Former Rep. Liz Cheney, with her endorsement of Democrat nominee Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump for the presidency, no longer gets to call herself a conservative or a Republican, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sunday.
"When you support the most radical nominee that the Democrats have ever put up, that doesn't make you a conservative," Sanders told ABC News' "This Week." "That doesn't make you a conservative. It certainly doesn't make you a Republican. I think it makes you somebody who wants to protect the establishment."
Cheney, who also appeared on the ABC program Sunday, said that she remains a conservative and a Republican, but said she is "certainly not a Trump Republican."
The former Wyoming lawmaker also said she believes several other Republicans and independents will refuse to vote for Trump in November. Cheney's father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, has also announced his endorsement for Harris.
But Sanders, a former White House press secretary under Trump, said that she thinks Cheney is "significantly in the minority here."
"You look across the board," said Sanders. "Prominent Republicans are supporting President Trump, but ultimately, I think she's a nonfactor."
She added that it "should come as no shock" that Cheney isn't supporting Trump.
"What should come as a shock is that she is trying to call herself a conservative Republican or either one of those two words while supporting somebody who so clearly does not represent conservative principles."
Meanwhile, Tuesday's presidential debate will be "more important" for Harris, because she is "somebody who doesn't speak to the media and doesn't take questions."
"At the end of this interview, Jon, I will have done more interviews during this election cycle than she has since becoming the Democrat nominee for president," said Sanders. "It is absurd that she does not take questions from the press, from the American people."
Trump, meanwhile has said he doesn't like to prepare for debates, but Sanders said since he takes questions from the press regularly, "every day is debate prep" for him.
"He'll go in game-time ready just as he does for every interview, every rally that he does," she said. "This is not something that is a heavy lift for him."
But Harris isn't up to the challenge, because she's "so wrong on the issues that Americans care about and she has a terrible track record," Sanders said.
Harris is also showing up from a "position of weakness," she said.
"The economy is bad," said Sanders. "Inflation has skyrocketed. You go to any grocery store or gas station as a family, as an American, you're feeling the failures of this administration. She doesn't get to run away from that."
The Biden administration has also opened the border "wide up" and allowed millions to come in, said Sanders.
"Under President Trump, we had a safer world," she added. "We didn't have conflicts left and right all over the place. She has to be held responsible for these things. She doesn't get to run away from them, and I think that's what makes this debate so difficult for her this week."
Sanders also responded to Cheney's contention that Trump's call for sanctions on China and elsewhere is not a conservative stance.
She said that Trump "uses that as a tool to hold others' feet to the fire. He wants to make sure that we're making things in America. There's nothing more conservative than empowering Americans and American companies to build things here versus building them overseas."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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