Joe Biden calls Liz Cheney after her 37-point defeat

President Joe Biden called Republican Rep. Liz Cheney Wednesday after she was defeated in her Wyoming primary by the Trump-backed Harriet Hageman. 

Bloomberg News first reported the call Wednesday evening, after Cheney spent the morning further suggesting she could run for president in 2024 – meaning she could be a future political rival to the Democratic president. 

But political strategists have warned she has virtually no chance to win a Republican presidential primary, according to a fresh report from Fox News Channel.

Lauren Claffey Tomlinson, a Republican strategist and president of Claffey Communications, told Fox it was ‘highly unlikely’ she’d find success.

‘It’s highly unlikely she could win the nomination, but she could bring into the primary conversation issues important to voters that moved away from President Trump in 2020,’ Tomlinson said. 

‘If Cheney runs for president, she will be a non-factor if she continues by running a backward facing, fighting the last war, battle against DJT kind of campaign. presidential politics is never about what was, or even what is, but about what is next,’ Boyd Matheson, who hosts Inside Sources for KSL NewsRadio and formerly was chief of staff to Republican Sen. Mike Lee, told the network.

Still, Cheney bashed former President Donald Trump and Republicans, saying she will do ‘whatever it takes’ to keep the former president out of the White House in her appearance with Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s Today show.

The three-term congresswoman for Wyoming’s at-large district placed the blame for her 37.4-point loss Tuesday night solely on former President Donald Trump, who backed lHageman.

She refused to accept any suggestions that her focus turned away from issues important to Wyomingites in her mission to dethrone Trump. Cheney is one of just two Republicans on the House select committee attempting to peg the Capitol attack on Trump – even though deep red Wyoming was the state with the largest population to cast their ballots for Trump in 2020. 

‘There are some things that have to be above politics,’ she said of turning against the leader of the modern Republican Party.

While Cheney won her last primary by 73-points, she is now paying the price for turning against Trump, which also led to the Wyoming GOP censuring her and House Republicans booting her from her Conference chairwoman post.

Cheney earned only 28.9 percent of the Republican primary vote on Tuesday versus Hageman’s 66.3 percent.

Cheney’s next steps will be to focus on keeping Trump out of the White House, which might include a run of her own in an aim to attract anti-MAGA Republicans, right-leaning independents and even some Democrats.

‘I believe that Donald Trump continues to post a very grave threat and risk to our Republic,’ she said on NBC’s morning show. ‘And I believe that defeating him will require a very broad and united front of Republicans, Democrats and Independents. And that’s what I intend to be a part of.’

‘I know that there are millions and millions of Americans across this country, again, regardless of their party affiliation, who know that there’s something more important than partisan politics and who know we all have to stand together if we want to defend this republic,’ she insisted.

When pushed on if she’s thinking about running for president, the congresswoman said: ‘That’s a decision that I’m going to make in the coming months.’

‘I’m not going to make any announcements here this morning,’ Cheney added. ‘But it is something I’m thinking about.’

She said the Republican Party has become a ‘cult of personality’ and claimed that any GOP lawmaker who ignored or backed Trump after the Capitol riot last year should not be able to discuss any other issue at hand. 

‘This was a threat that we never faced before,’ she said in reference to the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack. ‘He crossed a line that couldn’t be crossed.’ 

She added: ‘And as a nation, you don’t get the opportunity to debate and discuss any other issue if you simply turn your head away from that kind of fundamental threat on our Republic.’

Trump was overjoyed by Tuesday’s election results after making it his revenge mission to get Cheney voted out of her House seat, and claiming that her defeat paved the way for the dissolution of the January 6 select committee.

‘I assume that with the very big Liz Cheney loss, far bigger than had ever been anticipated, the January 6th Committee of political Hacks and Thugs will quickly begin the beautiful process of DISSOLUTION? This was a referendum on the never ending Witch Hunt,’ Trump posted to his Truth Social account just after midnight.

‘The people have spoken!’ he lauded.

Throughout the day Wednesday on Truth Social, Trump continued to take a victory lap. 

‘The Fake News Media continues to push Crazy Liz Cheney and the fact that, despite losing her Wyoming Congressional race to a far superior candidate by an unprecedented 40 points, she has a “bright” political future. Really?’ Trump mused Wednesday evening.  ‘I don’t think so, but perhaps that’’s why we call it the FAKE NEWS!’ 

Cheney’s next moves will be launching a group focusing on threats to America’s government system – mainly focused on keeping Trump from winning another term in the White House.

‘In coming weeks, Liz will be launching an organization to educate the American people about the ongoing threat to our Republic, and to mobilize a unified effort to oppose any Donald Trump campaign for president,’ Cheney spokesperson Jeremy Adler told Politico.

The group doesn’t yet have a name, but it will be Cheney’s primary political group as she considers a 2024 White House bid of her own.

Hageman, a lawyer, spoke to supporters in Cheyenne, Wyoming on Tuesday night after she clobbered her former friend in the state’s Republican primary.

She said: ‘Today, Wyoming has spoken.’

The Trump-backed candidate characterized her win as an effort to ‘dislodge entrenched politicians’ from Washington, D.C.’s ‘uni-party – those Democrats and Republicans who don’t really care which party is in power, just as long as they are.’

‘Wyoming has put the elites on notice,’ Hageman said, adding that if you want to represent the Cowboy State, ‘you damn better well live in Wyoming.’

Moments before, in her concession speech, Cheney hinted at a future presidential run, making comparisons to Abraham Lincoln, who lost a string of races before winning the White House.

‘Abraham Lincoln was defeated in elections for the Senate and House before he won the most important election of all,’ Cheney noted.

Cheney spoke about how she had won her primary two years ago by 73 points. ‘I could easily have done the same again – the path was clear,’ she said.

All she had to do, she said, was peddle former President Donald Trump’s election fraud lies and enable his attacks on the democratic system.

‘That is a path I could not and would not take,’ Cheney said. ‘This is not a game,’ Cheney warned. ‘Everyone of us must be committed to the eternal defense of this miraculous experiment called America,’ she said.

Former President Donald Trump – who made Cheney his No. 1 2022 target – reveled in her loss. ‘This is a wonderful result for America, and a complete rebuke of the Unselect Committee of political Hacks and Thugs,’ the ex-president said.

‘Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious words and actions towards others,’ Trump continued. ‘Now she can finally disappear into the depths of political oblivion where, I am sure, she will be much happier than she is right now.’ 

‘Thank you WYOMING!’ Trump added. It was obvious from early returns from the ultra-red state that Cheney was toast.

She first trailed Hageman by nine points – and then by 25. When NBC News and other outlets started calling the race for Hageman, Cheney was behind by more than 30.  

At the top of her concession speech, Cheney informed her supporters that she had called Hageman and  conceded the race – making the point that part of American democracy is accepting ‘honorably’ election results.

‘This primary election is over,’ she said. ‘But now the real work begins.’ 

‘We must be very clear-eyed about the threat we face,’ she continued. ‘I will do whatever it takes to ensure Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office, and I mean it,’ she also said.  

Hageman’s supporters – a number of them sporting cowboy hats – gathered around barrels decorated with cowhides and lassos munching on charcuterie platters or waiting for drinks at corner bar as Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program played on large TVs. 

At one point, Another One Bites the Dust, played loudly. The crowd cheered when favorable returns were shown on the TVs. 

Hageman appeared at the podium before Cheney had completed speaking. 

‘Today we have succeeded at what we set out to do – we have reclaimed Wyoming’s lone Congressional seat for Wyoming,’ Hageman said.

She thanked Trump for his early support – and used his trademark Apprentice line. ‘If we put you in power you will be accountable … you will answer to us,’ she said. ‘And if you don’t, we will fire you.’

Earlier Tuesday in Jackson, Cheney brought along her famous father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, to a polling place. He and Lynne Cheney sat front row during her concession speech.  

‘We’re facing a moment where our democracy really is under attack and under threat,’ Cheney told CBS News before going into vote. The threat, of course, being Trump. 

‘And those of us across the board – Republicans, Democrats and independents – who believe deeply in freedom and who care about the Constitution and the future of the country, I think have an obligation to put that above party,’ she said. 

She also said that ‘no matter what the outcome is’ the ‘fight is cleary going to continue,’ suggesting that while she may lose Tuesday night, her political career wasn’t over. 

‘Proud to cast my ballot today. The challenges we are facing require serious leaders who will abide by their oath and uphold the Constitution – no matter what,’ she later tweeted.

Wyoming Republicans DailyMail.com spoke to Tuesday outside Cheyenne’s historic Storey Gymnasium had all voted for Hageman – with a lone Democrat saying he chose to stick with his party, and not cross over to bolster Cheney’s chances. 

Wyoming voters can switch political parties the day of the election. They can also vote at any polling place, but have to show identification. 

‘Well first of all she should represent her constituents, and she’s not clearly – because that’s why she’s getting voted out – but secondly here’s the reality, she didn’t grow up in Wyoming,’ said 58-year-old Cheyenne resident Roger Forystek, who works in insurance. 

Thanks to her father’s political career, Cheney split her time between Casper and Washington, D.C.  

‘And furthermore, she’s kind of a spoiled brat, in my opinion. She’s a spoiled brat. She’s so used to getting her way, when she doesn’t, she’s throwing a tantrum,’ Forystek added.

Tacy West, a 77-year-old from Cheyenne, had an even harsher take. 

‘She comes from a crime family. It’s well known that her father was a leading pedophile,’ West told DailyMail.com.

There’s no factual basis behind West’s comment – Dick Cheney has never been accused of pedophilia.

‘She acts crazy. You look at her eyes and she’s not there,’ West added.

A local pastor, who asked not to be named because of his line of work, told DailyMail.com that his vote for Hageman ‘was moreso to spank Cheney.’ 

‘She’s being sent to the principal’s office,’ he said. 

Cheney has become the most prominent House Republican critic of Trump – currently serving as vice-chair of the House select committee on January 6.

She’s paid a price – losing her No. 3 leadership position in the House Republican Conference and was expelled by Wyoming’s Republican Party, as the state’s voters in 2020 had voted Trump over President Joe Biden by about 43 points.  

The daughter of the former Republican vice president has remained steadfast in her criticism, saying in a campaign ad last week that her party’s embrace of Trump’s ‘big lie’ – his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him – is a ‘cancer.’ 

‘The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious,’ she said in the video. 

She added that the false claims are a ‘door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law.’ 

For 20-year-old University of Wyoming student Abby Humble, who backed Hageman, it’s not the substance – but Cheney’s style. 

‘I don’t disagree with what she did, I think she was just trying to defend the Constitution,’ Humble told DailyMail.com. ‘But at the same time, I don’t really think that’s what the people of Wyoming wanted … because a lot of them are, you know, Trump supporters.’ 

‘I think she’s being a voice for herself and her own political agenda,’ Humble added. 

Mike Lammers, a 67-year-old retiree and Cheyenne Democrat, said he appreciated Cheney sticking her neck out. 

‘I still like Liz very much and I appreciate, greatly appreciate what she’s doing for our country,’ Lammers told DailyMail.com. 

But he said he voted in his own party’s primary. 

‘I decided to stay Democrat. Even though I know a lot of folks are changing over for Liz. If I were voting Republican, I would vote for Liz though, for sure,’ he said. 

Trump put his whole weight behind the race – vowing to get revenge for Cheney’s criticism, impeachment vote and top role on the House select committee on January 6.

‘If Liz Cheney loses tonight, the Fake News Media will do everything within their power to play it down and pretend that it was not a referendum on the Unselects – That it was no big deal. Actually, it would be a very big deal, one of the biggest!’ he wrote on his Truth Social website Tuesday in the hours before Wyoming’s polls closed.  

On election eve, Trump called into a tele-rally for Hageman and called the race ‘one of the most critical primary elections in the history of our country.’ 

‘The whole world is watching this one,’ the former president said. 

He called Hageman – who was critical of Trump during his 2016 election and supported Sen. Ted Cruz – a ‘person I’ve gotten to know very well’ and a ‘friend.’ 

Then he turned his attention to Cheney.  

‘This is your chance to send a message to the RINOs and the fake news media, the radical left lunatics, that we have unfortunately too many in our country, and you’re going to elect Harriet, and you’re going to tell warmonger Liz Cheney – so bad, so negative – Liz, you’re fired,’ Trump said. 

Trump said that ‘few members of Congress in history have personally caused more damage to our republic than Liz Cheney.’ 

‘The Democrats use her for sound bites, they like to say ‘Republican Liz Cheney’ and then they go into these horrendous anti-Republican, anti-country sound bites,’ Trump said. ‘It’s been a disaster.’

‘She’s aided and abetted the radical Democrat Party in their unhinged, lawless and dangerous witchhunt – a witchhunt that never ends,’ the former president complained. 

He added that Cheney’s pushed a ‘phony’ and ‘grotesquely false and fabricated hysterical partisan narrative’ about what happened on January 6. 

Cheney has pushed back consistently, saying Tuesday to CBS that ‘no matter what the outcome is, is certainly the beginning of a battle that is going to continue, is going to go on.’  

That statement further stoked the sentiment that she may have presidential ambitions.  

‘I’ll make a decision on 2024 down the road,’ she told CNN in late July. 

Her light Wyoming campaign trail schedule – due to security threats – also played into this theory. 

‘Because of threats to her safety, Cheney’s campaign events are never publicized, and reporters are only selectively alerted. Security is heavy and paranoia runs deep in Cheney World, probably for good reason,’ wrote This Town author Mark Leibovich in The Atlantic last week.

She travels with an armed Capitol Police guard, the New Yorker also reported. Hageman has been doing the more typical gripping-and-grinning associated with winning an election.

She held a rally with Trump in late May, and appeared alongside Donald Trump Jr. in June. She’ll hold an election night event in Cheyenne. 

‘You have been the best president in my lifetime in addressing the regulatory burden we deal with,’ she told Trump after he delivered remarks on the call Monday night. 

That specific praise comes from her career as a lawyer, often fighting government regulations and environmentalists – earning her the nickname from some, ‘the wicked witch of the west.’ A 2009 profile of Hageman in High Country News also pointed out that the moniker came from her habit of wear goth-like outfits of all black. 

But beyond the wonky compliment, Hageman has also embraced Trump’s election lies, which he continued to go on about in the Monday night call, saying that Democrats don’t want voter ID laws ‘because they want to cheat.’ 

‘Because that’s what they do,’ Trump grumbled. 

It’s a different Hageman from the 2016 version who supported Cheney – who was running for the House for the first time – and was actively working against Trump. 

Hageman went to the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland as a delegate for Cruz and was part of a group of Republicans who wanted to ‘unbind’ delegates in a last-ditch effort for Trump to lose the nomination. 

The effort didn’t work and when The New York Times highlighted Hageman’s participation in it in September 2021, she said she had been fooled. 

‘I heard and believed the lies the Democrats and Liz Cheney’s friends in the media were telling at the time, but that is ancient history as I quickly realized that their allegations against President Trump were untrue,’ she told the paper. 

‘He was the greatest president of my lifetime, and I am proud to have been able to renominate him in 2020. And I’m proud to strongly support him today,’ the House hopeful added.

‘Wicked Witch of the West’ who came back to haunt Liz: How Harriet Hageman went from Cheney’s ‘friend’ to Trump candidate who railed against climate change and the 2020 election

She has been a fierce critic of Liz Cheney throughout their battle to win the Republican primary in Wyoming. But Harriet Hageman and former Vice President Dick’s daughter were once billed themselves as ‘friends’.

The state’s new House representative worked on her now rival’s US Senate campaign in 2014 and introduced her on stage as a ‘proven, courageous conservative’.

Yet their relationship soured in recent years, with Hageman launching numerous tirades against her competitor over the last few weeks.

Hageman herself has seen her fair share of criticism, being branded the ‘Wicked Witch of the West’ for often appearing in all-black outfits.

The 59-year-old has also been repeatedly targeted for her climate change denial stance, as well as her loyalty to former president Donald Trump.

But it appeared not to bother voters in Wyoming on Tuesday night as she defeated Cheney in the fiercely-contested primary.

The ousted Cheney was already looking ahead to a political future beyond Capitol Hill that could include a 2024 presidential run.

Hageman was born into a Wyoming farming background and grew up on a ranch near Fort Laramie.

She obtained her bachelor of science in business administration in 1986, and a juris doctor from the University of Wyoming College of Law in 1989.

She worked in the private sector in Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado over the next few years and served as a law clerk and federal appeals judge.

Her specialism is natural resources, and she went on to co-found Wyoming Conservative Alliance in 2004. They reportedly sought to ‘increase public participation at both the state and federal regulatory level’. Hageman became well-known for her legal work.

Her most significant victory was in 2003, when she managed to win an injunction on Clinton-era federal regulations to protect millions of acres of National Forests from road-building, mining and other development. 

She also represented groups that sought to remove protections for the gray wolf under the Endangered Species Act.

Hageman has long fought for states to have control over more land – a position which critics say would put millions of acres of hiking trails, fishing spots and prized hunting lands at risk. 

‘She has a long reputation among the conservation and sportsman groups of being an anti-federalist, particularly when it comes to ownership of land,’ said Dan Smitherman, the Wyoming state director at the Wilderness Society. 

He told The New York Times: ‘Most of the main conservation groups and probably 50 to 60 percent of the sportsman groups assume we’ll be playing defense against her when it comes to public land issues and perhaps some issues like wolves and bears.’ 

In more recent years Hageman has embraced Trump’s election claims. 

It’s a different version of her from in 2016 when she supported Cheney – who was running for the House for the first time – and was actively working against Trump.

Hageman went to the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland as a delegate for Ted Cruz and was part of a group of Republicans who wanted to ‘unbind’ delegates, in a last-ditch effort for Trump to lose the nomination.

The effort didn’t work and when The New York Times highlighted Hageman’s participation in it in September 2021, she said she had been fooled.

‘I heard and believed the lies the Democrats and Liz Cheney’s friends in the media were telling at the time, but that is ancient history as I quickly realized that their allegations against President Trump were untrue,’ she told the paper.

‘He was the greatest president of my lifetime, and I am proud to have been able to renominate him in 2020. And I’m proud to strongly support him today.’