House Republicans voted Friday morning to install Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) as conference chair, after Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) was ousted this week because she would not go along with former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie.” Stefanik said in a statement she was “truly honored and humbled” and insisted in a Friday press conference that the party was “working as one team”—despite their very public civil war. Asked if there was still a place in the party for Trump critics, she said anti-Trump Republicans like Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) were “part of this conference” but the party was “unified in working with President Trump.”
Stefanik has a record of espousing center-right views and criticizing Trump, but she has since morphed into a staunch defender of both the ex-president and his attempts to overturn the election result. In turn, she earned Trump’s support to replace Cheney. “She just outhustled everyone,” one senior GOP aide told CNN.
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