The Star News Network’s Washington Correspondent Neil McCabe on the Kamikaze Suicide Mission of Liz Cheney

The Star News Network’s Washington Correspondent Neil McCabe on the Kamikaze Suicide Mission of Liz Cheney

 

Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed The Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmaker line to discuss the political futures of anti-Trumpers of Liz Cheney, Anthony Bouchard, and Adam Kinzinger.

Leahy: On the newsmaker line, the best Washington correspondent in the country. And the Washington correspondent for The Star News Network, and The Tennessee Star, Neil McCabe. Good morning, Neil.

What is going on with Liz Cheney? She sounds like she’s a Democrat these days and she’s on this select committee to look into the ‘January sixth riot’ at the capitol. What does she want to do?

McCabe: I think that Liz Cheney has now decided that she’s going to be on a suicide mission. She’s basically piloting a kamikaze plane for USS Trump. (Leahy laughs) And I just don’t think that she’s going to sink USS Trump.

Leahy: What is she thinking? Does she think she has a chance to win the Republican primary in Wyoming when she is making such outrageous, outrageous statements about the Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy who she’s defying by serving on this Kabuki theater Kangaroo court with Nancy Pelosi? What is she thinking?

McCabe: The feeling in Wyoming is that Liz Cheney is not going to run for her seat. She tried to run as sort of a non-Trump true conservative. And we’ve seen that in other states, people sort of presenting themselves in that light. And of course, as I wrote for The Tennessee Star, and The Star News Network, how Liz Cheney uses Paul Ryan’s fundraising operation.

So she’s completely tied up in the Paul Ryan sort of rebel alliance against Trump. And so maybe she thought that was going to work for her. But the way she’s polling right now, she is not going to win that primary. She could run as a Democrat or an Independent, but that’s just not going to fly in Wyoming.

That might fly someplace else. The feeling is that she’s setting herself up for either a Democrat or an Independent or Republican run for President in the United States. She’s just getting her ducks in a row. She’s checking all her boxes so that the left-wing media can present her as the heroine.

Carmichael: Are you talking about 2024?

McCabe: Yes.

Carmichael: I think her aspirations aren’t that high. I just think she wants to be another Nicole Wallace. And so she’s applying for a gig at CNN or MSNBC.

McCabe: I’ll tell you one job she’s not applying for and that’s Congresswoman from Wyoming. (Leahy laughs) She has basically shredded that resume and will never revisit it. You look at what Donald Trump is trying to do now.

He’s meeting with some of the other candidates who are running for that seat. He pointedly did not invite Anthony Bouchard. And Bouchard’s that state Senator and the first guy out of the box to say that he would oppose Liz Cheney. Bouchard has raised close to three-quarters of a million dollars.

He’ll have more than a million dollars raised by the end of this year. Right now he has thousands of individual donors from inside the state of Wyoming. This is a primary that usually get 60,000 votes.

So you compare percentage-wise that you have a thousand people who have already donated to that campaign that usually gets 60,000 participants, and you compare that percentage-wise to other states. It’s really remarkable the magnitude of his support statewide. Bouchard was not invited to meet with Trump.

Carmichael: Why?

McCabe: The feeling inside the Bouchard camp is that Trump is trying to avoid a primary, and he wants to sort of gauge who these other guys are before eventually backing Bouchard. Bouchard is being trashed actively by the Wyoming Republican leadership.

And obviously, Cheney has dropped some opposition research on Bouchard. Almost like a kill-shot type story because of what happened in his first marriage. It didn’t have any effect. And it’s my understanding that the polling for Bouchard actually got better after that negative story dropped.

The Bouchard camp is going to run for Congress, whether Liz Cheney is in the race or not, and whether Trump endorses them or not. No one else in the campaign has raised anywhere near the money that Bouchard has raised.

There is another candidate that’s raised $200,000. of his own money, and he’s raised another, say, $90,000. from other people. But no one else has anywhere close to what the machine that Bouchard has built.

Because remember, he’s the founder of Wyoming gun owners, and he’s been working the gun rights advocacy in that state for 10 years. Plus he’s a state Senator. He’s not somebody who just dropped in and decided to run for Congress. It will be very interesting to see how it plays out.

Carmichael: Two questions, Neil. Would he be a Trump-type conservative or is he a Trump-type conservative?

McCabe: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Carmichael: Okay, let me move to another race. And that is what’s the name of the guy? The fellow who cried all over himself?

Leahy: Oh, Adam Kinzinger. The fashion model who represents a district in Illinois. That guy.

Carmichael: Is he going to have primary opposition?

McCabe: He does have a primary opponent. Her name is help me, Michael. It’s Lauf.  Remember the young Lady she ran last time and she’s running again. She is sort of a 20 something conservative Republican. Her name escapes me right now.

Leahy: It doesn’t sound like a real problem to be a real serious challenger though.

McCabe: The reason why Kinzinger is not returning to Congress is that Illinois is losing a seat, and the Democrats and the Republicans and the state capital are going to take care of him. And it’s always an awkward thing.

Leahy: They are redistricting there.

McCabe: And so basically, the Democrats can redistrict him out of business. Republicans aren’t going to wait for him.

Leahy: Catalina Lauf is the one that would challenge him. That’s the name of the woman who would challenge him if he has the same district.

Carmichael: So he, too, is applying for a gig on CNN or MSNBC with his antics on the committee.

McCabe: Yeah. And they’ve raised some anti-Trump money, but there just isn’t a future for him in the Republican Party. And he’s still touting himself as a Republican. But it’s just not going anywhere for him. And we’re finding over and over and over again, and we saw this with the great Bob Corker, not to speak ill of the dead. (Leahy laughs)

Leahy: Now that’s funny.

Carmichael: I like Bob Corker personally.

McCabe: I’m sure he’s a swell guy. Just don’t make him a Senator. He thought it was a smart idea to go up against Trump, and it got him great play on CNN. But he returned to private life. Almost went to jail.

Leahy: But, Neil, what’s the impact, by the way of the last night’s victory in a Texas Republican primary by Jake Ellzey, who was not the candidate endorsed by Donald Trump? Donald Trump endorsed a widow of the former congressman right there.

And she lost, I think, like 53 to 47. The guy who won, Ellzey, though, embraced the Trump agenda full on. We got 60 seconds. Any impact on that or not?

McCabe: They’re always going to be local factors, and they’re always going to be some districts are going to want to have the widow take over. And there are some districts that say, you know what?

We want a new guy. It’s like a quarterback controversy. You have two great quarterbacks. It’s a good problem to have. You have two pro-Trump candidates and one of them won.

Leahy: So not really significant in a long term.

McCabe: There is no such thing as a post-Trump GOP.

Listen to the third hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Washington Correspondent Neil McCabe on His Breaking Story as GOP Challenger Bouchard Gains Funding in Takedown of Cheney

Washington Correspondent Neil McCabe on His Breaking Story as GOP Challenger Bouchard Gains Funding in Takedown of Cheney

 

Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –host Leahy welcomed Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmakers line who weighed in on his recent story regarding Liz Cheney and her challenger Senator Bouchard gaining ground in fundraising efforts to oust her.

Leahy: On the newsmaker line, the best Washington correspondent in the country and the Washington Correspondent for The Tennessee Star and the Star News Network, Neil McCabe. Good morning, Neil.

McCabe: (Inaudible talk) 

Leahy: So you are making news left and right again! Your story. GOP challenger Bouchard, a state Senator in Wyoming, raises more than $400,000 to fund his takedown of Congresswoman Liz Cheney in Wyoming. This story went up on Monday, and it is ricocheting around the Internet because all the Washington press corps is retweeting it.

McCabe: You can’t study the end of the Civil War without recognizing that the fall of Atlanta was the end because the Confederacy was making loans against the cotton in those warehouses. Once they lost the ability to borrow money, the war was over even though it continued for another year or so. And money is the mother’s milk of politics.

It’s the mother’s milk of war. And when you have a guy that nobody has heard of, a state Senator from Wyoming, Anthony Bouchard, who is able to raise $400,000 right out of the gate to oppose not only the daughter of a vice-president, of course, Dick Cheney, but also the number three in the House Republican leadership. That is significant. Cheney should have no problem raising money herself.

Of course, she’s raised one and a half million so far. But of course, that’s from Super PACs and that’s from the establishment Republicans like Mitt Romney and, of course, Paul Ryan and a host of other people. You would not be surprised if the number three in the House Republican leadership was able to raise money. And that just makes it even more shocking because Bouchard is able to raise money.

And being such an underdog, who would even expect him to be able to win against her? And I believe that there are people who aren’t even sure if he can win or not, they just want to leave a bruise on Cheney. And now we’re seeing reported yesterday, and I can tell you what was interesting about Washington’s weather yesterday. It was thunder, lightning, hail storms (Chuckles).

It was biblical just as the news broke that Kevin McCarthy was making phone calls to oust Liz Cheney as the number three, basically the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference. This is really stunning because you’ve been following this for a long time, Michael. When was the last time midstream any party, let alone the Republicans, would get rid of such a senior person? It’s absolutely unheard of. I can’t think of one time. Maybe you can.

Leahy: She’s a Never Trumper. She was one of 10 members of the Republican House who voted to impeach President Trump the second time around. President Trump has said that one of his top priorities is to make sure she’s defeated in the 2022 Republican primary in Wyoming. Wyoming has only 700,000 people.

McCabe: Hold on Mike. Only 700,000? Listen, you have to understand for Mike, these are just flyover states for Mike.

Carmichael: (Leahy laughs) That’s true. He was born on the East Coast.

Leahy: There you go.

Carmichael: And went to Stanford.

Leahy: You got me there, guys. So that’s funny. Former President Trump has said a priority is going to be to defeat Liz Cheney in the Wyoming Republican primary in 2022. What’s interesting is if there are multiple candidates that will diffuse that objective. Will President Trump come out in the near term to name who he’s endorsing in the Wyoming primary in the House of Representatives?

McCabe: We could see a vulture move, and that’s where sort of Washington sort of corporate conservative forces say, hey, blood is in the water. If this guy is raising a ton of money, we can raise a ton of money. Why should we let this guy have it when we can put in our own stooge and we can just sort of run this, we can basically steal this seat ourselves?

And what they’ll probably do is split the vote and give Cheney a hall pass. We saw a similar thing with me Mia Love in Utah, where they basically took this former flight attendant and actress and moved her to Utah and made her a mayor, and then they ran her for Congress. Or even with AOC, where you basically just take somebody and then you put some muscle behind them and you put them in Congress.

I think that Bouchard, though, is not going to roll over for that. Number one, he’s in the state Senate. Number two, he’s raising this money not just because people can’t stand Liz Cheney and a lot of people loathe her. But he was also the founder of Wyoming Gun Owners. He also was very active in trying to opposing Obamacare back in the day. He has his own network of activists and operators and contributors.

I don’t see someone being able to pull it off. You’ll notice that when Matt Gaetz flew in for that rally against Cheney, he did not invite Bouchard and Bouchard did not invite himself. He sort of stayed away from it. But he was running ads statewide in Wyoming for himself. He had the money to run ads and just remind everybody that he’s the guy. I will also say that previously I wrote about how Mark Meadows said that the House Freedom Caucus is going to pick the next Speaker.

Well, at that fundraiser on April 27th at Mar-a-Lago, not only was Mark Meadows there with President Trump raising money for the House Freedom Fund, but Jim DeMint was there and people associated with Jim DeMint were there, which is a very positive sign. But also Bushard met with DeMint’s people. And I can reveal to you that he was actually at that fundraiser. Bouchard told me that but he didn’t want to make it public. I figured once he tweeted it out himself, I think that lifted the veil of confidentiality.

Leahy: Last question for you, Neil McCabe. Will former President Trump endorse State Senator Anthony Bouchard’s challenge to Liz Cheney in Wyoming?

McCabe: Yes, he will. There are people fighting because we see Trump’s influence as we did in Texas six. The vultures who want to steal this thing, they’re the ones blocking the endorsement. But I believe it’ll be inevitable because Bouchard is the only game in town.

Carmichael: Cheney is doubling down because she’s called anyone who believes that the 2020 election was stolen, she says that’s a big lie. She says it was a perfectly legitimate election and that Biden won fair and square. She is doubling down.

McCabe: I’m working on this, so I haven’t really submitted it yet. But I can tell you that Cheney is not operating on her own. She is part of a larger network of people who are opposed to Donald Trump and the conservative movement in the Republican Party. And I’m in the process of connecting some dots. So that will be my next contribution to the Star News Network.

Listen to the full third hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Anthony Bouchard” by Anthony Bouchard.