Former Presidents Donald Trump and George W. Bush are going head-to-head in Rep. Liz Cheney’s reelection campaign.
Bush will attend a fundraiser to support Cheney, R-Wyo., who is among Trump’s top targets to unseat, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
The Oct. 18 fundraiser, Bush’s first campaign event of the 2022 midterms, will be held in Dallas next month, according to a copy of an invitation viewed by the Journal.
Cheney, the daughter of Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the people who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Formerly the third-ranking House Republican, Cheney was ousted from her leadership position in May after refusing to relent on her criticism of the former president.
Trump earlier this month endorsed lawyer Harriet Hageman in her bid to unseat “warmonger and disloyal Republican, Liz Cheney.”
“Harriet Hageman adores the Great State of Wyoming, is strong on crime and borders, powerfully supports the Second Amendment, loves our military and our vets, and will fight for election integrity and energy independence (which Biden has already given up),” Trump wrote in a Sept. 9 statement.
“Unlike RINO Liz Cheney, Harriet is all in for America First. Harriet has my complete and total endorsement in replacing the Democrats’ number one provider of sound bites, Liz Cheney.”
Wyoming state Sen. Anthony Bouchard also announced that he will run in the GOP primary, and had raised about $550,000 as of June 30, the Journal said.
The Journal reported that Cheney has enjoyed the two best fundraising quarters of her political career this year, raising $1.5 million in the first three months and $1.9 million in the following three.
Former House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan, Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mitt Romney, R-Utah, either have helped Cheney raise money or contributed to her campaign from their respective PACs.
During the 20-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush urged Americans to confront the threat of domestic terrorism — seemingly a response to the Jan. 6 Capitol violence.
“There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home,” Bush said. “But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.”
Trump then admonished Bush for his comments.
“The World Trade Center came down during his watch,” Trump said in a statement. “Bush led a failed and uninspiring presidency. He shouldn’t be lecturing anybody!”
The Cheney fundraiser in Dallas will be co-hosted by Karl Rove, a longtime Bush adviser who also consulted with Trump during his 2020 reelection campaign, and former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who served as Trump’s ambassador to NATO.
