- Rep.
Liz Cheney on Tuesday said the GOP must "make clear we aren't the party of white supremacy." - Cheney, a Republican, said her party needed to condemn the hate symbols at the Capitol riot.
- She said the GOP had "a duty and obligation to stand against that, to stand against insurrection."
Republican Rep. Liz Cheney on Tuesday said her party needed to act to prevent the GOP from becoming known as "the party of white supremacy" by standing against the extreme views promoted by many of the rioters during the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
Cheney pointed to the fact that members of the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol in Washington, DC, had displayed symbols of anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, and the Confederacy.
She said Republicans now had a "duty and obligation to stand against that, to stand against insurrection."
"It's very important for us to ignore the temptation to look away," Cheney, who is the third-highest-ranking House Republican, said Tuesday during an online event hosted by the Reagan Institute, as reported by CBS News.
She added: "It's very important, especially for us as Republicans, to make clear that we aren't the party of white supremacy."
Cheney was one of 10 House Republicans who voted in favor of impeaching President Donald Trump in January for his role inciting the Capitol riot.
She has since become one of the most outspoken critics of the former president, who was acquitted in the Senate.
Her comments underline the division in the GOP as it looks to establish its identity without Trump in the White House. Cheney faced a significant backlash within the GOP for crossing party lines in the impeachment vote.
She has defended her decision, insisting she was "compelled" to vote against Trump.
"Somebody who has provoked an attack on the United States Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral votes, which resulted in five people dying, who refused to stand up immediately when he was asked to stop the violence ... that is a person who does not have a role as the leader of our party going forward," she said after the vote.
Axios reported earlier this month that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy asked Cheney to apologize for voting against Trump, saying her colleagues wanted to hear her say sorry.
The request, which Cheney apparently refused, was said to have come before a closed House GOP conference meeting at which colleagues voted overwhelmingly for Cheney to keep her position as GOP conference chairwoman.
Cheney also backed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plans in February to create an independent commission to investigate the Capitol insurrection.
Per CBS, Cheney said the commission should take a "clear-eyed look" at Trump's repeated allegation that November's presidential election was been "stolen" from him as well as the media organizations that promoted Trump's false claims.