The politics behind Barrasso’s decision to finally jump on anti-Cheney bandwagon

Liz Cheney, despite spending most of her life outside Wyoming, once embodied the Equality State’s politics and spirit. At least that’s what Republicans told us when she successfully ran for the U.S. House and during her first two reelection bids.

Republicans, including Wyoming’s senior U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, now want nothing to do with her. But Barrasso was late to join in this revisionist history — until last week he chose not to speak ill of Cheney despite many opportunities to do so.

President Joe Biden awarded Cheney the nation’s second highest civilian honor Thursday when he presented her the Presidential Citizens Medal “for putting the American people over party.”

The MAGA movement exploded. So did Barrasso.

“President Biden was either going to pardon Liz Cheney or give her an award,” Barrasso said in a statement. “She doesn’t deserve either. She represents partisanship and divisiveness — not Wyoming.”

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s oldest daughter has been repeatedly thrown under the bus by members of her party since 2021, when she argued then-President Donald Trump represented a danger to American democracy and the rule of law. Is Barrasso’s change of heart authentic, or an example of trying to advance his own political career? 

It doesn’t take much political backbone for a Republican to say Cheney doesn’t deserve to be honored. But when Trump calls for Cheney’s arrest, will Barrasso play along to stay in the president-elect’s good graces?

Cheney voted with Trump about 93% of the time during his first term. She won her third U.S. House term in 2020 with more than two-thirds of the vote, only a percentage point behind Trump’s total in Wyoming.

As the No. 3 House Republican, Cheney had a golden ticket to eventually become speaker of the chamber if she would just stay loyal to Trump. 

But Cheney voted to impeach Trump for his actions during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, when she declared he “summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”

Standing up for democracy and trying to punish anyone who attempts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power turned out to be a losing message in Wyoming. Cheney was vice chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack, which issued a final report that found Trump engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful election of Biden.

All lawmakers’ lives at the Capitol that afternoon were at risk. But Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), the only other Republican named to the bipartisan committee, didn’t seek reelection. That made Cheney the sole GOP member willing to put her political career on the line. 

You all know the story: Republicans turned on Cheney and she lost the 2022 primary to her Trump-endorsed rival, Harriet Hageman, by more than 63,000 votes.

But well after the Jan. 6 attack and Cheney’s vote to impeach Trump, Barrasso appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and said he still backed Cheney.

“I support her,” Barrasso said. “I disagree with her completely on the issue of impeachment. She voted one way, I voted the other.”

The senator explained it was important that he and Cheney work together every day because Biden’s administration was promoting energy policies “devastating to Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West.”

Unlike many Wyoming politicians, Barrasso stayed neutral in the 2022 GOP House primary. The closest he came to entering the fray was about a month before the election, when he told Fox News Wyoming lacked enough Democratic voters for Cheney to win.

“Wyoming politics is very personal. It’s face to face, it’s town to town,” Barrasso said. “The travel I have done around the state, I think she has a lot of work to do if she hopes to win the primary.”

In sharp contrast, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming) endorsed Hageman a week before the primary. She called her a Wyoming conservative “who knows how to do battle with Washington, D.C. — and win.” 

Lummis did not mention Cheney then. But after Biden awarded Cheney the Citizens Medal, the senator had plenty to say.

Lummis told Cowboy State Daily that Cheney has spent the last few years “perpetuating her vendetta against Donald Trump,” and Democrats selected her to serve on the select committee so they could claim it was bipartisan and fair. 

“Wyoming Republicans made their views clear [about Cheney’s] so-called leadership on the made-for-television Jan. 6 committee when she lost her reelection bid by a staggering 40%,” Lummis said. (On the day of the riot, Lummis called the attack on the Capitol an “attack on Democracy.”)

Barrasso appeared to be in Cheney’s corner for a long time. When Cheney announced her campaign against Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming) in 2013, Barrasso supported his Senate colleague but refused to attack Cheney.

“I think that Liz, she’s terrific and I think she has a future that is very, very bright,” Barrasso told MSNBC. “I just think this is the wrong race at the wrong time.”

Cheney didn’t defend Barrasso in 2017, when the senator was rumored to be facing primary challenges the next year from two far-right Republicans: Jackson-based financier Foster Friess and Blackwater founder Erik Prince. Enzi backed Barrasso’s “effective leadership for Wyoming,” while Cheney said nothing.

Speculation at the time suggested Cheney didn’t want to be tied to Barrasso, who was seen as a target of populist pro-Trump forces in the GOP.

“You don’t want to be seen as if you’re running on a ticket with John Barrasso,” longtime Republican political consultant Bill Cubin told the Casper Star-Tribune. “You want to have your own race and let your own fortunes be up to you.”

Barrasso has generally had a good relationship with Trump — they visited troops in Afghanistan together for Thanksgiving in 2019 — but it has occasionally gone off the rails. In January 2023, the former president was asked about Barrasso by a Sheridan radio show host.

“I sort of think he’s a good man, but he turned out to be really a flunky for [then-Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell,” Trump responded. 

Despite that public slight, Barrasso campaigned enthusiastically for Trump, and the former president endorsed his successful bid for a fourth term.

Barrasso, who was elevated this month to the No. 2 Senate Republican position as majority whip, has praised Trump’s terrible Cabinet nominations and vowed to get them quickly confirmed. This isn’t a surprise considering Trump remains immensely popular among Wyoming Republicans.

But how will Barrasso handle Trump’s incessant demand to lock up Cheney and other Jan. 6 committee members? Will he stand up for the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, or simply allow Trump to use the Justice Department to punish his enemies? If you’re looking for a hint, consider that Barrasso went out of his way to avoid criticizing Trump for defending Jan. 6 rioters’ calls to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence.

Cheney isn’t backing down, nor should she. I disagree with nearly every vote Cheney cast in Congress, but when it came time to stand up for democracy against a would-be king, she aced the patriotic test.

Cheney addressed Trump’s threats on X, formerly Twitter. “Now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic — to protect the America we love from you,” she wrote.

Barrasso said Cheney doesn’t deserve a pardon, referring to Biden’s reported consideration of issuing preemptive pardons to Trump’s enemies so the president-elect could not retaliate against them with phony prosecutions.

Cheney said she doesn’t want a pardon because she did nothing wrong, and she’s correct. But that doesn’t mean Biden shouldn’t do it, especially if he thinks Congress and the courts won’t stop Trump. 

Based on Barrasso and Lummis’ reaction to Cheney’s medal, I’d take a get-out-of-jail-free card over an award any day. Politicians know that today’s friend may be a powerful enemy tomorrow, and Cheney should realize that with the GOP controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress, there’s little left to protect her.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the name of Vice President Mike Pence. —Ed.