Former Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney encouraged former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to stay in the presidential primary on the left-wing podcast “Pod Save America” Friday.
“I hope she stays in the race as long as she has to,” Cheney said the day after the New Hampshire contest, urging Haley to compete “through Super Tuesday.”
Trump carried the Granite State primary on Tuesday by 11 points after sweeping the Iowa caucuses last week. On “Pod Save America,” Cheney said she wasn’t making an official endorsement in the race, but trashed former President Donald Trump as an “existential threat” who can’t carry the general election.
“So we need to make sure we’re challenging him and working to defeat him at every step of the way,” Cheney said. “And right now, Nikki Haley is in this fight and I think she ought to stay in it.”
“Are you officially supporting Haley over Trump now that it’s just the two of them left?” Cheney was asked.
“I haven’t made any formal endorsements at this point, but certainly I would never support or vote for Donald Trump again,” Cheney said.
Cheney went on the left-wing program to promote her latest book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning,” out in December. The book offers the first-hand tale of the ex-Republican conference chair battling with Trump and his supporters before constituents ousted her from office. Trump, she wrote, was “the most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office.”
The congresswoman-turned-professor at the University of Virginia did not rule out an independent presidential run herself.
[READ: Cheney’s Memoir Offers Warning About Ruling Class, Not Trump]
“We’ll see what happens,” she said. “My number one priority is defeating [Trump] and I think that’s going to guide whatever ultimately I decide I’m going to do.”
When asked whether that means officially supporting Democrats this November, Cheney referenced her support for Democrat candidates in the 2022 midterms. That year, Cheney backed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s effort to maintain Democrats’ majority. In the run-up to her 2022 re-election primary, Wyoming Republicans voted to no longer recognize Cheney as a member of the GOP.
“What I have done,” she said, “is support people that I believe are going to defend the Constitution, and I did that with respect to Abigail Spanberger and Elissa Slotkin.” The two far-left lawmakers survived re-election to the lower chamber, where Republicans hold a six-seat majority. Spanberger is now running for governor of Virginia and Slotkin is campaigning to represent Michigan in the Senate.
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