WASHINGTON, D.C. (NBC) – A crisis in the Republican party is now headed for a showdown this week involving truth, consequences, leadership, and the man who still looms large over the GOP.
It’s a Republican purge set in motion. “It’s clear we need to make a change…” wrote leader Kevin McCarthy in a new letter to GOP lawmakers, formalizing a vote this Wednesday to expel the Republican party’s highest-ranking woman in House leadership, Liz Cheney.
Her transgression: breaking with Donald Trump, saying the former president incited the insurrection and lied about a stolen election.
McCarthy sealed Cheney’s fate Sunday when he publicly backed New York Republican Elise Stefanik, whose voting record is less conservative than Cheney’s.
Donald Trump wielded his influence to tell the House GOP to “upgrade” from “warmonger Liz Cheney to gifted communicator Elise Stefanik.”
Few Republicans stand by Cheney. “She is being run out for one thing, her consistency,” said Republican Representative from Illinois Adam Kinzinger.
Senator Mitt Romney tweeted, “Expelling Liz Cheney… won’t gain… one additional voter, but it will cost us quite a few.”
Trump’s sway affects Cheney back home in Wyoming too.
This expulsion is only about her leadership job. Cheney plans for reelection in Wyoming urging her party to “turn away from the Trump cult of personality.”
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