In March 2025, a purported quote by former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney went viral, appearing to criticize Republicans for their support of U.S. President Donald Trump. Cheney, also a Republican, has long been vocal in her opposition of Trump and was vice chairperson of the U.S. House January 6 Committee, which investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.
Per a Facebook post and Threads post from mid-March 2025, Cheney allegedly said: "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."
(Image via Facebook)
The above quote is real. Cheney made the remark during a June 2022 hearing investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Cheney was criticizing her fellow Republican colleagues for continuing to support Trump even after the former president was accused of inciting the rioters. As such, we rate this claim as a correct attribution.
Prior to the statement in question, Cheney blamed the attack on Trump and some members of his team (emphasis, ours):
In our final hearing, you will hear a moment-by-moment account of the hours-long attack from more than a half dozen White House staff, both live in the hearing room and via videotaped testimony. There is no doubt that President Trump was well aware of the violence as it developed. White House staff urged President Trump to intervene and call off the mob. Here is a document written while the attack was underway by a member of the White House staff advising what the President needed to say: "Anyone who entered the capitol without proper authority should leave immediately."
[...]
The White House staff knew that President Trump was willing to entertain and use conspiracy theories to achieve his ends. They knew the President needed to be cut off from all of those who had encouraged him. They knew that President Donald Trump was too dangerous to be left alone. At least until he left office on January 20th. These are important facts for Congress and the American people to understand fully.
When a President fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union, or worse, causes a constitutional crisis, we are at a moment of maximum danger for our Republic. Some in the White House took responsible steps to try to prevent January 6th. Others egged the President on. Others, who could have acted, refused to do so. In this case, the White House Counsel was so concerned about potentially lawless activity, that he threatened to resign, multiple times. That is exceedingly rare and exceedingly serious. It requires immediate attention, especially when the entire team threatens to resign. However, in the Trump White House, it was not exceedingly rare and it was not treated seriously. This is a clip of Jared Kushner, addressing multiple threats by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and his team of White House lawyers to resign in the weeks before January 6th.
Cheney then made the statement after showing a clip of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, and then-senior adviser to the president responding to her question about whether he was aware of the White House legal counsel's threats to resign in the weeks before the riot (emphasis, ours):
[CLIP STARTS] CHENEY: Jared, are you aware of instances where Pat Cipollone threatened to resign?
KUSHNER: I kind of, like I said, my interest at that time was on trying to get as many pardons done, and I know that he was always, him and the team, were always saying oh we are going to resign. We are not going to be here if this happens, if that happens … So, I kind of took it up to just be whining, to be honest with you. [CLIP ENDS]
[HEARING] CHENEY: Whining. There is a reason why people serving in our government take an oath to the Constitution. As our founding fathers recognized, democracy is fragile. People in positions of public trust are duty-bound to defend it – to step forward when action is required.
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.
The moment took place at the 45:50 minute mark in this C-SPAN video of the hearing. The exact quote can be heard here.
Since then, Cheney campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. In December 2024, after Trump's victory, House Republicans said Cheney should be prosecuted for probing the events of Jan. 6.