-House Republicans voted to remove
Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney from a leadership position today
for the crime of not showing
sufficient loyalty to Donald Trump.
For more on this, it's time for A Closer Look.
Liz Cheney is among the very last people in the world
I want to side with, for one thing,
I doubt we have much in common.
I've never been to Wyoming and I have no plans to go there,
not because it isn't beautiful, which I'm sure it is.
But as a New Yorker,
if there isn't a bodega within a five-minute
walking distance where I can get batteries, deodorant,
a single roll of toilet paper, and egg and cheese on a roll,
and hear people complain about de Blasio
in multiple languages, I can't live there.
I can't sleep unless my upstairs neighbor
is practicing the flugelhorn and someone outside is yelling,
"Christy says she's going to meet us there!"
Christy!
More importantly,
Cheney helped lay the groundwork for Trumpism
in the authoritarian Republican Party
that exists today, she defended illegal torture
and lied about it, championed the Iraq war,
and one TV interview pointedly refused
to denounce the racist lie that
President Obama wasn't a United States citizen,
a lie, of course, that was central
to Donald Trump's political rise.
-One of the reasons I think you see people
so concerned about this,
I think that this issue is people are uncomfortable
with having for the first time ever,
I think, a president who seems so reluctant
to defend the nation overseas.
We've seen this again and again and again
where this president seems to sort of want to --
-What does that have to -- are you saying that --
are you saying because he's a Kenyan?
-No, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying that people are fundamentally uncomfortable
and they're fundamentally, I think,
increasingly uncomfortable with an American president
who seems to be afraid to defend America.
-Yeah, sure. Obama was afraid to defend America.
The guy you supported in 2016 bragged
about exchanging beautiful letters
and falling in love with Kim Jong Un
and got a soccer ball as a gift from Vladimir Putin
like an 8-year-old in his first Christmas
with this new stepdad.
Wow, check it out, Mom.
Soccer balls, this is way better than Xbox.
And sure, Cheney later issued a statement
saying she had no questions about Obama's birth certificate,
but you don't get to have it both ways.
You don't get to go on TV and defend birthers
and quietly issue a mealy mouthed statement
condemning birthers.
We all know what you're doing.
It's like when I'm at a dinner party
bragging about how much I got laid in college.
And then later on the drive home,
I tell my wife I was just kidding,
that I was a virgin until we met.
That's why I'm so bad at sex. Remember?
Then she very sweetly says, I do remember.
Cheney even stood by Trump in 2016
after the "Access Hollywood" tape,
with the Associated Press
reporting that Cheney said, "Trump's comments are appalling.
"But Hillary Clinton's actions are far worse.
"Cheney says Clinton's handling of emails as secretary of state
put her self-interest above national security."
I don't know, for my money, bus pervert
is worse than lax email security.
But worst of all is a bus pervert with lax email security.
Hey, can I, uh, take your picture
for my private photo collection?
No one's ever going to see this. It's password protected.
And the password is one, two, three, four, five!
Everyone get that?
So Cheney cheered on illegal torture and disastrous war,
has helped pave the way for Trump
and stood by him throughout the 2016 election
and his first impeachment,
but she's not being punished for any of that.
She's being punished for acknowledging the reality
that Trump lost in 2020
and that there was no widespread fraud
and for criticizing him for inciting
a violent insurrection to overturn the results.
Living in reality should be the bare minimum
for holding public office.
And yet, today's GOP is so bat [bleep] crazy,
simply living in reality is considered heresy.
Which is why today House Republicans voted to remove
Cheney from her leadership position
because she had the temerity to admit that Trump lost.
-House Republicans pushed out Congresswoman Liz Cheney
as the number three ranked member of GOP leadership,
according to a member in the room
as the vote happened.
Cheney was booed when she criticized the former president
in her opening remarks.
-Just like that, it's over.
The House Republican conference had a voice vote
that means no recorded total and has ousted Liz Cheney
from her number three position within the conference.
-I am absolutely committed, as I said last night
and as I said just now to my colleagues,
that we must go forward based on truth.
We cannot both embrace the big lie
and embrace the Constitution.
I will do everything I can to ensure
that the former president never again
gets anywhere near the Oval Office.
-All right. First of all, I don't think you need to worry
about Trump getting anywhere near the Oval Office again,
even if he avoids criminal prosecution,
runs again in 2024 and wins.
I doubt he'd ever even leave Mar-a-Lago.
He seems to be enjoying his new life there
as the world's worst wedding deejay.
"The couple has requested 'Midnight Train to Georgia.'
"And based on the election,
"I'll tell you what was on that midnight train, folks.
"Fraudulent ballots, especially for Joe because
"at 11, 11:30, I'm winning Georgia
"and then the clock strikes midnight,
"toot toot, here comes the fraud train.
Now I'm losing."
With all that, again, a second wedding reference
where I showed restraint and did not do Vince Vaughn.
The meetings are working.
[ Laughter ]
Vince-a-holic Vanonymous.
With all that...[ laughs ]
With all that said, it's truly unnerving
that the only person in GOP leadership
who will suffer any consequences from the Big Lie
and the January 6 insurrection that resulted from it
is the one person who was willing to speak out against it.
The ringleaders of the insurrection,
the Ted Cruzes and Paul Gosars
and Josh Hawleys of the world are walking away scot free.
Even Mitt Romney was apparently so furious
at Hawley on the day of the insurrection.
He screamed at Hawley, "You have caused this."
Now, I know there's one school of thought
that you have to be a real [bleep] heel
to get someone as calm as Mitt Romney to yell at you.
But I'm also willing to bet that off-camera,
my man Mitt does a lot of yelling.
And I bet he's strong, too, like, real strong.
And I bet if you and your crew and neighborhood toughs
surrounded him on the bus and says stuff like,
"What's the matter, milk breath? You don't like how loud we are?"
I bet he would say, "No, I don't want trouble, boys."
But I bet the next time a bus goes through that dark tunnel,
all you hear punches and grunts when it emerges,
it's just five kids in a pile.
And I bet it's just Mitt Romney repomading his hair.
And when he gets off at his stop,
he says to the driver, "I was never here."
That's what I bet.
Call your bookie.
Anyway, only Liz Cheney will face consequences
simply for living in reality and criticizing
Trump's big lie that the election was stolen,
which I have to say is a little surprising
coming from a party that claims to believe
so passionately in free expression.
In fact, in his a statement announcing today's vote,
GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy said in one paragraph,
"These internal conflicts need to be resolved.
It's clear that we need to make a change."
And then in the next paragraph, "Unlike the left,
we embrace free thought and debate."
You guys are the ones purging someone from GOP leadership
for questioning party dogma.
You like Dorothy at the end of "The Wizard of Oz."
It turns out the cancer culture you were looking for
was right there inside you all along.
So as we saw from today's vote,
the party is fully committed to Donald Trump as its leader.
It has no core beliefs, no core ideology
other than the big lie that the election was stolen
and that any wins by Democrats are illegitimate.
That's why Republicans in a dozen states have already
implemented draconian voter suppression laws, with Arizona
joining them just yesterday.
And at least 404 voting restriction bills
have now been introduced in 48 state legislatures,
including laws that would limit mail,
early in-person, and Election Day voting
with such constraints as stricter ID requirements,
limited hours, or narrower eligibility to vote absentee.
If Republicans had their way, voting would be as difficult
and confusing as parking in midtown Manhattan.
No parking except for alternate Wednesdays and months
ending in Z between the hours of
4 and 5 a.m. during leap years.
Please note this sign was written on opposite day.
Psych!
Spent a lot of time
deciding how to spell psych on that sign.
And we would just ask you all to check in
with our very popular digital exclusive corrections,
which is available online
and is a huge, huge hit.
That's what they're going to air
instead of the Golden Globes next year.
And that's because the GOP has calculated
that it simply cannot move on from Donald Trump,
that no matter how unpopular and destructive
he is for the country, they can't succeed
as a party without him.
Lindsey Graham was even
surprisingly honest about this on Fox News last week.
-I would just say to my Republican colleagues,
can we move forward without President Trump?
The answer is no.
I've always liked Liz Cheney,
but she's made a determination that the Republican Party
can't grow with President Trump.
I've determined we can't grow without him.
If you don't get that as a Republican,
you're making the biggest mistake
in the history of the Republican Party.
The reason our party is growing with minorities
and with working men and women is because President Trump
appears to be on the side of people working really hard.
-He's on the side of people working really hard.
Yeah, I work really hard every weekend
at my meemaw's antique store, and she ain't on my side at all.
I'm sorry I broke that lamp, meemaw.
But stop saying it was a relic from the Ming Dynasty
because Ronald McDonald was on that lamp.
He wasn't around then.
Donald Trump is not on the side of people working really hard.
He's on the side of people working really hard for him,
and even then, he's not even on their side enough to pay them.
Rudy Giuliani doesn't have enough money
to cover his legal fees.
And I bet he's still out there trying to dig up dirt
on Joe Biden going country to country.
"Boss, I mean, Chili, you'll never believe what I found."
"Sir, would you like to order some appetizers?"
"Oh, Rudy, you done it again."
Liz Cheney is as responsible
as anyone else in GOP leadership for Trump's rise.
This is not about heralding her as a hero because she isn't one.
It's about the GOP's hard turn against democracy.
She's being punished simply for pointing out that Trump lost
and that his claim that he won is a big lie.
Republicans have made the calculation
that their party can't grow without President Trump,
even if democracy...
-Can't grow with President Trump.
-This has been A Closer Look.
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