Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, speaking at an Anchorage event on Thursday, had harsh words for much of her Republican Party but praise for a rare GOP member who, like her, is willing to criticize President Donald Trump: Alaska’s senior U.S. senator.
“I can’t be here in Alaska and not mention the incredible courage of Sen. Lisa Murkowski,” Cheney said near the start of her event, held at a packed theater in the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.
“You see it almost every day. There are very few Republicans who will be consistently counted on to do the right thing. And she’s one of a very small group,” Cheney said.
The former U.S. House member from Wyoming – and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney – spoke at a lecture hosted by the University of Alaska Anchorage and Alaska World Affairs Council. She took questions from veteran journalist Elizabeth Arnold, who teaches at UAA.
Like Murkowski, Cheney voted to impeach Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and opposed him in other ways.
Unlike Murkowski, who was reelected in 2022 over a Trump-backed challenger, Cheney lost her seat in the GOP primary to a Trump loyalist, Harriet Hageman, who now represents Wyoming’s single House district.
That was after Cheney co-chaired the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and Trump’s role in it, and after she had been stripped of her GOP leadership role by fellow House Republicans because of her opposition to Trump’s actions.
She is aghast that Trump, now back in the White House, has pardoned those rioters, including those who attacked police officers – and that Republicans in office have gone along with those pardons.
“When you hear the Republicans, any Republicans, saying that they are the party that supports law enforcement, you know, please go back and look at the videos of Jan. 6,” Cheney said. "Remind those Republicans that Trump watched the events unfold on television for three hours without trying to stop the riot."
"He watched police officers get brutally beaten by people who were carrying his flag; they were doing it in his name … And then, when he came into office, he pardoned all of those people,” she said.
The Republican Party as a whole — with a few exceptions like Murkowski – has betrayed its convictions and even the U.S. Constitution to become “a personality cult” loyal only to Trump, Cheney said.
Today’s GOP is “something we haven’t seen in this country before,” she said. “The party has walked away from the Constitution,” said the former House member, who noted that she grew up as a Republican and cast her first vote for President Ronald Reagan.
Cheney spent much of her speech calling out House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republican leaders of Congress who she said have enabled Trump’s attacks on the rule of law and other bad actions.
“The problem with Mike is that he’s fundamentally dishonest,” she said.
And they have enabled rank incompetence and corruption in the Trump administration, the most serious of which is Trump’s attack on the rule of law.
Voters should take action to counter the cult-like devotion that has given Trump and his administration ”carte blanche,” Cheney said.
“That’s why it’s crucially important that in 2026, the Republicans lose the majority in the House and the Senate,” she said.
She also called on the audience and public at large to continue protesting Trump administration actions, writing letters to the editor, contacting members of Congress and state legislators and even consider running for office to replace bad officials.
It was a message embraced by the event audience. Many of those attending Cheney’s address had walked over to the theater after attending a May Day anti-Trump protest held a few blocks away on downtown Anchorage’s Park Strip. Several times during the event, the audience erupted in applause and cheers.
Cheney herself has continued to be politically active since losing her House seat.
She started a political action committee and has been supporting candidates she believes will counter the Trump movement – most notably, former Vice President Kamala Harris, who wound up losing the 2024 presidential election. She wrote a book, titled “Oath and Honor,” that details the confrontations she had with fellow congressional Republicans over the efforts to overthrow the 2020 election results. She has also been teaching at the University of Virginia and traveling the country to speak at events like that held Thursday in Anchorage.
Returning to elective office remains a possibility, she said. “I don’t know if I will end up being a candidate again myself. But it’s certainly not something that I’m ruling out,” she said.
That statement was greeted with enthusiastic audience applause, and some follow-up back-and-forth quips to close the evening.
“Clearly, I should move here to Alaska,” Cheney said in response to the applause.
“We have ranked choice voting,” Arnold said.
“And you have one good senator,” Cheney replied.
“We have room for one more,” an audience member called out.
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