Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney says the issue with politics in the United States is simple: “We’re electing idiots.”
The Republican politician made the comments on Monday, while speaking at an event hosted at New York City’s 92nd Street Y cultural and community center. At the time, Cheney was discussing the current status and future of the country’s two-party political system.
“Look, I think that the country right now faces hugely challenging and fundamentally important issues,” Cheney said, while speaking on the likelihood of her running for presidency as an independent. “And what we’ve done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots.”
She also mentioned she wouldn’t run for president if her participation would result in a win for Donald Trump, who continues to lead in the polls for the Republican primary despite facing federal and state criminal charges in two cases with the distinct potential for more.
The former Wyoming representative, who co-chaired the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riots, has become one of Trump’s many critics. In 2022, she lost her Republican primary to a candidate Trump supported. During the event, Cheney continuously referred to Trump as being “unfit for office.”
“I don’t look at it through the lens of, is this what I should do or what I shouldn’t do,” Cheney went on regarding her decision to pursue the position of commander-in-chief. “I look at it through the lens of, how do we elect serious people? And I think electing serious people can’t be partisan.”
Cheney continued: “You know, because of the situation that we’re in, where we have a major-party candidate who’s trying to unravel our democracy — and I don’t say that lightly — we have to think about, all right, what kinds of alliances are necessary to defeat him, and those are the alliances we’ve got to build across party lines.”
