On Monday's New Day show, CNN regulars were taken aback that Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney is still a conservative who has not gone completely to the left on the issue of voting laws.
Allegedly conservative CNN contributor S.E. Cupp even sneered at Cheney for not moving as far to the left as liberals would hope.
During a segment that did not include any normal conservatives who might defend Republicans, co-host John Berman brought up a recent interview Cheney did with Jonathan Swan of Axios in which she stood by her support for voter ID laws, with Berman recalling: "Liz Cheney was asked about some of these restrictive voting laws that are being passed around the country, and listen to what she said."
Then came a clip of Swan asking: "How much culpability do Republican elites have for fertilizing the soil for the big lie?"
Cheney was then seen defending voter integrity measures:
That's not at all how I think about it, you won't be surprised to hear. ... I think when you look at things like voter fraud, it certainly exists. I will never understand the resistance, for example, to voter ID. I think you ought to have to show ID to go vote. There's a big difference between that and a President of the United States who loses.
A befuddled Berman reacted: "So Liz Cheney, who has refused to lie about the outcome of the election and lost her job because of it, says these new laws are all okay."
Sharing the segment with liberal contributor Kirsten Powers and liberal talk show host Mara Schiavocampo, Cupp got to respond first, mocking Congresswoman Cheney and suggesting that she is too conservative:
Well, congrats. We've arrived at the part of our story when, you know, our hero reminds her newfound friends on the left, "Yep, she's still a Republican." And I think there is this tendency to look at any Republican who briefly or, in a prolonged way, disavows Trump that they're somehow moderating or moving to the middle or even the left. In fact, the rejection of Trump was that he wasn't conservative enough. And so I don't think that we should be at all surprised when we watch Liz Cheney act like a Republican and sound like the Republicans to those around her.
She then seemed to make a vailed joke about conservative former Senator Rick Santorum being dropped by CNN last week as a contributor as she joked about the possibility of being banned from the show over her risque answer:
But to the voter fraud stuff, I mean, how much longer are we going to continue to perform this theatrical nonsense of recounts and audits? I mean, it feels at some point like -- I don't know if I can say this -- it feels like masturbation. I'm sure it feels good to people, you know, in this wing of the party, but it does not actually end with anything. It might be my last day here -- I don't know.
Berman approvingly responded: "No, I just want to tell you that in that three seconds where you said that, there were 100 things that went through my head, and I decided that I couldn't say one of them out loud, so -- but I know exactly what you mean."
Schiavocampo and Powers then got to make their own criticisms of Cheney.
This episode of CNN's New Day show was sponsored in part by VMWare. Their contact information is linked.
Transcript follows:
CNN
New Day
5/24/2021
6:23 a.m. Eastern
JOHN BERMAN: Liz Cheney was asked about some of these restrictive voting laws that are being passed around the country, and listen to what she said.
JONATHAN SWAN, AXIOS: How much culpability do Republican elites have for fertilizing the soil for the big lie?
CONGRESSWOMAN LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): That's not at all how I think about it, you won't be surprised to hear.
SWAN: Why?
CHENEY: I think when you look at things like voter fraud, it certainly exists. I will never understand the resistance, for example, to voter ID. I think you ought to have to show ID to go vote. There's a big difference between that and a President of the United States who loses an election after he tried to steal the election and refuses to concede.BERMAN: So Liz Cheney, who has refused to lie about the outcome of the election and lost her job because of it, says these new laws are all okay.
S.E. CUPP, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, congrats. We've arrived at the part of our story when, you know, our hero reminds her newfound friends on the left, "Yep, she's still a Republican." And I think there is this tendency to look at any Republican who briefly or, in a prolonged way, disavows Trump that they're somehow moderating or moving to the middle or even the left. In fact, the rejection of Trump was that he wasn't conservative enough. And so I don't think that we should be at all surprised when we watch Liz Cheney act like a Republican and sound like the Republicans to those around her.
But to the voter fraud stuff, I mean, how much longer are we going to continue to perform this theatrical nonsense of recounts and audits? I mean, it feels at some point like -- I don't know if I can say this -- it feels like masturbation. I'm sure it feels good to people, you know, in this wing of the party, but it does not actually end with anything. It might be my last day here -- I don't know.
BERMAN: No, I just want to tell you that in that three seconds where you said that, there were 100 things that went through my head --
CUPP: Was that one of them?
BERMAN: -- and I decided that I couldn't say one of them out loud, so -- but I know exactly what you mean.
MARA SCHIAVOCAMPO, TALK SHOW HOST: Well, it is certainly performative outrage about a nonexistent problem. ... And as Kirsten (Powers) noted, these recounts give some legitimacy to this nonexistent problem. And what we're saying with Liz Cheney, you know, she was very clear. She said she wasn't going to go along with the big lie. Now, she's making it clear she will go along with "a" big lie -- maybe not "the" big lie, but this is a pretty big one. Because she has said that the big lie is a threat to democracy, right? What's a greater threat to democracy than unnecessarily limiting access to voting.
