Editor’s Note: Say What? is the segment of Liberty Nation Radio where we unveil some of the wackiest, astonishing, and damnable things uttered by politicians and the chattering class.
Tim Donner: It's now official: The Republican Party is in the throes of a civil war after the expected dismissal of Representative Liz Cheney from her third-ranking position in the House GOP. The two-term congresswoman from Wyoming and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney has become a lightning rod for a party in turmoil after she voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump following the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
Cheney has taken it upon herself to lead the anti-Trump pro-establishment forces, trying to bring the party back to the days before Trump. That battle is now fully joined. Cheney attacked Trump in the House the day before being stripped of her role as GOP conference chair, and then, after the deed was done, she vowed never to let him return.
Liz Cheney (day before her removal): Today we face a threat America has never seen before. A former president who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol in an effort to steal the election has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him. He risks inciting further violence. Millions of Americans have been misled by the former president. They have heard only his words, but not the truth, as he continues to undermine our democratic process, sowing seeds of doubt about whether democracy really works at all.
Liz Cheney (day of removal): I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office.
Tim: Does Cheney understand the residual popularity of Trump the president, if not Trump the person? Well, her colleague, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), says apparently not.
Lindsey Graham: The most popular Republican in America, it's not Lindsey Graham, it's not Liz Cheney, it's Donald Trump. People on our side of the aisle believe that Trump policies worked. They're disappointed that he lost, and to try to erase Donald Trump from the Republican Party is insane. The people who try to erase him are going to wind up getting erased.
Tim: Erased. That sounds like canceled, which is frankly what each side wants for the other right about now. Hitting back on Graham was Cheney colleague and fellow never-Trumper Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), saying his party is in denial about Jan. 6 and going off the rails.
Adam Kinzinger: When Liz Cheney and people like me and others are out there saying this is a real concern, if we just wash this over, we act like Jan. 6 really was the Antifa and BLM, wink, wink. Listen to those of us that predicted what was going to happen on the 6th, because what we're predicting is going to happen right now, if we continue to lie to our voters, is the complete and utter destruction of the Republican Party … I have watched us compromise with crazy basically every two years and all that becomes is the starting position for the next iteration toward crazy, and this party's a little off the rails now.
Tim: Now speaking of off the rails, you absolutely will not believe the person who endorsed Cheney this week. Spoiler alert: It might be the last person on the planet you'd want standing behind you.
But as you would expect, Kinzinger is receiving aid and comfort from the left, like when MSNBC contributor Kurt Bardella actually said the Republicans are the new Al-Qaeda.
Kurt Bardella: I've been thinking to myself this whole time Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, the people who wanted to do harm to our nation and to our way of life and our democracy, they’ve got nothing on what this Republican Party is doing.
Tim: Debate that among yourselves. Who's worse: Republicans or Al-Qaeda? Take your time, consider your answer. Toss a coin if necessary.
But in another sharp escalation of a war that's essentially been going on for more than half a century, Israelis and Palestinians unleashed brutal attacks on each other over the last many days, which set loose the forces of the left, calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a fascist and all the rest. Witness far-left Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) going so far as to blame her own president for continuing the same support of Israel the United States has been doling out for decades.
Rashida Tlaib: This is an apartheid system, and Palestinians on the ground have been telling us for decades that their homes have been demolished, that they've been targeted, that violence has been met by Israeli-led forces under Netanyahu's racist policies … What we're really telling Palestinians fighting apartheid is the same thing being told to my fellow black Americans across our country here, and that are fighting against police brutality. I have yet to hear anybody from the Biden administration declare that our money will not be used to degrade, to dehumanize, and to kill or evict people out of their homes.
Tim: Palestinians are actually more isolated now than ever before following the four peace and trade agreements engineered by President Trump between Israel and traditional allies of the Palestinians.
But it was undoubtedly a bad week for Biden, probably his worst so far, between the situation in Israel, the attack on the Colonial Pipeline interrupting the flow of oil and gas to the pump, illegals flowing over the border at the highest rate in 20 years, all exasperated by what Lindsey Graham calls a weak president.
Lindsey Graham: I've never been more concerned about our national security than I am now. Everybody sees Joe Biden as weak. We're going back into the Iran deal. The Arabs and the Israelis are beside themselves. Iran is getting stronger, China is threatening us at every turn, and Russia has troops on the border of the Ukraine. This is a dangerous time. Voids are filled when people are weak in the United States. When the American president is weak, that empowers all the bad guys, and you see that happening every day on the world stage.
Tim: But another thing happening on the world stage, led by the United States as usual, is the dying embers, we hope and pray, of COVID-19. Have we turned the corner? Almost, says Biden's COVID chief Jeff Zients.
Jeff Zients: I would say we are turning the corner. We now have 58% of adult Americans with at least one shot, over 110 million Americans fully vaccinated. The president has set a goal of 70% of Americans being vaccinated with at least one shot by July 4. We've got a path ahead of us, which will involve getting people even easier access to the vaccine, making sure that people build their confidence, those who have questions about the vaccine, that we answer their questions and making sure that we do what we've done from the beginning, which is do this in a fair and equitable way.
Reporter: Why does President Biden in a room full of vaccinated journalists, with everybody in that room vaccinated, why does he need to wear a mask?
Jeff Zients: The president is going to continue to follow the CDC guidance.
Tim: But how reliable is the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control? Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), not one to make rash statements, put it to CDC head Rochelle Walensky in a Senate hearing.
Susan Collins: Dr. Walensky, I used to have the utmost respect for the guidance from the CDC. I always considered the CDC to be the gold standard. I don't anymore. The conflicting, confusing guidance from your agency has undermined public confidence and contradicts the scientific guidance of many experts.
Tim: It did seem that at times the CDC was just groping in the dark, like so many of us or most of us during the pandemic.
Finally, I promised it, so here it is: Liz Cheney endorsed by perhaps the last person on Earth she'd want on her side endorsing truth and honesty. I'm grimacing. O.J. Simpson?
O.J. Simpson: I’ve got to admit, I was not a fan of Liz Cheney. Don't get me wrong. I'm 50-50 on her politics, but I didn't like her. And then I just realized recently the reason I didn't like her had to do with her father, probably my least favorite politician of my adult life, former Vice President Dick Cheney. Then I saw a show the other day and I saw a quote by Voltaire that said that patriotism was the enemy of mankind. Thought about that a little bit. Somehow I started thinking about the Republican Party and it seemed that fact-based truth and honesty seem to be the enemy of many of these Republican politicians.
Tim: Wow. Just wow. Folks, you can't make that stuff up.
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