Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney has condemned New York Rep. Elise Stefanik for describing the January 6 prisoners as “hostages.” Cheney said Stefanik’s comments were a “disgrace” and “outrageous.” In an interview with CBS, Ms. Cheney claimed that those who were imprisoned after January 6 had engaged in violence against police officers and said Stefanik was merely using Trump-like language to further her political career.
Cheney, who is one of Trump’s fiercest critics, served as vice chair on the January 6 Congressional committee that investigated the Capitol Hill riots, and she has placed the blame firmly at the feet of the former President.
In December, Cheney, who lost her Congressional Wyoming seat in 2022 by a double-digit margin, warned that if Trump is re-elected this year, he will never leave office. She said Trump resisted handing power to President Biden and would do the same at the end of a second term. “I think it’s a very, very real threat and concern,” she told Savannah Guthrie on NBC.
The former lawmaker has previously clashed with pro-Trump Stefanik. In her book “Oath and Honor,” she said the New Yorker “had lost her sense of right and wrong” concerning January 6. The latest clash between the two women came after Stefanik used the term “hostages” during a discussion with Kristen Welker on NBC. Rep. Stefanik said it is the Biden administration, rather than Donald Trump, that presents a threat to democracy in America and cited several prosecutions against Trump, as well as his removal from the ballot in Colorado and Maine, as examples.
Her “hostages” remark echoed those of the former President, who said in a recent speech that the protestors jailed after January 6 should be released. “Some people call them prisoners. I call them hostages. Release the J6 hostages, Joe. Release them, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe,” Trump said.
Rep. Stefanik also backs Trump’s assertion that the 2020 Presidential election was rigged.
