Crowd Led by Matt Gaetz Chants “USA!” Outside Wyoming State Capital in Protest Against Liz Cheney

One of former President Trump’s top supporters in Congress held a rally Thursday in Wyoming to blast the state’s sole House member – Rep. Liz Cheney – the most high-profile House Republican to vote two weeks ago to impeach Trump.

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, standing in front of a boisterous crowd gathered at the steps of the Wyoming state capitol, delivered a populist speech as he repeatedly slammed Cheney as a member of the Washington "establishment in both political parties have teamed up to screw our fellow Americans for generations."

And pushing Trump’s "America First" message of limiting the use of American troops in international conflicts, Gaetz took aim at Cheney, who’s long followed in the footsteps of her father – former Vice President Dick Cheney – in advocating for a hawkish and muscular U.S. role overseas.  

Targeting Cheney – who was a very vocal critic of the Trump administration’s foreign policy – Gaetz charged that "there’s basically two things that Liz Cheney has done in the United States Congress – frustrate the agenda of President Trump and sell out to the forever war machine."

And Gaetz said, "Liz Cheney taunts me for wearing makeup in my television appearances. Now, makeup only hides the slightest imperfections of the skin. It does very little to conceal the soulless corruption of Washington, D.C. It’s really easy for me to get a little makeup off my shirt. Far more difficult for Liz Cheney to get the blood off her hands for sending America’s best to foreign lands to die."

The congressman was responding to a jab earlier this week from a Cheney spokesperson that "Gaetz can leave his beauty bag at home. In Wyoming, the men don't wear makeup."

Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican in leadership, has been pilloried by many of her GOP colleagues in the chamber for voting to impeach Trump. Cheney was one of only 10 Republicans who joined all 222 House Democrats in voting to impeach the president for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

More than half of House Republican members are backing an effort to remove Cheney from her leadership position as House Republican Conference chair. She’s received tepid support from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House. Cheney’s also now facing multiple primary challenges.

Gaetz jabbed at Cheney for spending more time at her home outside of the nation’s capital than in Wyoming.

"This is my first time in Wyoming. I’ve been here an hour and feel like I already know the place a lot better than your misguided representative Liz Cheney," he said.

"In Washington, D.C., the private insider club of Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney — they want to return our government to its default setting, enriching them, making them more powerful at our expense. But we can stop them and it starts right here in Wyoming," he said.

Gaetz told the crowd, "You have the power to defeat Liz Cheney in this upcoming election, and Wyoming will bring Washington to its knees." And he argued that "a nation that sends its best to go fight in the worst places in the world should not send its worst to be representatives in the United States Congress."

Politico has more from Gaetz's speech:

"The truth is that the establishment in both political parties have teamed up to screw our fellow Americans for generations," Gaetz said. "The private insider club of Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney, they want to return our government to its default setting: enriching them."

The claim that Cheney and her Democratic counterparts are batting for the same team came in contrast with the congresswoman's simultaneous introduction Thursday of legislation challenging Biden's recent executive order on energy production.

Gaetz also attacked Cheney for the role her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, played in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He disparagingly called Liz Cheney a "neocon," saying she advocated unnecessary wars in the Middle East.

"The neocons say we got to fight them abroad so we don't have to fight them at home," Gaetz said. "I was going to say that maybe we ought to fight the neocons at home so we don't have to fight them in Washington, D.C. But that's problem, isn't it, because the neocons are home at Washington, D.C."

"The real cowboys, I guess, fought the Indians so they could use the land, but what are America's soldiers even fighting for that Liz Cheney sends around the world?" he added. "Places that most Americans couldn't even point to on a map."