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--:-- Noelle King: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Dick Cheney: Lynn and I are so proud of Liz for standing up for the truth, doing what's right, honoring her oath to the Constitution, when so many in our party are too scared to do so.
--:-- Noelle King: Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney is guaranteed three votes in her Wyoming primary race next Tuesday. Her mom's, her dad's, and her own. I am Dick Cheney. I proudly voted for my daughter. I hope you will, too. She's not guaranteed much else. Her break with Donald Trump after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th has made her persona non grata among Republicans in her home state. And we're fed up with Liz Cheney.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: But as vice chair of the January 6th committee, she's won over many Democrats.
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--:-- Noelle King: Support for the show comes from Charles Schwab. At Schwab, how you invest is your choice, not theirs. That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own. Plus, get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award-winning service, low costs, and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab. Visit schwab.com to learn more.
--:-- Noelle King: It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Leo Wolfson, state political reporter at the Cowboy State Daily in Cheyenne. Give me all the dirt on Liz Cheney.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: Well, so Liz Cheney has had an interesting career in the state of Wyoming. She's obviously the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney. She spent not a whole lot of her life growing up in Wyoming, but she did spend at least a few consecutive years. There's kind of an on-off type of thing. Wyoming's always been my home. You know, when we left when I was 12, it was because my dad was elected to represent the people of Wyoming. I tell people it's not like I woke up one morning and said, hey, you know, let's relocate.
--:-- Noelle King: She made a return to the state after a few stints in Washington, working with the State Department as an attorney, working with the George Bush re-election campaign in 2004. And she finally made a return to the state in full when she ran for U.S. Senate. As I've traveled to every corner of Wyoming, seeing old friends and meeting new, I've been honored to have had the chance to speak with so many of you about your concerns, your fears, and your hopes for the future. This was kind of a flawed campaign. She made a number of critical errors. And most of all, she was going up against a sitting U.S. Senator that was highly popular. And she pulled the campaign about six months in, long before she ever got to Election day.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: She came back to the well, so to speak, in 2016. The eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney is taking one more shot at politics. Liz Cheney is running for Congress, we hear. Cheney is looking to replace Wyoming Congresswoman Cynthia Loomis, who plans to retire. And Liz had a pretty easy path to victory in that election. She won that by about 17% over the nearest competitor in the primary. Ms. Cheney beat seven other people and receiving 40 percent of the vote. Her nearest competitor got 23 percent support. It's a job that her father first won 40 years ago. And she won the general by even larger sum.
--:-- Noelle King: What is it about Liz Cheney historically that people in Wyoming have liked? What are the character traits that she has that have appealed to people there, do you think?
--:-- Leo Wolfson: Well, she had a respect reputation because of her father's reputation. I think she was definitely running on that reputation quite a bit. My dad is a man of honor, a man of integrity, a man who's got the courage of his convictions, a man who clearly understood and understands today what it takes to make this nation strong, to keep the American people secure. And, you know, again, every time Barack Obama says, I'm no Dick Cheney, I think that anybody who knows Dick Cheney sort of nods their head and says, that's right, you're not Dick Cheney.
--:-- Dick Cheney: And Dick Cheney himself was extremely popular in the state while he was a congressman and vice president. When you're a member of the House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House calls on you not by name, but according to your state. And for better than a decade, I proudly answered to the title of the gentleman from Wyoming.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: So she had that familial recognition going for her, and she was just very conservative. I think that really appealed to a lot of the voters here. There were still some mutterings that she was a carpetbagger and that she wasn't a true native Wyoming even before all this happened.
--:-- Noelle King: When somebody's never gotten a paycheck in Wyoming and has lived their whole adult life in Virginia, I think they should run from Virginia. That's our home state. People really hold people to a kind of a status of whether you're a true Wyoming resident or not, if you haven't spent your entire life in the state and or don't have family roots in the state, people absolutely look suspiciously at you.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: It certainly has not done her campaign any favors. So Liz Cheney was elected to the House in 2016, the same year that Donald Trump was elected president, of course. What were her politics?
--:-- Dick Cheney: Yeah. So like I said, just very conservative. President Obama has launched a war on our Second Amendment rights. He's launched a war on our religious freedom. She feels that the federal government was intervening in Wyoming issues way too much. And the federal government is a big presence of topic here in Wyoming because we have some of the most federal land in the country. And he used the EPA to launch a war on Wyoming ranchers our farmers and our energy industry
--:-- Leo Wolfson: She definitely kind of a climate change skeptic. She definitely a foreign policy hawk. He has so effectively diminished our strength abroad that there's no longer a question about whether this was his intent. Definitely of the George Bush administration, of not being afraid to intervene in foreign issues, skirmishes, wars, things of that nature, definitely of that cadre. North Korea, they test a nuclear weapon. There are no consequences. They build a reactor for the Syrians. There are no consequences. And what they've learned is that their belligerence, in fact, oftentimes yields from us capitulation and concessions.
--:-- Noelle King: The one thing that was kind of an interesting topic is same-sex marriage was kind of an always a little bit of a tricky thing for her. During her 2013 campaign, she spoke out against same-sex marriage and said she was against it despite her sister being married to a woman. And that caused a big issue in her campaign because her sister actually went on Facebook after that that was said and spoke out against it. And there was kind of a rift in the family for a number of years there until essentially 2021. She did a 60 Minutes interview where she said that she made a mistake. I was wrong. I love my sister very much. I love her family very much. And I was wrong. And then this past summer, she voted in support of this Respect for Marriage Act codifying same-sex marriage in America.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: So there's something super interesting here about her and about conservatism, which is like Liz Cheney's conservatism is like her dad's and like George Bush's. This is a certain type of conservative. And then along comes Donald Trump and he is a Republican, but he's certainly not a Bush type conservative or a Cheney type conservative, right? Is Liz Cheney at this point, at the point where Trump is elected, is she on the Trump train or is she sort of holding her nose and saying, you know, I'm more of a Bush Republican.
--:-- Dick Cheney: You know, to be honest, there was never a point where she really went against Trump in that era. She supported his 2016 campaign, especially when he got the Republican nominee at the convention. And she was very consistent in supporting him. However, on the issue of some of those foreign policy things, she did speak out against some of the stances that Trump made, especially in 2019 with his decision on Syria. You know, there was also comments that Trump made himself speaking out against the George W. Bush administration and some of the actions they took with so-called never-ending wars and things of that nature. So it wasn't hard to draw conclusions that there was definitely disagreements between the two camps. But once again, you got to go back to the voting record and look that she voted with Trump more than 90 percent of the time. So if there was a divide, it was not very public.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: When did she finally break with Donald Trump?
--:-- Dick Cheney: So it was a very clear break that occurred after the 2020 election. After Trump started questioning the results of the 2020 election, Cheney implored him to go to the courts and prove his evidence. And then following that, after the evidence did not prove out in the courts, she just started speaking out against him at that point and saying that he needed to concede defeat in the election. Then you fast forward a couple more weeks. Foreign and domestic! And January 6th happens. That was kind of really what kicked off everything. Senators, congressmen, their staffers were quickly whisked into a secure location. She got ushered, just like many other members of Congress, into an underground bunker of sorts at the Capitol. She was literally minutes away, I believe, from some of the rioters from getting to her and her team.
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--:-- Leo Wolfson: Now let's talk about this primary. Coming up on August 16th, recent polling from the Casper Star Tribune shows that her challenger, Harriet Hageman, is ahead by about 20 points. Tell me everything you know about Harriet Hageman. Who is she?
--:-- Leo Wolfson: Yeah. So she spent pretty much her whole life in Wyoming. She's a land and water attorney, but she's generally well-respected in the state, especially within the Republican Party. She ran for governor in 2018, and she finished third, a close third in that election. And that kind of really brought her up on the state radar as far as politics. She was involved in state politics before that. She was kind of a prominent delegate within the Wyoming Republican Party, and she was very active at the National Convention in 2016 for the Republican Party. And she even went as far as calling Trump the weakest candidate and a xenophobe. Now, since then, she has walked back those comments and she said she was misled by Democrats and the media in making those comments. And then, of course, when she got President Trump's endorsement back in September 2021, that kind of sealed the deal for many voters right then and there.
--:-- Noelle King: What is Harriet Hageman's argument? What is her platform? What's she focusing on?
--:-- Leo Wolfson: So the forefront of her campaign is that Wyoming is not being represented in Washington. And she obviously she brings the Liz Cheney's role in the January 6th committee and speaking out against Trump, the forefront of her campaign. She's claimed that Cheney has betrayed Wyoming residents and left them out to dry, so to speak. And one of her big campaign speeches has been is called Fed Up. We're fed up with a federal government that doesn't seem to work for us anymore. We're fed up with out-of-control spending. And we fed up with the radical Biden agenda And she just goes through a litany of things that Wyoming residents are fed up with in inflation Joe Biden We fed up with gasoline and diesel We fed up with a shortage of fertilizer for our farmers and with the supply chain that has been broken by the incompetence of our federal agencies.
--:-- Noelle King: Her and Cheney, to be honest, are not super different politically, aside from their thoughts on President Donald Trump. Hageman might be a little bit more conservative on certain issues, but they're both very skeptical of the COVID-19 pandemic and its origins. And they are just very consistent with being pro-fossil fuels and skeptical of green energy and climate change.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: So when Liz Cheney makes her pitch to the people of Wyoming, what is her message? Does she say Harriet and I agree about everything? The thing we don't agree about is Donald Trump? Like, how is she working this very big thing into her campaign message?
--:-- Noelle King: You know, it's funny. She doesn't really work Hageman into that narrative so much as just talking about herself and Donald Trump. And she really sees this election purely as a battle between her and Donald Trump. If we set aside our founding principles for the politics of the moment, the miracle of our constitutional republic will slip away. We must not let that happen.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: She's certainly made it a key focus of her campaign. Of course, she's touched on other issues and talking about how she thinks she's a great representative for Wyoming voters and things of that nature. But I mean, it would be untrue to say that the focus on Donald Trump and his actions are not the key focus of her campaign.
--:-- Noelle King: And in line with that, I mean, one of the things that has happened, we know this from very good both local and national reporting, is that Liz Cheney has all of a sudden begun to appeal to Democratic voters. Yeah, it's very interesting to see who and where she's getting her donations from. Wyoming has had a very small proportion of her overall campaign donations, and to a certain extent, that does play into the state's small population, of course. But it is so grossly out of alignment in proportion to some of these other states.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: So for instance, if you look at some of the FEC data from the second quarter that ended on June 30th, Cheney had earned around $338,000 from Wyoming donors and around $828,000 from Virginia donors at that same deadline. This pales in comparison to what she made from California donors, which was $1.2 million at that same time frame. And just some of the names are just really interesting to see where her support has come from. There is a Biden supporter in California who previously sat on the Yahoo board, who is a part owner in the San Francisco Giants baseball organization who has donated to her campaign. Melinda Gates, former wife of Bill Gates, has donated to her campaign. The list goes on and on.
--:-- Noelle King: With voters in Wyoming, to be honest, the finance information hasn't maybe struck as much of a strong chord as it would in other states or maybe as one might expect because I think for Wyoming residents, so much of it still just comes down to whether you're there in person and you're making those connections. And all the money involved is almost kind of superfluous to a lot of people in my personal opinion.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: But it, of course, sets Cheney up for a potential presidential run in 2024 if she wants to do that. She has about $7.4 million cash in hand in her war chest right now, which is a very unlikely amount that she'll be spending before now and Election Day. And the primary election will pretty much dictate the winner of the general, realistically, in Wyoming.
--:-- Noelle King: Has she given any indication? She has not. But she has not ruled out running for president when asked about it multiple times. I haven't made a decision about that yet. And I'm obviously very focused on my reelection. I'm very focused on the January 6th committee. I'm very focused on my obligations to do the job that I have now.
--:-- Dick Cheney: She's very much, I'm sure, thinking about her dad and trying to accomplish great goals before he passes away someday. And she's very close with her father. She talks to him on an almost daily basis. Liz is fearless. She never backs down from the fight. There is nothing more important she will ever do than lead the effort to make sure Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office. And she will succeed.
--:-- Noelle King: She has a lot of work to do if she wants to run for president. In theoretical polls for 2024 candidates, she's running way behind Governor DeSantis and Trump in the polls. And even though she may have $7 million cash in hand after this election, it's a tiny amount compared to what DeSantis, who has raised over $100 million, And Trump, who has also raised over $100 million in his PAC, have raised for a potential presidential run in 2024 for their respective campaigns.
--:-- Leo Wolfson: But it makes you wonder, with some of the ties that she's been building with some Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, it makes one wonder that she might not seek out a cabinet position someday, perhaps, in a Democrat president's office. It could be something that would look very good for a Democrat president to have a bipartisan presence in their cabinet. And she does have legitimate foreign policy experience and is something you can tell that she's very interested and passionate about. So that could be another avenue she may pursue in the future.
--:-- Noelle King: Today's show was produced by Amanda Llewellyn. It is her first show with us. Thank you, Amanda. It was edited by Matthew Collette and fact-checked by Laura Bullard. It was engineered by Efim Shapiro. The rest of our team includes Halima Shah, Hadi Mawagdi, Victoria Chamberlain, Avishai Artsy, Miles Bryan and Tori Dominguez, and the co-host with the co-most, Sean Ramos-Firm. Our supervising producer is Amina El-Sadi. We use music from Breakmaster Cylinder and Noam Hassenfeld, and we're distributed to public radio stations across these United States in partnership with WNYC. I'm Noelle King. Today Explained is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Thank you.
