The top Republican lawmaker says he supports the removal of Liz Cheney, a critic of former President Trump, from the leadership position.
Republican lawmakers in the United States appear willing to remove Congresswoman Liz Cheney, a prominent critic of former President Donald Trump, from the party’s third-place leadership.
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives could vote Wednesday as to whether Cheney, daughter of former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, will retain her position as president of the Republican Conference.
On Sunday, the top Republican in the House said he supported a candidacy of Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a Trump supporter, to take on the role.
“We want to be united to move forward and I think that’s what’s going to take place,” MP Kevin McCarthy said in an interview on Fox News ’Sunday Morning Futures program on Sunday.
The second Republican leader in the House, Steve Scalise, also supports Stefanik.
The controversial vote is the latest example of a growing rift within the Republican party between supporters and critics of Trump, which has tried portraying himself as the only political leader capable of uniting the party.
Cheney has publicly criticized Trump for his false claims that he was robbed of last year’s U.S. presidential election amid widespread election fraud.
He was also among the 10 House Republicans who voted to accuse Trump accused of inciting insurrection after a crowd of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6 in a riot that killed five people.
Some of the Republicans who voted to oust Trump have since confrontations confronted of their respective state Republican parties.
In an opinion piece published Wednesday in the Washington Post, Cheney denounced the “dangerous and undemocratic cult of Trump’s personality” and warned his fellow Republicans not to accept or ignore his statements “for fundraising purposes and policies “.
Other Republicans have also warned that Cheney’s likely expulsion from the party leadership could sink the Republican Party.
“Right now, it’s basically the Titanic,” Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who also voted to accuse Trump, said on CBS’s Face the Nation program. “We are in the middle of this slow sink. We have a band playing on the deck telling everyone it’s okay. “
Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan said he was annoyed “that you have to swear allegiance to the beloved leader or be expelled from the party.”
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Hogan said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
