Laura Ingraham Turns on Dick Cheney After He Criticizes GOP Leadership

Laura Ingraham has taken a swipe at former Vice President Dick Cheney for criticizing the leadership of the Republican Party.

The Fox News host hit out at comments made by Cheney in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, the first anniversary of its storming by supporters of former President Donald Trump.

Cheney, who served as vice president under President George W. Bush between 2001 and 2009, and his daughter, Rep. Liz Cheney, were the only Republicans who attended a remembrance of the January 6 riots on the House floor.

When asked afterwards about how those at the top of the GOP had acted in the wake of the violence on January 6, Dick Cheney replied: "It's not leadership that resembles any of the folks I knew when I was here for 10 years."

Republicans who have denounced Trump over the Capitol riots have risked ostracism from the GOP, over which the former president still holds considerable sway as it seeks to make gains in the midterm elections this year.

Liz Cheney, who is co-chair of the House select committee investigating January 6, has faced the wrath of many in the GOP for her criticisms of Trump. Last May, she was removed from her position as chair of the House Republican Conference and replaced with a Trump loyalist.

Ingraham reacted to Dick Cheney's criticism by pointing to the unpopularity of his administration.

She said she had "always liked Dick Cheney personally" and had also "defended him when Nancy Pelosi and others trashed him," but added that, in May 2008, Bush was the "most unpopular president in modern history, with a 71 percent disapproval rating"—a figure recorded in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp survey.

"That's worse than Biden's," Ingraham said. A CNBC/Change Research poll released this week found that in December, the president had a disapproval rating of 56 percent.

Ingraham continued: "By December of that year [2008], Cheney himself was earning similar accolades in the Veep category.

"So, all the latter-day reinvention won't change the fact that the Bush-Cheney policies proved thoroughly unpopular. Some of them I actually supported," she added, pointing to "economic collapse" and "endless wars" during their term.

"The condition he and George W. [Bush] left the party in, in 2008 was this—they lost the House, Senate and of course the presidency," she said, which is also what happened to the Republicans under Trump after the 2020 election.

The Fox News host said the GOP had changed for the better since the Bush administration.

"Dick Cheney comes to Capitol Hill to decry the direction of the party?" she asked, adding that it had "grown more diverse, bigger and more blue collar since Cheney left Washington. Now that's funny."

Last month, Liz Cheney revealed that Ingraham had texted the then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on January 6, urging Trump to tell his supporters to "go home" during the violence and saying he was "destroying his legacy."

Ingraham appeared on Fox News later that day claiming that the protesters were "not all Trump supporters and there are some reports that antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd." Federal investigators have found no evidence to support this.