Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is back in his Stetson and warning Americans about what he characterizes as the greatest threat posed “to our republic” by an individual in America’s “246-year history.”
Cheney, who was Vice President on September 11, 2001 when the United States was attacked by terrorists guided by Osama Bin Laden, and who subsequently helped launch an invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, says that the dangers posed by those two men — and scores of America’s other historical enemies — pale in comparison to the dangers presently posed by Donald Trump.
Cheney’s dramatic and extraordinary statement places Trump, as he seeks a second term in the Oval Office, atop a long list of America’s individual enemies that has included — besides Bin Laden and Hussein — Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Kim Jong-Un, to name just a handful.
As seen in the video below, Cheney says without equivocation: “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”
Cheney says of Trump: “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters rejected him.” He adds: “He’s a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters.”
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump."
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) September 7, 2023
-Former VP Dick Cheney pic.twitter.com/VEwYshijCZ
Cheney’s message seems destined to reach only those who already harbor similar fears about a second Trump term. When Kari Lake‘s “War Room” saw the Cheney video, they replied: “You guys can stop. We’re already sold on him.”
(Lake, who lost the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election to Democrat Katie Hobbs — and who continues to deny the validity of the election results — is typical of avid MAGA Trump supporters with little concern about Cheney’s assessment.)
You guys can stop. We're already sold on him.#MAGA
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) September 8, 2023
The former Vice President’s concerns about a second Trump presidency echo those of his daughter Liz Cheney, the former U.S. Representative for Wyoming’s at-large congressional district, a seat her father held from 1979 to 1989.
A Republican, Liz Cheney supported the second impeachment of Trump for his role in the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol and was one of only two GOP members of the Jan 6 panel that investigated the insurrection, a role for which she paid a political price, losing office after being censured by her GOP colleagues. (Her fellow Jan 6 panel Republican Adam Kinzinger was also censured.)
I said this one year ago tonight. It still applies. pic.twitter.com/i0i0vKBPIY
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) June 9, 2023
Note: Dick Cheney makes his pronouncements on Trump and U.S. history from a position that many — especially MAGA adherents and Democrats with memories — consider compromised.
The former VP himself has faced accusations of lying to Americans while in the White House when, in the run-up to the Iraq invasion after September 11, he said at a national conference of Veterans of Foreign Wars: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction (WMD). There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” Two decades later, Cheney now labels Trump as more dangerous than a despot with a stockpile of WMD.
