Amid this year’s presidential election, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, criticized former GOP Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney on Friday, stating that she is “selling out conservatism” by campaigning alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.
This election cycle, Cheney has been hitting the campaign trail in support of the vice president in a push to win over GOP voters for the Democratic ticket. Cheney, who has endorsed Harris, has been a longtime vocal critic of former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee.
During an interview appearance on Fox News on Friday, Graham, a Trump ally, told host Sean Hannity that the former congresswoman is “selling out conservatism” as she campaigns for Harris.
“As to Liz Cheney, she is selling out conservatism to stay relevant…she’s campaigning with Kamala Harris…So Liz Cheney, don’t listen to her, she’s not relevant in terms of conservatism, she no longer has a voice.” the senator said. “We’re gonna push through all this bull**** and I’m not gonna listen to anything she has to say—Liz Cheney—we are not garbage as Trump supporters…This is the election of a lifetime. Liz Cheney is campaigning for Democrats to take back the House…Don’t listen to a word she says.”
Graham’s “garbage” remark is seemingly in reference to a comment President Joe Biden made during his call on Tuesday with Voto Latino where he was heard saying, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters—his—his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
Biden’s remark was in response to comedian Tony Hinchliffe who said during a Trump rally last Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York City that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.” The White House told Newsweek on Tuesday that Biden was referring to the rhetoric at Trump’s rally and not those who vote for the former president. Officials also shared a transcript of Biden’s call that included an apostrophe on “supporter’s.”
However, the transcript was altered by White House press officials, according to a report from the Associated Press on Friday.
Newsweek has reached out to Cheney and Graham via email for comment.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, is seen at the U.S. Capitol on July 31 in Washington, DC. Former Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, is seen in Ripon, Wisconsin, on October 3. Amid the 2024 election, Graham, a South Carolina Republican, criticized Cheney on Friday stating that she is “selling out conservatism.”
Kent Nishimura and KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Graham’s remarks come after Trump recently took aim at Cheney, sparking controversy.
At an event in Glendale, Arizona, on October 31, Trump was asked by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson about his thoughts on Cheney, a vocal Trump critic, to which the GOP presidential nominee responded: “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with the rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK, let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
He also suggested that if it were up to Cheney, the United States would be involved in conflicts across “50 different countries.”
Trump then pointed the conversation toward Washington, D.C., politicians in general, adding: “You know they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘oh gee, well, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.'”
Cheney wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in response to Trump’s comments, “This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant. #Womenwillnotbesilenced #VoteKamala.”
Trump has since said in a Truth Social post on Friday afternoon that he was simply saying that Cheney “wouldn’t have ‘the guts’ to fight herself.”
“All I’m saying about Liz Cheney is that she is a War Hawk, and a dumb one at that, but she wouldn’t have ‘the guts’ to fight herself,” the former president wrote. “It’s easy for her to talk, sitting far from where the death scenes take place, but put a gun in her hand, and let her go fight, and she’ll say, ‘No thanks!'”
Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously told Newsweek in an emailed statement that “Trump is 100 percent correct that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves. This is the continuation of the latest fake media outrage days before the election in a blatant attempt to interfere on behalf of Kamala Harris.”
