President Donald Trump joined on Thursday jumped into the GOP bickering, lashing out at Rep. Liz Cheney, after the president’s allies criticized her for not being sufficiently supportive of Trump’s agenda.
“Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “I am also making our so-called allies pay tens of billions of dollars in delinquent military costs. They must, at least, treat us fairly!!!”
Trump’s tweet targeting the Wyoming congresswoman marks a further escalation of an intraparty dispute that erupted Tuesday during a heated closed-door meeting of the House Republican Conference.
Lawmakers from the GOP’s conservative wing, including Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), berated Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican, for breaking with the White House in recent weeks on issues related to international affairs and Trump’s coronavirus response.
Until Thursday, Trump had refrained from responding to Cheney’s criticisms. And even in his latest tweet, the president stopped short of calling for Cheney’s ouster from House leadership — a step some of Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have advocated.
Gaetz dragged his feud with Cheney into public view when he tweeted Tuesday that “House Republicans deserve better as our Conference Chair” and demanded that Cheney “should step down or be removed” for not supporting the president enough.
Trump also retweeted conservative commentator Mollie Hemingway, who attacked Cheney for questioning whether Trump was briefed on alleged intelligence of Russian bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars. I am also making our so-called allies pay tens of billions of dollars in delinquent military costs. They must, at least, treat us fairly!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2020
