In an interview on NBC, Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., warned Monday that if Donald Trump is elected president next year for a second term, he will try to remain in power beyond those four years.
“There’s no question,” Cheney said about that possibility in an interview on NBC’s “TODAY” show with host Savannah Guthrie in advance of the release Tuesday of her book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning.”
Asked if she believed Trump would try to stay in power forever, Cheney said, “Absolutely. He has already done it once,” referring to his efforts after the 2020 presidential election to overturn Joe Biden’s victory and to stop its certification on Jan. 6, 2021.
The U.S. could become a dictatorship if Trump is re-elected, Cheney warned. “I think it’s a very, very real threat and concern. And I don’t say any of that lightly and frankly, it’s painful for me as someone who has spent her whole life in Republican politics, who grew up as a Republican to watch what’s happening to my party and to watch the extent to which Donald Trump himself has basically determined that the only thing that matters is him, his power and his success.”
Cheney said it is “naive” for Americans to think the country would survive another Trump presidency. She argued that Americans cannot count on a House led by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to stop Trump or a Senate whose members include Republicans Josh Hawley, of Missouri, or Mike Lee, of Utah.
Asked what would happen if Trump tried to overturn the election again with Johnson as House speaker, Cheney said it is “too dangerous to even contemplate going down that path” because, she said, they all had a “practice run” in 2020 and 2021.
