FILE - In this March 6, 2019, file photo, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Wyoming Republican Party voted overwhelmingly Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021 to censure U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney for voting to impeach President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Now the RNC is considering a similar move targeting both Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
SALT LAKE CITY — Mia Love, former Utah congresswoman, is addressing the removal of Liz Cheney from her House Republican leadership position.
On Wednesday morning, the House Republican Conference ousted Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming from her position as the third-ranking Republican member of Congress. She was removed after her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
“We cannot let the former president drag us backward and make us complicit in his efforts to unravel our democracy,” Cheney said in her remarks before being ousted, which took 16 minutes, according to CNN.
“Down that path lies our destruction and potentially the destruction of our country,” Cheney told her fellow Republicans in Washington, D.C.
Inside Sources host Boyd Matheson sat down to discuss Cheney’s ouster with former Utah Republican Rep. Mia Love.
“I always kind of chuckle when I hear that this was done by a voice vote because, of course, the leader can always say, ‘Well, that sounded like the ayes have it. Well, let’s go with that,'” Boyd said.
Liz Cheney was very clear that this wasn’t about her in her speech,” Love said. “She talked about having a choice between the Constitution and upholding the rule of law versus following a person. She made it very clear to me that she wasn’t going to step down.
“It would have been so much easier for her to step down . . . just avoid the embarrassment, and actually even avoid having her colleagues have to make that decision, and then have to defend that decision publicly. But what she said was, I can’t pull away and have people not be held accountable for their choice.”
“She did say a prayer, in which, before the vote,” Love said, “she got booed a little bit when she spoke about the former president, but then she said a prayer, and she got a standing ovation. It’s really interesting that in the same meetings, she got booed and then got a standing ovation.”
“To me, it not only shows the kind of the dysfunction or the confusion within the Republican Conference but to me really the issue is the, the lost opportunities that all of this represents,” Boyd said.
“There’s a lost opportunity because there are so many Republicans that don’t see eye to eye with the former president. Liz Cheney at least gave them a chance to say, ‘OK, I can still not like the president and be a Republican, or I can do both. She widened the tent,” Love said.
“As Rep. Love said, it’s the missed opportunities because we’re not talking about principles. We’re not talking about policy decisions. We’re relitigating the past. Remember, in politics, it is always not about what was or even what is. The test is what’s next,” Boyd said.
Inside Sources with Boyd Matheson can be heard weekdays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on KSL NewsRadio. Users can find the show on the KSL NewsRadio website and app.