U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz was among the first Republicans to denounce anti-Trump Rep. Liz Cheney for being hostile to conservative principles, even traveling to her home state, Wyoming, to rally against her.
Now that GOP lawmakers have removed Cheney as the No. 3 House Republican, the Florida Republicans are taking a victory lap.
“We’ve all known for some time that Liz Cheney is the masthead for the Establishment in Washington,” Gaetz told Steve Bannon, host of the “War Room” podcast and once an adviser to former President Donald Trump. Gaetz added that Cheney was part of the resistance to making the GOP more of a “nationalist” party.
Gaetz then described the caucus meeting at which Cheney was stripped of here post.
Cheney, Gaetz said, wanted to lead the party to be “worthy of the mantle of (Abraham) Lincoln.”
But then, he said, U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx reminded Cheney that a leader with no followers is just a person on a walk.
Gaetz added that Cheney will have a “well resourced” operation to attack and oppose America First believers.
Trump changed the party in profound ways, Gaetz added. He ridded it of its penchant for amnesty for illegal immigrants, and he changed the thinking on being subservient on trade and foreign policy.
“Republicans were all too willing to allow ourselves to be eaten up by the mainstream media,” Gaetz told Bannon. Trump taught the GOP to take that head-on.
He said many GOP lawmakers people got “sick and tired” of Cheney’s being the figurehead for establishment Washington. Now that she’s been deposed, he said, the idea is to show the establishment and the rest of the nation that “Trumpism” was an effort “to grow a multi-generational, multi-racial, pro-America, patriotic party.”
Gaetz added that the “biggest mistake” Trump followers could make would be to assume the “war” is over with Cheney’s removal.
“The fight is still on, and we need to call more warriors,” said Gaetz.
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