Dick Cheney Says He’ll Vote for Kamala Harris

CHEYENNE, Wyoming — Former Vice President Dick CheneyA lifelong Republican, he will vote for Kamala Harris in the presidential election, he announced on Friday.

Liz Cheney, who herself supported Harris On Wednesday, she announced her support for her father for the first time when The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich asked her about it during an onstage interview at The Texas Tribune festival in Austin.

“Wow,” Leibovich replied, as the audience responded with applause.

Like his daughter, Dick Cheney has been an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump, most notably during Liz Cheney’s unsuccessful 2022 re-election campaign.

Dick Cheney issued a statement Friday reaffirming his support, which could almost entirely be read as an opposition to Trump rather than an endorsement of Harris.

“He will never again be trusted to govern,” the statement read. “As citizens, each of us has a responsibility to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That’s why I will be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Trump responded on his Truth Social platform, calling the former vice president an “irrelevant RINO, along with his daughter,” an acronym that stands for “Republican in Name Only.”

Asked for comment, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said: “Who is Liz Cheney?”

The campaign acknowledged that Cheung was being sarcastic, also pointing to a comment Liz Cheney posted online four years ago in which she called Harris a “radical liberal.”

Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon issued a statement saying, “The Vice President is proud to have the endorsement of Vice President Cheney and deeply respects his courage to put country above party.”

Dick Cheney, 83, has not been seen in public much in the past year or more. He has struggled with heart problems since he was 40 and underwent a heart transplant in 2012.

Dick Cheney’s Friday statement was similar to his 2022 statement. campaign advertising for Liz Cheney, who was seeking a fourth term as Wyoming’s only congresswoman. In it, he called Trump a “coward” for trying to “steal the last election with lies and violence to stay in power after voters rejected him.”

The ad did little good for his daughter in a deeply Republican state that was once close to the Cheney family but is now squarely behind Trump. Liz Cheney won by a margin of more than 2 to 1 lost the Republican Party primary to Trump-backed lawyer Harriet Hageman.

Dick Cheney was friends of the Democrats over the years, but I have never supported any presidential candidate.

Both Cheneys supported Trump in 2016, but later Liz Cheney criticized Asset foreign policy decisions and Trump criticized “endless wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq, when Dick Cheney was Vice President, their support waned.

If any of the Cheneys supported Trump in 2020, they didn’t say a word. Meanwhile, their home state of Wyoming has provided Trump with the biggest advantage this year.

By 2021, Liz Cheney’s vote to impeach Trump and her investigation into the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot had made them beyond redemption by Trump — and soon by much of the Republican Party.

There were exceptions. One was Cheney ally Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a Republican critic of Trump, who earlier this year supported Biden AND spoke in defense of Harris at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Several other leading Republicans have endorsed Harris, while some, including Senator Mitt Romney and former Vice President Mike Pence, say they will not vote for Trump.

Of these, only Romney, who is I am not running for re-electionstill in office.