Liz Cheney won't step down after being censured, says Trump has no place in GOP: 'People have been lied to'

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-highest ranking House Republican, is standing her ground after her own state's Republican Party censured her and demanded her immediate resignation.

What is the background?

The Wyoming Republican Party overwhelmingly supported censuring Cheney in a vote on Saturday. In fact, only eight members of the state party's 74-member central committee opposed taking action against Cheney.

Cheney's fellow Wyoming Republicans are angry that she supported impeaching former President Donald Trump over the role that she believed he played in the deadly violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

"The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the president," Cheney said prior to voting in support of Trump's second impeachment

How did Cheney respond?

Despite Wyoming Republicans demanding her immediate resignation, Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday" that she will not step down.

Cheney explained that her "most important duty is to the Constitution" — not to blind partisanship.

"I've explained and will continue to explain to supporters all across the state and voters all across the state, the oath that I took to the Constitution compelled me to vote for impeachment and it doesn't bend to partisanship, it doesn't bend to political pressure," Cheney said.

Cheney added that her fellow Wyoming Republicans are "mistaken," pointing to their claims that left-wing agitators from Antifa and Black Lives Matter were responsible for the Capitol riots, a claim that has been thoroughly discredited.

"People have been lied to. The extent to which the president, President Trump for months leading up to Jan. 6 spread the notion that the election had been stolen or that the election was rigged was a lie and people need to understand that," Cheney said. "We need to make sure that we as Republicans are the party of truth that we are being honest about what really did happen in 2020 so we actually have a chance to win in 2022 and win the White House back in 2024."

Rep Liz Cheney says she refuses to step down following state GOP censurewww.youtube.com

Later in the interview, Cheney addressed Trump's position in the Republican Party moving forward.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in late January and revealed afterward that he would rely on Trump to help Republicans retake control of the House in 2022.

However, Cheney told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace that Trump should not have a position in the Republican Party any longer, pointing to the fact that under Trump's leadership, Republicans lost control of the House, Senate, and White House.

"We're the party of Abraham Lincoln. We're the party of Ronald Reagan. We have to really take a hard look at who we are and what we stand for and what we believe in," Cheney said.

"I think when you look at both his actions leading up to what happened on Jan. 6, the fact that he was impeached in a bipartisan fashion, the fact that he lost the presidency, the fact that we lost the Senate, we have to be in a position where we can say we stand for principle, we stand for ideal," she continued.

"Somebody who has provoked an attack on the United States capital to prevent the counting of electoral votes, which resulted in five people dying, who refused to stand up immediately when he was asked and stop the violence, that — that is a person who does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward," Cheney declared.