A Ronald Reagan biographer said Thursday that he couldn’t figure out why the Reagan Presidential Library welcomed Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) a day prior as a participant in its “A Time for Choosing” speaker series.
Craig Shirley, who is also a conservative political consultant, told Laura Ingraham that the decision was “a mystery” to him.
Upon hearing that Cheney would be speaking at the event, Shirley said, “The first thing that came to my mind was Reagan’s famous Eleventh Commandment: ‘Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.’ And yet she’s made a career speaking ill of fellow Republicans, not just Donald Trump. So why they would have her there, I have no idea.”
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The Reagan Foundation website describes the speaker series as a “forum for leading voices in the conservative movement to address critical issues facing the future of the Republican Party.” In her speech, Cheney called former President Donald Trump “a domestic threat that we have never faced before,” adding that “he is aided by Republican leaders and elected officials who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.” Members of her party, she urged, “cannot both be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution.”
Shirley predicted that the presidential library would face a backlash over its decision to host Cheney, the chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, which many Republicans in Congress have denigrated to Trump’s delight.
The library, Shirley said, “is going to see donations trickle down because of this and attendance trickle down because of this.”
“Don’t forget, the presidential debates are in a couple years,” he added. “Donald Trump is not going to go to the library for a debate. As a show of unity, other Republican presidential candidates will not go to the Reagan Library to debate, either.”
The Reagan Library most recently hosted a Republican primary debate in September 2015. Debate settings for the 2024 election cycle have not yet been determined.
As for the substance of Cheney’s comments, Shirley said, “There’s nothing about real ideology or anything else like that.” Shirley then resorted to a common talking point on the right: asking why Cheney isn’t investigating the riots that occurred as a result of the social justice protests in 2020.
Ingraham, meanwhile, also couldn’t seem to understand why the library would want to hear from Cheney.
“Why they chose to host one of the most self-aggrandizing politicians in the country—she is kind of the opposite of what I think of conservatives to speak there—is beyond me,” Ingraham said, predicting that the Wyoming Republican would lose her primary election to Trump-endorsed election skeptic Harriet Hageman.
The Fox host later suggested that Fred Ryan, the publisher and CEO of The Washington Post, being on the Reagan Library’s board of trustees had something to do with Cheney’s appearance.
“Maybe that’s part of the deal,” Ingraham said.
