Cheney talked with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, and said she's not resigning, as her state party requested when they censured her for "betraying the trust of Wyoming voters."
The censure language indicated people still believe that BLM and Antifa were behind the Capitol insurrection. She said they've got a lot of work to do, and she blamed Trump and his lies for that.
We need to make sure that we as Republicans are the party of truth, that we are being honest about what really did happen in 2020 so we actually have a chance to win in 2022 and win the White House back in 2024.
She also said the Dems had no business getting involved in which Rs sit on committees; the Rs should have dealt with that.
Wallace asked if she'd vote to convict Trump in the impeachment. She said she'd listen to the evidence, but added there's a "massive criminal investigation underway. There will be a massive criminal investigation of everything that happened on January 6th and in the days before."
People will want to know exactly what the president was doing. They want to know, for example, whether the tweet he sent out calling Vice President Pence a coward while the attack was underway, whether that tweet, for example, was a premeditated effort to provoke violence... there will be many, many criminal investigations looking at every aspect of this and everyone who was involved, as there should be.
She said "I obviously believe... that what we already know is enough" to impeach him, and that there's no looking past what happened, no pretending that it didn't happen, no trying to move on. "We've got to make sure this never happens again."
So far, she's not a fan of the new administration. She described the first few days as being "heartbreaking in many ways," and called the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline "heartless." The Rs must "stand up and fight back against the kind of far-left governing" they've seen so far, she said.
Let's go down the hall to the This Week classroom for George Stephanopoulos' chat with Mr. Secretary, aka Mayor Pete. The conversation started with the COVID relief plan, which Buttigieg said was both important and something that Americans - including Republicans - strongly support. He downplayed the comments on the recovery plan made by Larry Summer, noting that other economists feel the plan is what we need to grow jobs. And, he wants to avoid what happened after the Great Recession.
And part of what was a real struggle the last time we faced a major economic challenge in 2009, was a sense that there needed to -- if there had been more political will in Washington to do more, the economy might have recovered more quickly.
Paying for his infrastructure agenda could run into partisan arguments, but he said these investments can pay for themselves, with enormous payback for the American people. He said it's clear people are impatient with "the idea of 'infrastructure week' turning into a punch line" and that lots of ideas on how to pay for the programs surfaced during his confirmation hearings. Not only that, but
...we also have a historic moment on our hands where we’ve realized just how critical these needs are. We can't keep kicking the can down the road and while it's not going to be easy to come to terms on exactly how to sustainably fund it, we know once again, with the economic urgency, the interest rate environment and the gathering political will that we can actually make this happen. And I think it's a great example of bipartisan priority. And if we get it right, it might pull other things along too.
Let's close with Margaret Brennan and Graham on Face the Nation. Their conversation started with foreign policy, and Graham said he'd caution President Biden not to get rid of stuff just because it's a Trump policy. They need to review things to determine if they're working, and if yes, leave them alone.
He hasn't spoken with Biden, but he has spoken to Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and is happy with the approach on Afghanistan, including leaving troops there beyond Trump's May deadline. Graham says he hopes that the administration will look at a bill he and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) have proposed that will the Iranians as much nuclear power as they want, but they wouldn't be allowed to enrich it.
On the hottest of hot topics, Graham said that what Trump did around the insurrection "is not a crime," and further, that "many people had already planned the - to attack the Capitol" before Trump ever spoke back in January, so impeaching him for incitement is wrong.
He said if people think Trump committed a crime, "he can be prosecuted like any other citizen." Impeachment is a political process, and "we've never impeached a president once they're out of office."
I think this is a very bad idea... It's not a question of how the trial ends. It's a question of when it ends... And the only question is... how long does the trial take? But the outcome is really not in doubt. That doesn't mean what happened on January the 6th was okay. It means his impeachment, in the eyes of most Republicans, is an unconstitutional exercise.
He seemed to suggest that Trump was impeached for the wrong thing. Brennan reminded Graham that he said that "the things (Mike Pence) was asked to do in the name of loyalty were over the top, unconstitutional, illegal, and would have been wrong for the country," which sounded like high crimes and misdemeanors to her. Graham's response?
Yeah, well, he wasn't charged with that.
Ultimately, he thinks history will be the judge, and he's in obvious disagreement with Rep. Cheney on the 'moving on' thing.
I'm ready to get on with trying to solve the nation's problems. And as to Donald Trump, he is the most popular figure in the Republican Party. He had a consequential presidency. January the 6th was a very bad day for America, and he'll get his share of blame in history. But I do believe that in 2022, the Republican Party is going to come roaring back...
He thinks Trump's policies have served the country well, and that he "has to rehabilitate himself as a politician." No word on whether he sees himself in need of rehabilitation, after spending the last four years doing the bidding of a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot."
See you around campus - bonus points for anyone wearing a Super Bowl Champions Tampa Bay Buccaneers mask.
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