Liz Cheney calls Speaker Johnson 'dangerous' for helping Trump 'undermine our republic'

Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney claims that newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson is "dangerous" for the country because he supported former President Trump's efforts to undermine the 2020 election despite knowing they were false.

"One of the reasons why somebody like Mike Johnson is dangerous is because when you have elected Republicans who know better, elected Republicans who know the truth but yet will go along with the efforts to undermine our republic, the efforts, frankly, that Donald Trump undertook to overturn the election," Cheney said on the "Politics is Everything" podcast from the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

According to Cheney, Johnson "was acting in ways that he knew to be wrong" when he sought to convince fellow House Republicans to sign an amicus brief for one of the lawsuits Trump filed questioning the 2020 election. 

"And, I think that the country unfortunately will come to see the measure of his character," she added.

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Johnson won the speakership Oct. 25, three weeks after eight Republicans joined every Democrat in voting to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. His election followed three weeks of chaos within the GOP as several high-ranking party leaders struggled to win enough support for the top job in the House.

Though a member of House GOP leadership, the rank-and-file caucus members rallied around Johnson as he won the support of both conservative and more moderate wings of the party. 

Cheney, who was chair of the GOP conference before being pushed out of her role due to her anti-Trump stances, said she worked closely with Johnson during her time in the House. 

"Mike [Johnson] is somebody that I knew well. We were elected together. Our offices were next to each other, and Mike is somebody who says that he’s committed to defending the Constitution. But that’s not what he did when we were all tested in the aftermath of the 2020 election," Cheney said.

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"In my view, he was willing to set aside what he knew to be the rulings of the courts, the requirements of the Constitution, in order to placate Donald Trump, in order to gain praise from Donald Trump, for political expedience. So it’s a concerning moment to have him be elected speaker of the House," Cheney said.

Cheney was first elected to Wyoming's sole House seat in 2016 but lost the GOP primary in 2022 to now-Rep. Harriet Hageman. 

Cheney lost support from most of the GOP when she joined the House January 6 committee, which investigated Trump's alleged role in inspiring the rioters who stormed the Capitol in early 2021. 

Johnson's office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on Cheney's statements.