Harris and Cheney bash Trump and vie for Republican crossover votes

Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican Representative Liz Cheney took part in a series of moderated discussions on Monday in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“It's not about partying, it's about right and wrong,” Cheney said in Birmingham, Michigan. “I just want to remind people that if you are at all concerned, you can vote according to your conscience and never have to say a word to anyone. And there will be millions of Republicans doing that on November 5th.”

“Every single thing about my experience and background played a role in my decision to support Vice President Harris, and that starts with the fact that I am a conservative,” Cheney said Monday morning in Malvern, Pennsylvania.

“I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is to remain faithful to the Constitution. And you have to choose in this race between someone who has remained loyal to the Constitution, who will remain loyal to it, and Donald Trump.”

Cheney, who described herself as “pro-life,” said the draconian restrictions on women's access to reproductive health care currently in place in several states are “unsustainable for us as a country and must change.”

Since the Supreme Court's 2022 decision striking down Roe v. Wade was repealed, conservative lawmakers in more than two dozen states have passed highly restrictive laws limiting a woman's legal right to terminate a pregnancy.

The Harris campaign is courting disaffected Republicans who may be unsure about voting for Trump. The campaign launched the Republicans for Harris group in August and has since amplified the voices of a small but growing number of prominent Republicans who have endorsed the Democratic vice president.

Harris on Monday reiterated her commitment to having a Republican in her Cabinet if she becomes president, saying she knows it is in the nation's “best interest” to invite “good ideas from wherever they come.”

“We need a healthy two-party system, we need to be able to have these good, intense debates on substantive issues,” Harris said in Malvern, Pennsylvania, as the room erupted in applause.

Cheney will become a key asset for Harris in the 11-hour sprint to Election Day, helping create what political strategists call a “permission structure” for Republicans who may be reluctant to cross party lines to vote for Harris.

According to Cheney, patriotic Republicans have “a duty and obligation to do what we know is right for the country.”

Cheney endorsed Harris in September and took the stage with the vice president for the first time earlier this month in Ripon, Wisconsin, a city known as the birthplace of the Republican Party.

Cheney also took aim at Trump's isolationist foreign policy, calling it “unrepublican” and “dangerous.”

“Without allies, America will find our freedom and security challenged and threatened, and one final point about that: Don't think Congress can stop it,” Cheney said in Birmingham. “All he has to do is say, 'I will not honor our NATO treaty obligations,' and NATO begins to disintegrate.”

Trump has long expressed distrust and contempt for the main U.S.-Europe military alliance over the past 75 years. This fall, NATO members are expected to “Trump-proof” their military and aid commitments to prepare for the possibility that he will be elected president in November.

Cheney has long been vocal in her criticism of Trump's foreign policy, particularly the former president's decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria and reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan, which she called “catastrophic” in a 2018 CBS interview.

In an interview with NBC's “Meet the Press” earlier this month, Cheney cited Harris' foreign policy, including her strong support for Ukraine's war with Russia, as an area where she agrees with the Democratic presidential candidate.

Trump criticized Cheney as a “war hawk” in a Truth Social post Monday morning, accusing him of wanting to “go to war with every Muslim country known to man” and claiming without evidence that Arab-American voters are a community that This could be those critical of Harris in Michigan who were “angry” that Harris was campaigning with Cheney.