The former vice-president Dick Cheney, a lifelong Republican, will vote for the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, in November’s presidential election, he said in a statement on Friday.
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said of the former president and Republican nominee. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.
“As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice-President Kamala Harris.”
Liz Cheney, who herself endorsed Harris on Thursday, first announced her father’s endorsement when asked by Mark Leibovich of the Atlantic during an onstage interview at the Texas Tribune festival in Austin.
“Dick Cheney will be voting for Kamala Harris,” Liz Cheney said to audience cheers.
“Wow,” Leibovich replied.
Asked for comment, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said: “Who is Liz Cheney?”
Like his daughter, Dick Cheney has been an outspoken critic of Trump, notably during Liz Cheney’s ill-fated re-election campaign in 2022.
In a campaign ad for Liz Cheney as she sought a fourth term as Wyoming’s lone congressperson, Dick Cheney called the former president a “coward”.
The ad did little good for his daughter in a deep-red state that once held the Cheney family dear but is now thoroughly in Trump’s corner. By a two-to-one margin, Liz Cheney lost her Republican primary to the Trump-endorsed attorney Harriet Hageman.
Notably absent from Friday’s endorsement announcement was the 83-year-old former vice-president, who has made few if any public appearances over the past year or more.
In a social media post on Friday, Trump called the Cheneys “irrelevant RINO[s]”, using a term he applies to Republicans not loyal to him, which stands for “Republican[s] in Name Only”.
The Associated Press contributed reporting