Lieutenant Gov. of Georgia, Geoff Duncan (R), on Wednesday offered his support for Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) who he said is “telling the truth,” in spite of calls for her ouster from Republicans wedded to former President Donald Trump who refuse to reckon with the danger of false claims about a stolen 2020 presidential election.
“There’s definitely chaos on the battlefield right now,” Duncan said during a CNN interview on Wednesday morning when asked about the House GOP effort to replace Cheney.
“It’s going to take some time for I think the base to come back. But at the end of the day, I think, just like Liz Cheney, I believe in telling the truth. I think real leadership is about telling the truth,” he added.
"Just like Liz Cheney, I believe in telling the truth," GA Lt. Gov @GeoffDuncanGA says. "Any Republican talking…about the election fraud issues that have been debunked is not leadership. It only shows that you're able to take commands from Donald Trump." pic.twitter.com/SnsaAqR0VD
— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) May 5, 2021
The comments come after reports that top House Republicans have been turning their backs on Cheney who has publicly broken with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on issues of Trump’s enduring influence over the party and reckoning with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
McCarthy was caught on a hot mic ahead of a Fox News interview on Tuesday saying that he has “had it” with Cheney, after she has repeatedly pushed back on Trump and his congressional allies for spewing mistruths about the 2020 elections.
In the wake of last year’s presidential election, Duncan had endured attacks from Trump after joining a group of Republican officials in Georgia who refused efforts to overturn the state’s election results. In December, Trump pushed for Duncan’s ouster and called him a “RINO Never Trumper.”
Duncan suggested on Wednesday that Republicans who continue to talk about long-ago-debunked claims of election fraud are not conveying leadership.
“It only shows that you’re able to take commands from Donald Trump,” Duncan said.
In an apparent reference to the ex-president who has spent much of his first months out of office in the Sunshine State at his Mar-a-Lago club, Duncan added that he was puzzled by “any Republican who thinks that it makes sense to fan the flames on stuff that’s been debunked a million times, all in pursuit to trying to keep one person down in Florida happy.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said.
