Top US Republicans on Sunday sought to portray their expected ouster of Representative Liz Cheney as an act of unity, despite warnings that the move could deepen divisions over former president Donald Trump and sink party hopes in the 2022 elections.
In the strongest sign yet that Ms Cheney faces defeat in a party vote expected on Wednesday, the top Republican in the House of Representatives said he would back congresswoman Elise Stefanik to replace the Wyoming Republican as chair of the 212-member House Republican Conference.
Republicans hope to reclaim majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives in next year's congressional elections. Most politicians have sought to placate Mr Trump and the Republican voters who enthusiastically support him, despite the loss of both chambers and the White House during his presidency.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and Representative Jim Banks, who heads the Republican Study Committee, a leading conservative caucus, said Ms Cheney is under fire as a party leader because of her repeated criticism of Mr Trump's falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen has distracted from party messaging against Democratic President Joe Biden's agenda.
"We need to be united and that starts with leadership," Mr McCarthy told the Fox News program, "Sunday Morning Futures." "We want to be united moving forward, and I think that's what will take place."
Asked if he supports Ms Stefanik for Ms Cheney's position, Mr McCarthy replied: "Yes, I do."
Ms Stefanik, a 36-year-old from New York state whose status in the party rose after she aggressively defended Mr Trump during congressional hearings ahead of his 2019 impeachment, is also supported by No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise and by Mr Trump himself.
Liz Cheney waits for US President Joe Biden to deliver his first address to a joint session of the US Congress in the House chamber on 28 April, 2021. Source: Getty Images
Ms Cheney was among 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr Trump on a charge of inciting insurrection after hundreds of his supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January in a riot that left five people dead including a police officer.
The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney has continued to criticise Mr Trump for repeating falsehoods about his election loss to Mr Biden and has called on Republicans to become the "party of truth" by rejecting his claims.
She warned in an opinion column for the Washington Post last week that the Republican party was at a "turning point", and Republicans had to decide if they were going to "choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution".
"Any leader who is not focused on pushing back against the radical and dangerous Biden agenda needs to be replaced," Mr Banks, whose caucus represents about 70 per cent of the House Republican conference, told the Fox News Sunday program.
But while Mr McCarthy and Mr Banks cast Ms Cheney's likely ejection from the party leadership as a step toward unity, others said Wednesday's vote would only deepen divisions that could sink the party.
"Right now, it's basically the Titanic. We're in the middle of this slow sink. We have a band playing on the deck telling everybody it's fine," Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger, who also voted to impeach Mr Trump, told CBS' "Face the Nation" program.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, who is seen as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2024, likened the Ms Cheney vote to "a circular firing squad" in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.
"We had the worst four years we've had - ever - in the Republican Party, losing the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate. And successful politics is about addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division," Hogan said.
Ms Cheney held off an initial challenge to her House leadership position earlier this year.
She also faces an uphill 2022 re-election battle in her home state of Wyoming, where Mr Trump is working to defeat her as the state's sole House member. She and the former president each received nearly 70 per cent of Wyoming's vote in November.
