Liz Cheney described Donald Trump as “depraved” and dangerous while defending her decision to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris during a Sunday interview on ABC’s “This Week.”
Cheney was unequivocal about her choice, as she told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl that reelecting Trump for president would end up being an “unrecoverable catastrophe” for the country.
“We see it on a daily basis, somebody who was willing to use violence in order to attempt to seize power, to stay in power, someone who represents unrecoverable catastrophe, frankly, in my view,” she said. “And we have to do everything possible to ensure that he’s not reelected.”
Though the retired Republican legislator told Karl she has “never viewed this as a policy election” while defending her political differences with Democratic presidential candidate Harris, Cheney also argued that Trump could barely be characterized as a true conservative and that “Republicans have nominated somebody who is depraved.”
“Somebody who shows us every day that he has tendencies and he’s willing to embrace things that are fundamentally a danger to this nation and to our constitution,” she continued. “So, the choice, in my view, is not a close one.”
Cheney also urged independent voters to learn about how Harris has evolved from when she first ran for president in 2020, saying that she has “changed in a number of very important ways on issues that matter.”
“I think, from a policy perspective, it is very important to recognize the change,” she said. “To recognize that she understands this election is going to require a coalition of people from across the political spectrum supporting her.”
Cheney announced her intention to vote for Harris last Wednesday at an event in the battleground state of North Carolina.
While there, she told Trump-skeptical Republicans who are still weighing their options, “I don’t believe that we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names. Particularly in swing states.”
Two days after Cheney declared her support for Harris, her father, former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, said he’d be doing the same.
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” he wrote in a statement. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.”
The Cheneys join a handful of Republicans who have decided they will not be voting for a second Trump term. That list also includes Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump’s ex-vice president, Mike Pence.
