Cheney on possible third party bid: I won’t do anything ‘that helps Donald Trump’

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Tuesday said she wouldn’t do anything “that helps Donald Trump” when asked if she would consider a third-party run for the White House.

“I’m not going to do anything that helps Donald Trump, and I think that I’ll make a decision about what I do and what comes next later this year,” she told NBC Nightly News’ Lester Holt during the Aspen Ideas Festival. “I feel very strongly about how important it is that we not let slip away what is so special and magnificent about this nation.”

Cheney, who is a staunch critic of Donald Trump, also said she is more focused on preventing the former president from reaching the White House again than her own future plans.

“I’m not announcing anything here today, Lester,” she said. “But the way I’m thinking about where we are and what has to be done is much less about what should I do in terms of am I going to be a candidate or not and much more about stopping Donald Trump whatever that takes. But also helping elect other good candidates down-ballot.”

“If you look at the polls, [Trump] clearly is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination,” she said. “I think that nominating him would result in the republican party splintering, as it should.”

Cheney, who was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, was ousted from her seat in Wyoming’s GOP primary last year.

Since then, she has floated the idea of making a third-party run for the White House in the future. She said last September that she would not be a Republican on the ballot if she ran for president, which prompted speculation that she could position herself as an independent candidate for the White House.

When asked about Trump’s indictment earlier this month that included 37 counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, Cheney said “there’s simply no question that he’s unfit to be the President of the United States.” She also said that a second federal indictment over Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attacks would be “proper and that’s the reason why we made criminal referrals.”

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