The following is a transcript of an interview with former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Oct. 27, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re back with former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who has been campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris. Welcome back to Face the Nation.
FORMER REP. LIZ CHENEY: Thank you. Great to be with you, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I have a number of questions for you, but I do want to start where I left off with Senator Vance. He responded to your characterization of him as a misogynistic pig by attacking your father and his role in the Iraq War, Donald Trump has also done so. Do you care to respond?
LIZ CHENEY: Look, I think that they are doing everything they can to try to distract from the fact that the people who know Donald Trump best, including retired Four Star Marine General John Kelly, who is a gold star father, have come out and said very clearly and very directly to the American people that Donald Trump is not fit, that Donald Trump himself, standing near the graves of our fallen service members, says things like they are suckers and losers. We all watched on January 6, when Donald Trump sat in the dining room next to the Oval Office for hours, for hours, and watched people with his flags and his name, a mob he had sent to the Capitol, he watched them brutally beat police officers and invade our Capitol. His own vice president is not voting for him. Chiefs of staff aren’t voting for him, secretaries of defense, National Security Adviser so, you know, this is completely unprecedented. I don’t think, certainly in my lifetime, probably in American history, have you had a situation where so many of the top officials of the former president are saying they won’t vote for him. And I think you know, we’re going to hear continued assaults and rhetoric from Donald Trump and JD Vance to try to cover that up. But at the end of the day, it’s desperation the American people are- are much smarter than that and- and they see through it. I’m confident.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Given how outspoken you have been, are you concerned about your personal security if Donald Trump wins this election, as he well may do?
LIZ CHENEY: Look, first of all, I am very confident that Vice President Harris is going to win this election. It’s what we’re seeing all across the country, the kind of absolutely unprecedented coalition that’s coming together to support her. You know, we’re all going to run through the tape, and nobody is overconfident here, but I do believe she’s going to be the next President of the United States. And I think that Donald Trump has ushered violence into our politics in a way that we haven’t seen before. Any violence is unacceptable. Certainly, the assassination attempt on the former president was completely unacceptable and obviously should never have happened. But when you have a situation where, you know, Donald Trump suggests that people who disagree with him ought to be put before military tribunals, that the former chairman of the chief- Joint Chiefs of Staff should be hanged for treason, and his running mate, you know, doubles down on it, you know, I think that that tells you that you’re dealing with a man who doesn’t have any conscience, and the people who worked most closely with him know that, and so I’m confident that he’s going to be defeated next week.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re seeing a really interesting gender divide in this election, and I know you’ve been appealing to people to vote their conscience, and you said they never have to say a word to anybody about who they actually do vote for. Yesterday, former first lady Michelle Obama said something similar. Take a listen.
[START SOUND ON TAPE]
FORMER FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA: If you are a woman who lives in a household of men that don’t listen to you or value your opinion, just remember that your vote is a private matter. Regardless of the political views of your partner, you get to choose.
[END SOUND ON TAPE]
MARGARET BRENNAN: I have to say it’s a little striking. It sounds a little 1950s or 1970s. Are you really hearing from female voters that they’re afraid to tell their spouses who they’re voting for?
LIZ CHENEY: Yeah, you know, what we’re seeing is so important and so interesting. You’ve seen a real coalition of women who are pro-life and pro-choice come together to support vice president Harris, and that’s because we’ve seen some of the just the draconian laws that have been passed in places like Texas and North Carolina that are preventing women from getting lifesaving health care, preventing women from getting medical care that you know will ensure that, if they have a miscarriage, that they can have babies again, just fundamentally a set of circumstances that can’t be maintained. And so, you have a growing coalition supporting Vice President Harris. You certainly have had many Republicans who are speaking out to endorse her, which, again, is unprecedented. And there are also many Republicans and independents who are saying, look, you know, I don’t want to bring the wrath of, you know, Donald Trump and JD Vance down on me. So, I’m going to vote my conscience. I’m not going to talk about it. And we, you know, obviously, encourage that your vote is a secret vote. You should do what you know is right and- and I think you’re going to have, frankly, a lot of men and women who will go into the voting booth and will vote their conscience, will vote for Vice President Harris. They may not ever say anything publicly, but the results will speak for themselves.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s an interesting coalition you’re talking about in terms of the pro-life movement and where we are now. And you’re talking about a coalition here. How do you explain to someone at home who may agree, as you do, with the pro-life position that abortion is murder, and reconcile that with putting that conviction aside and voting for Vice President Harris. How did you do that?
LIZ CHENEY: Yeah, I don’t think it’s about putting convictions aside. I think it’s about looking at the reality on the ground of what’s happened since Roe was overturned. And again, when you have a place like Texas where women need lifesaving care, you know, perhaps it’s a woman who’s had a miscarriage and she may be bleeding out and she cannot get a DNC, she can’t get the care that she needs, because there’s concern that maybe that care has been criminalized. And you know, you have a situation also in Texas where the Attorney General is suing, literally he’s suing so that he can see the medical records of women who have sought abortions. And you know, this is coming from people who support Donald Trump, and Donald Trump won’t let anybody see his own medical records. So, the idea that that, you know, you’ve got those kinds of policies and state laws being put in place is really mobilizing women to say, look, you know, you don’t have to abandon being pro-life, but this kind of circumstance, this kind of really abhorrent situation where women can’t get medical care they need, that just can’t go on.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think that Vice President Harris going to the Ellipse on Tuesday, as she plans to do, to make her closing argument is really the most effective one, because we see in our polling that on both sides of the aisle, each party is blaming the other for undermining democracy. Why do you think that would help put Harris over the mark and help win?
LIZ CHENEY: Yeah, I think it’s so interesting. I think when you- when you look at the polling, first of all, people have to remember, this is the first presidential election post-January 6, and so you know, you’ve got, in fact, many of the same people who were promising a red wave in 2022 doing the same thing now, we’re not going to see it now. We didn’t see it then. And what Vice President Harris has done, I’ve watched her do it. I’ve sat next to her on the stage as she does it. She talks about a whole range of issues. She talks about grocery prices, she talks about women’s health care, she talks about, you know, Donald Trump’s tariff policies, which are massively inflationary, and at the same time, reminds everybody, you have to have a president who obeys the rule of law.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re hitting a hard break here. Thank you, former Congresswoman Cheney, we’ll be right back.
