Liz Cheney criticized Trump’s GOP, expressing concerns over the party’s direction under Trump’s leadership and his choice of Sen. J.D. Vance as a running mate for 2024.
Cheney lamented Vance’s opposition to her aggressive foreign policy approach and highlighted concerns over his stances on immigration and populism.
“The Trump GOP is no longer the party of Lincoln, Reagan or the Constitution,” Cheney said.
JD Vance has pledged he would do what Mike Pence wouldn’t – overturn an election and illegally seize power. He says the president can ignore the rulings of our courts. He would capitulate to Russia and sacrifice the freedom of our allies in Ukraine. The Trump GOP is no longer the… https://t.co/l0O64J3pSj
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) July 16, 2024
Bill Kristol also raised neoconservative criticisms of Vance, emphasizing differences in foreign policy, nationalism, and governance approaches compared to Trump.
“Vance has been more consistently and fervently America First in foreign policy than Trump. He’s more committed to ethno-nationalism and anti-“elite” populism than Trump. He’s been more committed to destroying any non-political civil service than Trump. He’s more contemptuous of the norms, institutions, and mores of liberal democracy than Trump,” Kristol wrote.
“If Trump wins this fall, he’ll spend the next four years enjoying the presidency, boasting of what he’s done, and basking in the adulation of his crowds. Meanwhile, Vance will be building up and exercising power, staffing the administration with proteges and henchmen, and transforming the executive branch, the Republican Party, and much else.”
“Trump may well have in the back of his mind that he’ll run again. Good luck with that. By 2028, it will be Vance’s administration and party. He’ll have Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and all the wannabe leaders of American-style fascism organized behind him,” Kristol added.
“There is a coalition of democratic forces out there to be assembled, from ex-Reaganites to ex-McGovernites, from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Liz Cheney. There are political and civic figures available who could lead such a coalition with competence and conviction.”
“America is not just an idea — though we were founded on great ideas. America is a nation. It is a group of people with a common history and a common future, and yes … one of the parts of that commonality as a people is that we do allow newcomers to this country. We allow them on our terms, on the terms of the American citizens. And that’s the way that we preserve the continuity of this project from 200 years past to hopefully 200 years in the future,” Vance said.
Vance noted that that “if immigrants are willing to do your job for less, that requires government intervention.”
“It now seems like Republicans are trying to compete with the Democrat party on economic issues,” former aide Marc Short said.
“Many Republicans misread the 2016 electorate shift as an economic nationalism moment and think voters want the government interfering in regulation or mandating a higher minimum wage,” Short added.
“It’s amazing how so much of the discourse on every topic is just ‘This plays well with some working-class people, so it’s good,’” the Cato Institute’s David Bier said.
