street Journal. This is not a MAGA, you know, op-ed here. And they say, ‘Trump as dictator is a classic case of projection,'” Baier said.
“Well, I think they’re wrong,” Cheney responded.
“I think if you, again, if you look at, we don’t have to guess about what next President Trump would do, because he did it before,” she claimed.
Though Trump has been charged with dozens of crimes, he has yet to be convicted of any. Also, many of his supporters believe the charges are largely political, especially those levied by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Biden’s Justice Department.
To that point, another special counsel — Robert Hur — was appointed to investigate Biden’s possession of classified documents, but he’s yet to be charged for it even as Trump faces felony charges for having classified docs in his possession.
“Right. But what about the point it made in this op-ed, specifically and I understand what you’re saying about the former president, what you feel about what would happen, but you haven’t been vocal about President Biden’s executive orders to cancel student loans,” Baier said as Cheney chimed in that they are “very different.”
WATCH:
Trump-bashing Liz Cheney gets testy when Bret Baier cites WSJ op-ed on ‘projection’
Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney insisted there is no double standard in her criticism of presidents even as she told Fox News viewers to ditch the GOP frontrunner in the 2024 race.
The so-called… pic.twitter.com/QKEPokqfSA
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) December 19, 2023
As the two began to speak over each other, Cheney could be heard saying, “Are you going to let me answer?”
“Yeah, I am. Just let me list them,” Baier replied, adding: “After the SCOTUS ruled against it, he still uses regulatory means to write off, you know, the student debt, wall off 1.5 million acres of land for fossil fuel. What this basically is saying is that there are things that have been done outside of the rule of federal courts that you haven’t weighed in on.”
“Well, first of all, I don’t think it’s true that I haven’t weighed in on those,” Cheney said. “And I think a lot of those, if you look at the kinds of things that he’s done with respect, for example, to energy policy, with respect to setting aside lands across the West, I’ve been very vocal that I think those policies are wrong. It’s very different from a president. And look, you wrote a book about George Washington. The last chapter of your book is called, ‘The Gift of a Peaceful Transition of Power.’ That’s what we’re talking about,” Cheney replied.
“But this is not about me,” Baier fired back.
“That’s right. But that’s a very important concept. Let me finish my answer,” Cheney said.
“Because every single president, Republican and Democrat, since George Washington, has ensured the peaceful transition of power. Donald Trump tried to seize power,” she claimed. “So we can disagree with Biden policies, but the fact that he tried to seize power, the fact that he ignored the rulings of 61 courts, the fact that he ignored his own attorney general, his own White House counsel, who told him what he was saying about the election was false. It wasn’t true.”
“His claims were false, and he went out and made them anyway, knowing that. The extent to which he, while a violent mob was assaulting the Capitol, he wouldn’t tell them to leave. Instead, he tweeted against his own vice president and he poured fuel on the flames. Those are lines that can’t be crossed. And look, this isn’t about policy. I voted with Donald Trump 93% of the time. This is about the nation. It’s about the republic. It’s about the Constitution,” she added.
Trump questioned the outcome of the election, just as Democrats have done since George W. Bush’s first-term victory when Republicans won presidential elections. Trump also told supporters during his Jan. 6, 2021, speech in D.C. to march “peacefully” to the Capitol.
