Former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for President. His daughter, Liz Cheney, also a prominent figure in the Republican Party, announced her and her father’s endorsements at the Texas Tribune Festival on Friday in Austin. When Cheney left office at the end of the Bush administration, his approval rating was a mere 13 percent. “Few political figures in history have been so reviled,” wrote The Atlantic in 2011.
“Liz Cheney said at the festival, according to the New York Post, “Dick Cheney will be voting for Kamala Harris. If you think about the moment we’re in, and you think about how serious this moment is, my dad believes—and he said publicly—there has never been an individual in our country who is as grave a threat to democracy as Donald Trump is.”
Liz Cheney was one of the two Republicans appointed by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the January 6th Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, which investigated Trump’s alleged role in the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. The riot occurred at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., while Trump delivered remarks at a rally nearby at the Ellipse. The event was described as “deadly” due to the shooting of Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed Trump-supporting female veteran, by Capitol Police.
Dick Cheney further elaborated on his stance in a statement, saying, “In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again. As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Cheney, known for his role in advocating for the Iraq War during his time as Vice President, was instrumental in pushing for the 2003 invasion of Iraq under President George W. Bush. The war was launched on the premise that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons, though a Pentagon Defense Intelligence Agency report indicated there was no concrete evidence of such weapons. A National Intelligence Estimate also found “low confidence” that Hussein would attack the U.S. or share weapons with terror group Al-Qaeda.
Despite these findings, Cheney and others in the Bush administration, such as Defense Secretary Colin Powell, made public claims that Iraq was seeking yellowcake uranium in Africa, which was later admitted to be an error. Cheney continued to assert that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and a full-scale nuclear program, despite reports to the contrary.
Critics have labeled Cheney as a “war architect, profiteer, and criminal.” The leftist group Code Pink stated that “Dick Cheney can be considered the main architect of the War on Terror, driving home the need for war in the Middle East when he served as George W. Bush’s VP.”
Joe Biden, while debating then-presidential candidate John McCain’s VP pick Sarah Palin in 2008, referred to Cheney as the “most dangerous vice president we’ve had, probably, in American history.”
