Liz Cheney invokes January 6 as she touts endorsement of Harris in Wisconsin

By Piper Hudspeth Blackburn and Eva McKend, CNN

(CNN) — Republican former Rep. Liz Cheney on Thursday said she is “proudly” casting her vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in Wisconsin, invoking the events of January 6, 2021, and touting her endorsement of the Democratic presidential nominee in the crucial battleground state.

“I tell you, I have never voted for a Democrat, but this year, I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,” Cheney said at a Harris campaign event in Ripon, Wisconsin. In an attempt to persuade swing voters, she pointed toward former President Donald Trump’s actions on January 6, declaring that anyone “who would do these things can never be trusted with power again.”

“Donald Trump was willing to sacrifice our Capitol, to allow law enforcement officers to be beaten and brutalized in his name, and to violate the law and the Constitution in order to seize power for himself,” Cheney said as the event’s audience cheered. “I don’t care if you are a Democrat or Republican or an independent, that is depravity and we must never become numb to it.”

The campaign event is the latest effort from the former Wyoming congresswoman to move undecided voters away from Donald Trump with less than five weeks until Election Day. Cheney, who previously told CNN she was committed to doing what was necessary to stop the former president from returning to the White House, announced that she was voting for Harris last month in North Carolina, another battleground state. She has said she expected to campaign against Trump in battleground states.

At the Thursday campaign event in Ripon – home to a schoolhouse known as the birthplace of the Republican Party – Harris made a direct appeal to Republican and independent voters.

“If people across Wisconsin and our nation are willing to do what Liz is doing to stand up for the rule of law, for our democratic ideals and the Constitution of the United States, then together, I know we can chart a new way forward not as members of any one party, but as Americans,” she said.

As Cheney appeared with Harris in Wisconsin, Trump bashed the former congresswoman on Fox News, calling out her loss to a Trump-backed primary challenger in 2022.

“Well, Liz Cheney lost for Congress. She was terrible. Liz Cheney is a stupid war hawk, all she wants to do is shoot missiles at people. I really think it hurts. I think frankly if Kamala – I think they hurt each other. I think they are so bad, both of them,” Trump said.

Cheney’s zealous opposition to Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election – including her vote to impeach him – eventually led the House GOP to oust her as conference chair and replace her with a top Trump ally, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. Cheney went on to serve as vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Asked for comment regarding Cheney’s decision to appear with Harris, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt pointed CNN to an August 2020 social media post by the Wyoming Republican shortly after Joe Biden picked Harris as his running mate.

“.@KamalaHarris has a more liberal voting record than Bernie Sanders & Elizabeth Warren. Her radical leftist views-raising taxes, banning gun sales, taxpayer $ for abortion & illegal immigrant health care, eliminating private health insurance-would be devastating for America,” Cheney posted on August 12, 2020.

Cheney said in September that she had serious policy disagreements with Harris on a variety of issues but chose to support her this year because she feels that “those of us who believe in the defense of our democracy, in the defense of our Constitution, and the survival of our republic have a duty in this election cycle to come together to put those things above politics.”

A slew of Republicans have backed the vice president in her bid to defeat Trump and urged members of the GOP to cross party lines, including Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney; former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger; former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan; and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake.

Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump White House aide who delivered bombshell testimony to the House select committee investigating January 6, became the latest high-profile Republican to publicly endorse Harris this week. She told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday that the decision was “very simple” for her.

“In theory, we have two strong political parties. That’s not what we’re facing right now and the quality of character is what I’m voting for,” she said on “AC360.”

Sarah Matthews, Trump’s former deputy press secretary, who will campaign for Harris with Cheney and other former White House aides in Pennsylvania next week, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday that she did not envision herself endorsing Harris four years ago, but she “also didn’t think that an insurrection at our nation’s capital was possible.”

“I also didn’t think that we would ever have a president who would disrupt the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in our nation’s history. So it made the decision easy, because I believe that Donald Trump has shown us that he is wholly unfit to ever serve as president again,” she said.

Cheney has long tried to combat Trump’s influence in elections. In the 2022 midterms, the political action committee she started placed an ad buy urging Arizona voters to reject GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and Republican Secretary of State nominee Mark Finchem. She also crossed party lines to stump for two moderate Democrats in competitive House races that year.

Broader push to win over Republican voters

The campaign’s efforts to win over Republicans voters will extend beyond the Cheney event.

Thursday’s campaign stop will be the start of a host of other events over the coming days, meant to appeal to voters disenchanted with Trump and principally worried about defending the Constitution, according to a Harris campaign official. Other events will be held in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

Harris-Walz is spending significant money in this space as part of a more than seven figure paid media strategy, the campaign official said. While Trump’s team have former Democrats as surrogates, there is no organized “Democrats for Trump” equivalent.

Republicans for Harris’ outreach will also include a new economy-focused ad featuring a direct to camera testimonial from a two-time Trump voter on how Trump would make the economy worse for people like him, said the campaign official. The ad, “Has Our Backs,” first shared with CNN, is part of the campaign’s $370 million advertising reservations between Labor Day and Election Day and will run on digital platforms, including YouTube TV.

“We know that these are votes we need to earn, and we’re continuing to put in the work everyday to win over the millions of Republicans who are ready to turn the page on the chaos, extremism, and division of Donald Trump,” said Austin Weatherford, national Republican outreach director for the Harris-Walz campaign, in a statement.

Not all Democrats think this is the best strategy.

Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman, the first Muslim woman elected to the body, has been especially vocal on social media about the problems she views with the Harris team leaning into endorsements from prominent Republicans like Cheney.

“It feels like the campaign is still trying to run a Biden campaign, and it’s doing Harris a massive disservice,” she posted on X.

“Republicans are not gonna save us, and touting their endorsements is turning people off,” Romman said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Alayna Treene, Veronica Stracqualursi and Ebony Davis contributed to this report.

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