Oath and Honor Quotes

“Elected officials who believe their own political survival is more important than anything else threaten the survival of our republic, no matter what they tell themselves to justify their cowardice.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“I expect to pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there can be any kindness I can show or any good thing I can do my fellow being; let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“People died on January 6 because of Donald Trump’s lies. Had it not been for the actions of courageous members of law enforcement, many more lives likely would have been lost.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“Like other aspiring autocrats, Donald Trump cannot succeed alone. He depends upon enablers and collaborators. Every American should understand what his enablers in Congress and in the leadership of the Republican Party were willing to do to help Trump seize power in the months after he lost the 2020 presidential election—and what they continue to do to this day.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“please remember what’s at stake. Remember the men and women who have fought and died so that we can live under the rule of law, not the rule of men.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“If we do not condemn these lies, if we do not hold those responsible to account, we will be excusing this conduct—and it will become a feature of all elections. America will never be the same.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“But if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee in 2024, we must do everything we can to defeat him. If Trump is on the ballot, the 2024 presidential election will not just be about inflation, or budget deficits, or national security, or any of the many critical issues we Americans normally face. We will be voting on whether to preserve our republic. As a nation, we can endure damaging policies for a four-year term. But we cannot survive a president willing to terminate our Constitution.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“So strong is the lure of power that men and women who had once seemed reasonable and responsible were suddenly willing to violate their oath to the Constitution out of political expediency and loyalty to Donald Trump.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“THIS IS THE STORY OF the moment when American democracy began to unravel. It is the story of the men and women who fought to save it, and of the enablers and collaborators whose actions ensured the threat would grow and metastasize.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“I believe that Donald Trump’s decision to attack the lawfully certified Electoral College results and to ignore the rulings of our courts was an assault on the structural constitutional safeguards that keep us free.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“In our country, we don’t swear an oath to an individual, or a political party. We take our oath to defend the United States Constitution. And that oath must mean something. Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“The sacred obligation to defend this peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president… except one.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“In Georgia on December 1, election official Gabe Sterling held an extraordinary press conference in which he pleaded with the president personally to stop inciting threats and violence: “[S]top inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed and it’s not right.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“By December 1, Donald Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr, had had enough of what he later called “bullshit” election claims. Barr told the Associated Press that the Department of Justice had been investigating the allegations of fraud, and “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” This made Trump so angry that he reportedly threw his lunch at a wall in the White House.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“Esper believed he had been fired in part because he had made it clear that he would not stand for any use of the military to contest the outcome of an election.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“In our country, we don’t swear an oath to an individual, or a political party. We take our oath to defend the United States Constitution. And that oath must mean something.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“So I ask you tonight to join me. As we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents—against those who would destroy our republic. They are angry and they are determined, but they have not seen anything like the power of Americans united in defense of our Constitution and committed to the cause of freedom.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“I have tremendous affection and admiration for many of you, most of you, in this room. I know that we all came to Washington to do important work for the nation. History has chosen every single one of us, and history has put us all here together at this moment of challenge for the country. Our nation needs this Republican Party as a strong party based on truth so that we can shape the future. To do that, we must be true to our principles and to the Constitution. We cannot let the former president drag us backward and make us complicit in his efforts to unravel our democracy.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“Trump’s lies about the election had led to the violent assault on the Capitol. People had died. His ongoing attacks against the integrity of our elections were undermining our democracy, and could lead to still more violence. We had to find a way to defeat these fake stolen-election claims that had captured so much of the Republican Party. People had to hear the truth.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“The conservative policies and principles that had once defined what it meant to be a Republican were being replaced by complete allegiance to one man—who wasn’t actually a conservative. One of the clearest manifestations of this was the lack of any platform for the Republican Party in 2020. In place of the extensive policy document that each party normally adopts every four years, the Republican Party adopted a resolution that simply affirmed, “The Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.” I talked to Condoleezza Rice in the spring of 2021. I had served as deputy assistant secretary of state for the Near East when Condi was secretary of state, and I’d known her since she served on the National Security Council staff during George H. W. Bush’s administration. She was an expert on the Soviet Union and a student of history. We discussed the cult of personality that had captured our party. This was something America had never experienced before. I asked Condi if she could think of any historic examples of countries successfully throwing off cults of personality. “Not without great violence and upheaval,” she said.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“any official who attempted to utilize the military to overturn an election would be personally accountable for a grave attack on the republic.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“A longtime, well-respected Republican election lawyer, Ben Ginsberg, explained what the scores of lawsuits had concluded—that Trump was wrong. Twenty-two federal judges appointed by Republican presidents, including 10 appointed by President Trump himself, and at least 24 elected or appointed Republican state judges dismissed Trump’s claims. As Ginsberg pointed out, dozens of courts had analyzed the underlying factual allegations and ruled against Trump and his allies: In all the cases that were brought—I have looked at the more than 60 that include more than 180 counts… the simple fact is that the Trump campaign did not make its case.… And in no instance did a court find that the charges of fraud were real.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“Our nation was founded on the peaceful transition of power, epitomized by George Washington laying down his sword to make way for democratic elections.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“We may have disagreed on pretty much everything else, but Nancy Pelosi and I saw eye to eye on the one thing that mattered more than any other: the defense of our Constitution and the preservation of our republic.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“Later, I would learn that when the Speaker was deciding whether to appoint me, her staff pulled together a list of the 10 worst things I had ever said about her. Speaker Pelosi took one look at the list, handed it back to her staffer, and asked: “Why are you wasting my time with things that don’t matter?”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“These were some of the same people who had protected my family when the threat we faced was from al-Qaeda terrorists. Now they were protecting me again—this time in the face of threats from our fellow citizens, mobilized to violence by an American president.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“One afternoon, I called two constituents who had long been supporters of mine. They lived in different parts of Wyoming and didn’t really know each other, but they had obviously been reading the same dangerous garbage online. They both began their separate calls with me asking whether I was aware that the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court was operating a child sex-trafficking ring in his basement.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“Donald Trump had to be impeached and removed from office. He was a clear and present danger.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6th ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“Donald Trump had access to more detailed and specific information showing that the election was not actually stolen than almost any other American. And he was told this over and over again. No rational or sane man in his position could disregard that information and reach the opposite conclusion.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning