Liz Cheney says Trump is trying to unravel the constitution

We are confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before at this moment. A former president is trying to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic. He is aided by Republican leaders and elected officials who made themselves willing to hostage to this dangerous and irrational man. That was part of Liz Cheney's speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday night. The Wisconsin Republican and daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney drew a standing ovation by calling out former President Donald Trump and the members of his own party who have supported him for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Cheney, who is also the vice chairwoman of the House Jan. 6 Committee on Capitol Complexes, gave a speech that laid out some of the most damning revelations about Trump and his administration that have come out of the public hearings over the past few weeks.

The efforts that Donald Trump oversaw and engaged in are even more chilling and threatening than we could have imagined, said Cheney.

Cheney outlined the evidence that the committee presented to show that Trump tried to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election and to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power over to Joe Biden. She said that Trump summoned a mob to Washington and tried to join them in marching on the Capitol. She said that Trump knew that many in the mob were armed and that some of them were calling for the death of then-Vice President Mike Pence. He said, quote, Mike deserves it, said Cheney. She said that the former president refused to take action to tell the rioters to stop and to go home.

The reality we face today as Republicans, as we think about the choice in front of us, is that we have to choose because Republicans cannot be both loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution, she said, to loud and lingering applause.

Her address came at a time when Trump's advisers suggested he could announce a 2024 presidential campaign. Cheney is facing a Trump-backed challenger for her congressional seat in Wyoming in August.

June 2022 will be remembered as the month that Donald Trump analysts react to Jan. 6 hearings.

Cheney also praised Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide to Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, whose bombshell testimony this week claimed that the former president demanded to be taken to join the mob at the Capitol. Her bravery and her patriotism yesterday were awesome to behold, said Cheney. Little girls all over this great nation are seeing what it means to be a patriot and what it really means to love this country. She said, And let me also say this to the little girls and the young women who are watching tonight: these days, for the most part, men are running the world, and it is really not going well.