As talks heat up over the 2024 Republican primary, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney discussed his party’s potential candidates, including Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.
Speaking Thursday at the South Valley Chamber of Commerce in Sandy, Utah, Romney told the audience he believed Cheney had no chance of winning the presidency.
While Cheney recently opened up about running, Romney claimed, “I don’t know if she really wants that. She would not become the candidate if she ran. I can’t imagine that would happen.’
“I will not encourage anyone to run for President. I did it myself and I’m not doing it again,” said the Utah senator, who lost the 2012 presidential election to Barack Obama.
Cheney suffered a massive 37-point loss to Harriet Hageman in her Wyoming primary and hinted that she might attempt a presidential nomination
Mitt Romney, who represents Utah in the US Senate, advised Cheney against running, saying, “She wouldn’t be the candidate if she ran.”
Cheney received just 28.9 percent of the Republican primary vote Tuesday versus 66.3 percent for Trump-backed Harriet Hageman.
Cheney suffered a massive 37-point loss in her primary to Harriet Hageman, unsurprisingly backed by ex-President Donald Trump after Cheney and Trump had been constantly bickering.
Cheney received just 28.9 percent of the Republican primary vote Tuesday versus Hageman’s 66.3 percent.
Romney backed Cheney on that first run, but admitted to Business Insider that victory was unlikely: “I recognize that in Trump’s time, that may not be possible,” he said.
Romney has been proven right, and while Cheney has not announced an official campaign, she has said she is “considering” running to prevent Trump from retaking the Oval Office.
“I believe that Donald Trump continues to pose a very serious threat and danger to our republic,” she told NBC’s Today Show.
“I think it will take a broad and united front of Republicans, Democrats and independents to defeat him, and I want to be a part of that,” she continued.
Romney, flanked by Utah Senator Mike Lee, went even further at the event, hinting that he believes Trump is likely to win back the presidency.
“President Trump’s voice is the loudest and strongest, and defying him is something people will do at their peril,” he said.
Romney said he hopes more candidates will eventually compete for the nomination: “My party has changed a lot in the last ten years. That will change again in the next 10 years. I can’t tell you how, but I think we’ll eventually have more votes than one.’
He said he believes the nominee will not be someone “outside the Trump circle” given the former president’s popularity.
“If he doesn’t run again, I think it will be people who were either his supporters or people who didn’t say much about him and then would be willing to become the candidate,” he said.
Both Romney and Cheney are known enemies of Trump, and the pair supported his impeachment after the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot while pushing back his claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Harriet Hageman (right) campaigned with Donald Trump Jr. (left) in Jackson, Wyoming in June
An anti-Liz Cheney sign appeared on a billboard outside of Cheyenne, the Wyoming capital
Republican Rep. Liz Cheney (left) appeared with her father, Vice President Dick Cheney (right), at a polling station in Jackson, Wyoming, where she spoke to CBS News
Cheney, a three-year congresswoman at large for Wyoming’s district, blamed her 37.4 point loss Tuesday night solely on former President Donald Trump, who supported Hageman.
She joins other Republicans who have been ousted for not openly supporting former President Trump, including Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer and South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice.
While Cheney won her last primary by 73 points, she is now paying the price for turning against Trump, which also led to Wyoming’s GOP reprimanding her and House Republicans removing her from her post as conference chair fired.
“Abraham Lincoln was defeated in the Senate and House of Representatives elections before winning the most important election of all,” Cheney noted in her concession address.
THE 10 HOUSE REPLICANS WHO VOTED FOR TRUMP’S SECOND IMPEACHMENT
- Rep. Liz Cheney – lost area code
- Rep. Anthony Gonzalez – retiring
- Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler – lost primary
- Rep. John Katko – retiring
- Rep. Adam Kinzinger – retiring
- Rep. Peter Meijer – primary lost
- Rep. Dan Newhouse – won the primary
- Rep. Tom Rice – primary lost
- Rep. Fred Upton – retiring
- Rep. David Valadao – won the primary
Cheney spoke about how she won her primary two years ago by a margin of 73 points. “I could easily have done the same thing again – the way was clear,” she said.
All she had to do, she said, was spread former President Donald Trump’s electoral fraud lies and facilitate his attacks on the democratic system.
Trump was overjoyed by Tuesday’s election results after making it his mission of revenge to have Cheney voted out of her seat in the House of Representatives, claiming that her defeat paved the way for the Jan. 6 special committee’s dissolution.
‘The people have spoken!’ he said on his Truth Social account, adding that the primary was a “referendum to end the witch hunt.”
“I assume that with the very great loss of Liz Cheney, much greater than ever anticipated, the January 6th Committee on Political Hacks and Thugs will quickly begin the beautiful process of dissolution?” he posted.
Cheney’s next confirmed move will be to create a group focused on threats to the American system of government — primarily focused on stopping Trump from winning another term in the White House.
“In the coming weeks, Liz will create an organization to educate the American people about the ongoing threat to our republic and mobilize a concerted effort to oppose any presidential campaign by Donald Trump,” Cheney spokesman Jeremy Adler told Politico .
The group doesn’t have a name yet, but it will be Cheney’s primary political group as it contemplates running for the White House in 2024.
Cheney is the most prominent Republican critic of the House of Representatives, serving as vice chair of the House Select Committee on Jan. 6.
Cheney sits on the United States House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol
Wyoming Republican congressional candidate Harriet Hageman speaks during a night party for the primary after winning the race
A campaign sign for Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives Harriet Hageman is posted August 14, 2022 in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The daughter of the former Republican vice president has been staunch in her criticism, saying in a campaign ad last week that her party’s acceptance of Trump’s “big lie” — his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him — was a “cancer ” be. ‘
“The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious,” she said in the video.
She added that the false claims are a “door opened by Donald Trump to manipulate Americans into abandoning their principles, sacrificing their liberties to justify violence, ignoring the verdicts of our courts and the rule of law.”
“Due to threats to their security, Cheney’s campaign events are never released and reporters are only occasionally alerted. Security is high and paranoia runs deep in Cheney World, probably for good reason,” wrote Mark Leibovich, author of This Town, in The Atlantic last week.
She is traveling with an armed Capitol Police guard, the New Yorker also reported.
Hageman had made the more typical grab and grin associated with an election victory — it worked.