The Republican pariah Liz Cheney has repeatedly refused to admit a link between Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud and restrictive voting laws being introduced in Republican states, telling an interviewer on Sunday night she will “never understand the resistance to voter ID”.
“There’s a big difference between that and a president of the United States who loses an election after he tried to steal the election and refuses to concede,” said the Wyoming representative ejected from party leadership for opposing the former president.
Laws tightening regulations on voter ID, voting by mail and even giving water to those waiting on line to vote have been passed or are close to passage in states from Georgia to Texas and beyond.
Because of their disproportionate impact on minority voters – many of whom vote Democratic – Democrats including Joe Biden have compared such laws to Jim Crow segregation in southern states from the civil war to the civil rights era.
Most in a Republican party under Trump’s grip reject such claims. Cheney has ranged herself against Trump but when pressured by Axios on HBO interviewer Jonathan Swan, she stayed in lockstep with her party.
To Cheney’s remark about resistance to voter ID laws, Swan countered: “Even the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, said … when this bill was started that the momentum was when Rudy Giuliani was testifying that the Georgia election was a sham.”
Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, pursued the electoral fraud lie through an array of cases in states won by Biden, the vast majority thrown out of court.
“Four hundred-some voting bills have been introduced,” Swan said, “90% by Republicans, supported by the Republican National Committee. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after the election, this has happened.”
Cheney said: “I think everybody should want a situation and a system where people who want to vote and ought to have the right to vote, vote, and people that don’t shouldn’t. And again I come back to things like voter ID.”
Actual instances of voter fraud or attempted voter fraud are few and far between. Some involve Trump voters. Nonetheless, state Republican parties have pursued strict laws while in Arizona the GOP has gone so far as to conduct a highly controversial recount in the most populous county.
“But what problems are [these laws] solving?” Swan asked. “What are all these states doing?”
“Well,” said Cheney, “each state is different.”
Swan asked what the problem was in Georgia, or Texas, or Florida.
“I think you’ve got to look at each individual state law,” Cheney said.
Swan said: “But you can’t divorce them from the context. Come on.”
Cheney said: “But I think what we can all agree on is that what is happening right now is really dangerous.”
Swan said: “I can agree with that.”
Cheney switched back to her preferred subject – Trump’s refusal to concede defeat, which led to the deadly attack on the Capitol by his supporters on 6 January, over which more than 400 people have been charged, while Republicans in Congress oppose a 9/11-style investigation.
“I think about 2000,” said the daughter of Dick Cheney, who became vice-president to George W Bush after a tight election that year.
“I think about sitting on the inaugural platform in January of 2001 watching Al Gore. We’d won. I’m sure he didn’t think he had lost. We had fought this politically very, very intense battle. And he conceded. He did the right thing for this nation.
“And that is one of the big differences between that and what we’re dealing with now and the danger of Donald Trump today.”
