Cheney Talks on Meet the Press About Russian Invasion of Ukraine
On Sunday, Congresswoman Liz Cheney went on NBC's "Meet the Press" to discuss the war in Ukraine and any additional steps that the United States should be taking to counter Russia's invasion.
When asked if chemical weapons are a red line, Cheney said that the U.S. and NATO should consider every possible action to stop Russia from continuing to invade.
"I think that it should be, Chuck. And I think that we in the West, the United States and NATO, we need to stop telling the Russians what we won’t do...Putin's actions so far have demonstrated, first of all, that the Russian military is nowhere near as capable as the world perhaps thought it was, probably not as capable as Putin thought it was," Cheney said. "And they need to understand that if the brutality here increases, the United States will contemplate and consider every possible range of actions along with our NATO allies."
When asked if Putin should be allowed to keep any of Ukraine's territory, Cheney said that for the stability of the region, Putin shouldn't be able to gain anything from the war.
"I think it's very important that Putin not reap any rewards at all for this aggression. I think territorial gains would be a reward for him," Cheney said. "I think that we cannot be in a situation where, you know, the security and the peace that has been guaranteed, really, since 1945 on the continent of Europe, certainly, suddenly now powers believe that by the kind of onslaught that you've seen, the kind of war crimes, the kind of brutality you've seen Putin unleash, that they can gain from that. So, I do think it's critically important for the United States and for NATO to be clear. Obviously, we are going to support President Zelenskyy, but we need to be very clear we do not believe Putin should be able to gain, to benefit from the actions he's taken."
When asked if Cheney regretted her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump in 2019, Cheney said that there wasn't enough evidence to vote to convict, but that the January 6 committee hopes to not repeat previous mistakes.
"Having sat through watching the hearings, watching the evidence that was put on for the first impeachment, at the end of the day the evidence that was put on didn't make the case," Cheney said. "The January 6th situation and attack is obviously something that is fundamentally different. We all watched that unfold in real-time. We all lived through that attack. But I will say that the January 6th Committee is very much focused on lessons learned from that first impeachment and very much focused on making sure the American people have all of the facts and the truth about what happened."
During Trump's first impeachment trial, which involved the former president allegedly withholding military aid to Ukraine in exchange for political favors, Cheney said she opposed attempts to impeach Trump because the process was done unfairly.
"They have absolutely stacked the deck in this entire process, they've abused their power, they've abused the rules, they've abused the law, they've denied due process to the President, they've told witnesses not to answer Republican questions, they've conducted this whole thing in secret," Cheney said.