Former Chicago Mayor and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on Sunday slammed the Republican Party for contemplating removing GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) from her leadership position.
“Is it necessary to stick by Donald Trump here or is it important for the future of the Republican Party for them to move on?” ABC News host George Stephanopoulos asked.
According to Emanuel, the Republican Party is not “conservative” and lacks a conservative “agenda.” He encouraged viewers to read books by former House Speaker John Boehner or former President George W. Bush.
“That’s conservative,” he explained. “This is a reactionary party built on both resentment and race. There’s [where] the party’s going.”
“Second, the other piece of this is, you talk about an agenda. In 2020, there was no platform. There [was] no agenda. It’s about Donald Trump,” the former mayor said. “You know, parties exist for two reasons: set out policy principles. They didn’t have that in 2020. They still don’t have that. Number two, to win elections. It took 90 years to find a president that could both lose the White House, the House, and the Senate, and Donald Trump did that.”
.@RahmEmanuel on the Republican Party: "In 2020, there was no platform, there's no agenda. It's about Donald Trump." https://t.co/zKX7oYoNaR pic.twitter.com/K7f3Q9KNrX
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 9, 2021
Cheney defended her position on President Donald Trump and the January 6 riot at the Capitol in an opinion piece for The Washington Post. According to The Daily Wire, Cheney encouraged politicians to stay away from the Department of Justice investigation into the riots while laying out “the path forward” she sees for Republicans.
Second, we must support a parallel bipartisan review by a commission with subpoena power to seek and find facts; it will describe for all Americans what happened. This is critical to defeat the misinformation and nonsense circulating in the press and on social media. No currently serving member of Congress — with an eye to the upcoming election cycle — should participate. We should appoint former officials, members of the judiciary and other prominent Americans who can be objective, just as we did after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The commission should be focused on the Jan. 6 attacks. The Black Lives Matter and antifa violence of last summer was illegal and reprehensible, but it is a different problem with a different solution.
Finally, we Republicans need to stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality. In our hearts, we are devoted to the American miracle. We believe in the rule of law, in limited government, in a strong national defense, and in prosperity and opportunity brought by low taxes and fiscally conservative policies.
According to The Daily Wire, Cheney seems likely to be stripped of her leadership role sometime soon, and even as early as next week.
“It’s all but certain that as early as next week House Republicans will strip Rep. Liz Cheney of her number-three GOP leadership position — but Cheney faces another major headache back home in Wyoming, as Republicans are plotting to oust her as the state’s lone representative in Congress when she’s up for re-election next year,” Fox News reported.
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has been favored to take Cheney’s position as the number three Republican. She has received a number of endorsements, including from Trump himself.
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Rvu79uHUzq
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) May 5, 2021
Related: 5 House Republicans Reveal Their Feelings On Ousting GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney