Liz Cheney has released her call for a concession to Harriet Hageman, after the Trump-backed Republican who won Wyoming’s US House primary on Tuesday told Fox News that her rival had made ‘no kind of concession or anything. either else”.
Cheney gave a recording of the call to Politico. In it, she said, “Hi, Harriet, it’s Liz Cheney calling. It’s about 8:13 a.m. [pm] Tuesday 16. I call you to concede the election and congratulate you on the victory. Thanks.”
Hageman defeated three-term congressman Cheney in a landslide.
Cheney’s work as vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee and her opposition to Donald Trump sealed her fate in Wyoming, a dark red state once represented by her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney .
In his concession speech, delivered in Jackson against the backdrop of the setting sun and the Teton Mountains, Cheney laid out plans to oppose Trump from outside the House.
In her speech, she quoted Republican President Abraham Lincoln, calling him “a great and original champion of our party” and noting that the 16th president was beaten in Senate and House elections before winning the most important of all.
“Lincoln ultimately prevailed,” Cheney said. “He saved our Union and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history.”
She also mentioned Ulysses S Grant, who was a general before becoming the 18th president: “Lincoln and Grant and all who fought in our country’s tragic civil war, including my own great-great-grandfathers, have saved our union. Their courage saved freedom. And if we listen carefully, they speak to us from generation to generation. We must not waste unnecessarily what so many people have fought and died for. »
On Wednesday morning, Cheney told NBC that she was considering running for the White House. She formed a fundraising committee called The Great Task, a nod to the Gettysburg Address, which Lincoln gave in 1863.
Most observers, however, say Cheney has no path to primary victory in a Republican Party dominated by Trump and his supporters. As a strong conservative, she seems unlikely to attract significant Democratic or independent support.
Hageman, a lawyer, once opposed Trump herself but managed to win his approval. She repeated Trump’s lie about the 2020 election, which Trump definitely lost to Joe Biden, being rigged.
She will be heavily favored to win Wyoming’s single seat in the US House in November, against Democrat Lynette Gray Bull.
Earlier Wednesday night, Hageman discussed the concession call with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
She said: “I had no further contact with Liz Cheney. She made one effort and all she said was ‘Hello, Harriet.’ And then that was the end of it.
Hageman repeated his claim that Cheney did not concede, and his spokesperson provided Politico with video of a phone playing a message apparently from Cheney. The website reported, “The message as read on screen contains only Cheney’s two-word greeting before the sound was muted for over 10 more seconds.”
Cheney told Politico she called Hageman three times, leaving voicemail before stepping out to speak.