WASHINGTON — In a clear rebuke of Donald Trump and his wing of the GOP, George W. Bush will headline a Dallas fundraiser next month for Liz Cheney — who lost her House leadership post after supporting Trump’s impeachment over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Few fellow Republicans have incurred as much wrath from Trump. The 45th president has vowed to oust Cheney from Wyoming’s sole congressional seat in retaliation for the impeachment vote, throwing his considerable weight in the party behind one of her rivals in the primary.
Cheney’s father, Dick Cheney, served as Bush’s vice president.
The invitation for the Oct. 18 reception sends an unmistakable signal of Bushworld circling wagons around Cheney and against Trump and on Wednesday night, Trump hit back with a tirade.
“RINO former President George `Dubya’ Bush and his flunky Karl Rove are endorsing warmongering and very low polling, Liz Cheney. Bush is the one who got us into the quicksand of the Middle East and, after spending trillions of dollars and killing nearly a million people, the Middle East was left in worse shape after 21 years than it was when he started his stupidity,” Trump said in a statement issued through his political action committee.
He added a swipe at Dick Cheney, noting that he’d pardoned Cheney’s former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, after Bush had refused. Trump effectively called Cheney an ingrate for backing his own daughter’s reelection despite the pardon.
Co-hosts of the Dallas reception for Liz Cheney include the executive director of the George W. Bush Institute, Holly Kuzmich, and the first director of Bush’s presidential library, Mark Langdale, Bush’s ambassador to Costa Rica.
The most recognizable names include Rove, Bush’s longtime strategist Rove; former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Trump’s ambassador to NATO, and Joe Straus, a former speaker of the Texas House.
“President Bush is impressed by Liz Cheney’s strength and vision, and he’s proud to support her,” said Bush spokesman Freddy Ford.
The clash of the ex-presidents goes far beyond family and political loyalty.
Trump needled Bush’s younger brother as “low-energy Jeb” during the 2016 primaries. George W. Bush later averred that he couldn’t bring himself to vote for Trump that fall against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Presidents typically reach out to predecessors for occasional counsel but Trump insisted he had nothing to learn from Bush, whose invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks he criticized.
Bush mostly bit his tongue through the Trump presidency but has weighed in with an occasional rebuke.
In a speech marking the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush made his views on Trump clear, linking the hijackers to the Jan. 6 mob Trump had encouraged to derail the election.
“There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home,” Bush said. “But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.”
Ten House Republicans voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 riot, and seven GOP senators voted to convict. Cheney was the No. 3 House GOP leader at the time. In May, Republican colleagues ousted her from the post.