Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the 2024 presidential election was about keeping former President Donald Trump and the “Putin wing of the Republican Party” from taking over the White House.
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “What you say, doing what Donald Trump wants him to do. Donald Trump has not responded directly at all to Navalny’s death last night, he was attacking prosecutors at his rally in Michigan. He’s posted dozens of times on his Truth Social social media app calling Biden an incompetent president. So it’s not as he hasn’t been speaking this is the likely Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump. How do you feel about the fact that he has not said one word about Navalny? he’s had harsher words about Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, than he has had about Vladimir Putin.”
Cheney said, “Yeah, I mean, look, Donald Trump, as you pointed out said just a few days ago, that he had, he had told a NATO ally that he would encourage Putin to do whatever he needed to do, whatever you wanted to do. He’s basically made clear that under a Trump administration, the United States is unlikely to keep its NATO commitments.”
She added, “I think that Republicans who understand the importance of the national security situation, who continue to support him are similarly going to be held to account when you think about Donald Trump, for example, pledging retribution what Vladimir Putin did to Navalny is what retribution looks like in a country where the leader is not subject to the rule of law. I think that we have to take Donald Trump very seriously. We have to take seriously the extent to which you’ve now got a Putin wing of the Republican Party I believe the issue this election cycle is making sure that Putin wing of the Republican Party does not take over the West Wing the White House.”
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