Coldplay paid tribute to the late Olivia Newton-John Tuesday night during their show at London’s Wembley Stadium by collaborating with another famous Australian singer and actress: Natalie Imbruglia.
Billboard reports the band brought out the “Torn” singer during their show for an acoustic run through the Grease classic “Summer Nights,” with Natalie singing the parts that Olivia did in the movie and Coldplay’s Chris Martin doing the John Travolta parts. You can watch fan-shot video of the performance on YouTube.
Natalie then stuck around for a rendition of “Torn,” which turned into a massive singalong. Last month, Natalie also joined Olivia Rodrigo onstage in London for a version of the 1997 hit.
Olivia, who’d been living with cancer for years, died on August 8.
(MANCHESTER, N.H.) — Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday he’d consider testifying before the House Jan. 6 committee if asked, in some of his most specific comments yet on the prospect.
Appearing at a “Politics & Eggs” breakfast in Manchester, New Hampshire, where presidential hopefuls often speak since the state holds the nation’s first primary, Pence was asked if he’d be “agreeable” if the committee were to call on him to testify.
“If there was an invitation to participate, I would consider it,” Pence responded.
“But you’ve heard me mention the Constitution a few times this morning. In the Constitution there are three co-equal branches of government, and any invitation that would be directed to me I’d have to reflect on the unique role I served as vice president.”
“Any formal invitation rendered to us, we’d give it due consideration. But my first obligation is to continue to uphold my oath, continue to uphold this framework of government enshrined in the Constitution, this created the greatest nation in the history of the world,” he continued.
Pence’s answer was yet another break from his former boss, Donald Trump, who has repeatedly slammed the committee’s work as politically motivated.
Committee investigators have for months been privately engaging with Pence’s lawyer about securing his potential testimony, sources have told ABC News.
Pence has largely avoided discussing the work of the Jan. 6 committee despite being cheered by the its members for resisting Trump’s demands. In June, he told Fox News Democrats were using the panel to “distract attention from their failed agenda.”
The focus of one of the committee’s hearings zeroed in on the pressure campaign on Pence, waged by Trump and his allies to attempt to get him to support their effort to overturn the election.
Members of the committee have said a subpoena for Pence’s testimony was not off the table, but have also indicated his testimony may not be necessary in filling any gaps given the committee interviewed Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short and had Pence’s former counsel Greg Jacob testify publicly.
The committee also aired a never-before-seen photograph of a phone call between Trump and Pence on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, that onlookers, including Ivanka Trump, described as “heated.”
Hours later, when the joint session of Congress resumed after the attack, Pence rejected Trump’s last-ditch demands to unilaterally reject Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
The committee also revealed that the mob came within 40 feet of the vice president, who was ushered to an underground location for hours as the violence unfolded. Jacob said in his appearance before the committee that Pence stayed in the area so as to “not to take any chance that the world would see the vice president of the United States fleeing the United States Capitol.”
Jacob also testified that Trump didn’t check on Pence at all during that time, which he said left Pence frustrated.
Pence and Trump haven’t spoken in over a year, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News in June.
The House Jan. 6 committee, made up of nine Democrats and two Republicans, held eight public hearings this summer to reveal the findings of their year-long probe into the events before, during and after the U.S. Capitol attack.
Trump, they argued, was at the center of the attack. He was well-aware of the fact that he lost the 2020 election, members said, but moved ahead anyway with a pressure campaign against federal and local officials to illegally overturn the results.
“Over the last month and a half, the Select Committee has told the story of a president who did everything in his power to overturn an election,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in the last public hearing on July 12. “He lied. He bullied. He betrayed his oath. He tried to destroy our democratic institutions. He summoned a mob to Washington.”
The committee will next reconvene in September.
ABC News’ Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.
NeNe Leakes remembered her late husband Greg on what would have been his 67th birthday.
Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, the Real Housewives of Atlanta alum shared a photo of the two in which she embraces him from behind.
“Missing the man that always had a plan!” she captioned the snapshot. “Today is a tuff one…every year on this date we would be out celebrating you! I can’t believe we are wishing you a heavenly Birthday today. I feel like you went somewhere and you’ll be back.”
“I miss you everyday Gregg!” she added. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH.”
Greg died in September 2021 of colon cancer. At the time, a representative for the couple told ABC News that Gregg “passed away peacefully in his home surrounded by all of his children, very close loved ones and wife NeNe Leakes.”
If you can’t make it to London’s Wembley Stadium to see the star-studded Taylor Hawkins tribute concert, you’ll be able to watch the entire thing on Paramount+.
The September 3 show will stream live on Paramount+ starting 11:30am EDT and globally on MTV Brand YouTube Channels. It’ll also be available on-demand that day on Paramount+.
Don’t have that streaming service? CBS TV will air an hour-long version of the concert that night a 9 p.m EDT. MTV will then air the one-hour special internationally, and follow that up with an extended two-hour special in September.
The London tribute to the late Foo Fighters drummer, who died earlier this year in Colombia, has added Travis Barker, The Pretenders‘ Martin Chambers, Josh Freese, Violet Grohl, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, Justin Hawkins of The Darkness, Kesha, The Struts‘ Luke Spiller,Lars Ulrich and Taylor’s son, Shane, to a lineup that includes Chrissie Hynde, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Rush‘s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, Queen‘s Brian May and Roger Taylor, Krist Novoselic, Josh Homme, Liam Gallagher, The Police‘s Stewart Copeland, Nile Rodgers of Chic, Wolfgang Van Halen, Hawkins’ side project Chevy Metal, Nandi Bushell, Chris Chaney, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and more.
Meanwhile, the U.S. tribute concert, scheduled for September 27 at the Kia Forum in LA, has added Sebastian Bach, Barker, Black Sabbath‘s Geezer Butler, Def Leppard‘s Phil Collen and Joe Elliott, Freese, Violet Grohl, Ulrich and Taylor’s son Shane to a bill that already included Miley Cyrus, Pink, Gene Simmons, Chad Smith, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, Joan Jett, Alanis Morissette and many of the same guests as the London show.
Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Elton John AIDS Foundation
Surprise! Adrienne Bailon and her husband Israel Houghton are officially parents!
Taking to Instagram Tuesday, the couple announced that they welcomed a baby boy via surrogacy named Ever James.
Alongside a heartwarming black-and-white photo of the trio snuggled in bed together, they wrote, “Ever James / For this child we have prayed / Just to hear our baby cry / Skin to skin and face to face /Heart to heart and eye to eye.”
“Our baby boy is here & we are so in love! If you have followed our love story… you know that our journey to baby has been very challenging – But God is true to His word and His promises,” the post continued.
Bailon and Houghton, who wed in 2016, continued, “We have quietly prayed while sitting on this most magnificent secret for the last 9 months. He is worth every tear, every disappointment, every delayed prayer, every IVF cycle, every miscarriage. Everything.”
The new parents shared that they feel “joy and overwhelming love & gratitude” after welcoming their son and thanked those who “have stood with us over 5 years on this journey.”
“He’s here and we have never been happier to lose sleep!” the post concluded.
The couple was flooded with congratulatory messages in the comments section, including from celebrities like Khloe Kardashian.
“I am so beyond happy for you A!!! He is the luckiest little boy to have you both as his parents,” the reality star wrote. “You are going to be the most incredible mommy! I love you! Enjoy every second.”
Country singer Mickey Guyton, Real Housewives of Atlanta alum NeNe Leakes and others also sent the couple well wishes.
Is Jennifer Lopez joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe? She-Hulk: Attorney at Law director Kat Coiro told journalist Tara Hitchcock that her “dream” is to “bring” Lopez into the MCU. Jennifer reacted to the revelation on her Instagram stories, commenting with a laugh and some love to Coiro, with whom she worked on the rom-com Marry Me. Marvel is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News…
Wolfgang Petersen, the German director behind such films as Outbreak and Air Force One, died peacefully on Friday at his Brentwood residence from pancreatic cancer, in the arms of his wife of 50 years, Maria Antoinette, his rep tells People. He was 81. Petersen, who received two Oscar nominations for writing and directing the 1981 World War II epic Das Boot, went on to helm 1984’s The NeverEnding Story, 1993’s In the Line of Fire, The Perfect Storm, 2004’s Troy and the 2006 Poseidon remake with Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss…
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will be heading back to theaters in IMAX, along with exclusive, special footage from Andor, Lucasfilm’s latest upcoming series for Disney+, in 150 IMAX theaters across the U.S. and Canada for one week beginning on August 26. “Andor takes place five years before the events of Rogue One, when the seeds of rebellion against the Empire were germinating,” per Lucasfilm. “The special footage from Andor offers audiences a look at the story, which explores a new perspective from the Star Wars galaxy, focusing on Cassian Andor’s journey to discover the difference he can make.” Andor premieres on September 21, with the first three episodes of the 12-episode series. The original series from Lucasfilm will stream exclusively on Disney+. Lucasfilm is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News…
The upcoming Pete Davidson–Kaley Cuoco rom-com Meet Cute will premiere exclusively on Peacock September 21, the streamer announced Tuesday. The movie follows Sheila and Gary — played respectively by Cuoco and Davidson — who instantly fall in love. However, “their magical date wasn’t fate at all. Sheila’s got a time machine, and they’ve been falling in love over and over again,” according to Peacock…
(ROCHESTER, N.Y.) — A captain of the Rochester Fire Department who was accused of taking firefighters to a party filled with racist tropes has retired.
Following an investigation by the City of Rochester, Capt. Jeffrey Krywy was forced to leave the department by the city, Mayor Malik Evans announced Tuesday, according to ABC News Rochester affiliate WHAM.
“As of Monday, he has chosen to retire before termination proceedings begin,” Evans said in a statement to WHAM.
Last week, Jerrod Jones sued the City of Rochester and Rochester Fire Department, accusing Krywy of forcing him and two other firefighters to attend a private party on July 7.
According to the lawsuit, Jones said that when he arrived at the party, he saw a large cut-out of former President Donald Trump and buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken next to Juneteenth flags.
Jones alleged that the Mary Znidarsic-Nicosia, who owned the home where the party was being held, approached him and asked if he wanted to take home the fried chicken.
He also claims that there was an entertainer at the party impersonating Democratic Monroe County Legislator Rachel Barnhart and there was a senior member of the Rochester Police officer at the party.
Nate McMurray, Jones’ lawyer, took to Twitter on Tuesday, criticizing the incident, saying that an independent investigation hasn’t happened yet.
McMurray also criticized Krywy’s retirement because he presumably retired with his full pension.
McMurray did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Jones said that he told acting Battalion Chief George Smith about the incident and Krywy’s involvement and was told it’d be looked into but was assigned to work with Krywy during his following shift, court documents show.
Jones claimed he’s suffering emotional distress, fears that he will be retaliated against by Krywy and others and is currently on leave from the RFD, according to the lawsuit.
(NEW YORK) — Award-winning restaurateur Michael Scelfo has run kitchens post-9/11 and through the 2008 economic downturn, but he said the COVID-19 pandemic and soaring inflation have brought on prolonged issues businesses are still trying to figure out.
“What’s so different this time around is it’s this sustained, evolving-downward spiral since March of 2020 when things hit the fan with COVID and the shutdown,” Scelfo told Good Morning America. “What we’re left with is the economic rubble of the aftermath.”
Restaurant owners are accustomed to dynamic changes, but even industry veterans like Scelfo said, “it feels like we’re continually taking punches and not necessarily getting the relief that we expected.”
And problems that began at the onset of the pandemic — mandated restaurant closures, safety restrictions, staffing shortages and broken supply chains — have been exacerbated by rising costs on food, fuel and materials, failed federal relief packages and inflation, experts said.
Soaring inflation hits cost of ingredients
Food prices have outpaced the overall inflation rate, which is up nearly 11% year-over-year in July, according to the latest data from Bureau of Labor Statistics. Common restaurant staple ingredients like flour — when purchased in a U.S. city — rose 22% in the last year, while eggs have increased 38%.
“It all trickles down to what the baseline cost of whatever the product is,” Scelfo said. “If you’re paying more for it on the home front, you can be assured that we’re paying more.”
Scelfo, who has not passed along increases to his guests, looks at that as a last resort.
“I don’t want to raise prices on the consumer any more than I have to because I’m sensitive to it too. And I do think there’s a limit to what you can realistically charge,” he said. “If you’re a restaurant that’s operating on thin margins, you’re really probably up against it right now — there’s kind of this feast or famine out there for restaurants who have the means to navigate this period.”
“Inflation is having a tremendous impact on everyone across the board,” Leslie Silverglide, co-founder of California casual restaurant chains Split and Mixt, told GMA. “[We’ve tried to] hold price as much as possible,” she added, and “be smarter about how we run our business.”
Food shortages, costs impact menus and availability
Brooklyn-based chef-owner Sal Lamboglia of the newly opened Italian hotspot, Cafe Spaghetti, thinks customers may relate more than ever to the challenges of rising food costs as they shift their own spending on groceries.
“So many things that we use that aren’t even specialty items — eggs, milk, cream, butter – have gone up 10, 20 30% — I’m sure every restaurant is going through this, but I also feel also for the diner,” he said. “It’s scary because I don’t know if things will make their way down again.”
And he said Lamboglia’s menu has taken a hit.
“We’ve been getting shorted on certain pastas, and certain grains and flour — I’ve had to actually change a brand of pasta,” he said. “[We] go back to the drawing board each time and say, ‘OK, how valuable is this dish with this exact pasta? Can we change the shape? Are people going to like it? And that’s what we deal with now. It’s a lot.”
Chef David Nayfeld, owner of Che Fico and Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC) board member, told GMA that some think inflation is “just now happening.” “Our costs have been rising steadily and aggressively for nearly two years,” he said.
“We’ve decided to actually lean into quality,” Nayfeld said. “It may mean that people will dine out less,” but he believes diners will choose restaurants “based on quality.”
He also hopes the decision to spend more on employees, products and farms will ensure the support of key players who share his values to “offer a better quality of product to our guests, knowing that they’re smart enough to know the difference.”
Paying for quality labor impacts every facet of the supply chain: “If nobody is there to support and prop the supply chain up, [it] will collapse,” he said. … when we believe in product and believe in farms — we need to support them.”
New strategies to stay afloat
Jake Dickson, owner of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats — a butchery, restaurant and bar — called “huge increases in labor costs, packaging costs and meat inputs” a “triple whammy” over the last six months.
“Our labor costs per head were up 30%,” he told GMA of the overhead and “first punch” at the start of the pandemic. “And that’s pretty tough in a business where labor costs are already massive.”
Where Dickson was initially “insulated from food cost increases” and able to keep meat prices steady thanks to longstanding relationships with purveyors, he said “unfortunately, those things don’t hold right now.”
“Our farmers’ costs are now going through the roof,” he said, noting fertilizer and fuel costs have prompted higher prices.
“They don’t want to increase prices on us because they don’t want me to buy less and they know that if I raise my prices, we’ll probably sell less,” Dickson said.
Four months ago, he made a “very purposeful decision to add a beer and wine license,” opening a bar that serves as “a high margin business” to offset other new costs.
“We’ve kept either small increases or no increases in many places because the bar’s margins are so much higher,” he said, hailing it “a bulwark.”
He also strategized his labor costs.
“Now they’re pretty much flat because we made a choice to pay our employees really well then and we haven’t had to keep giving raises — we’re very competitive — now we’re just kind of figuring out all the other pieces.”
Adapting to skyrocketing expenses
In 17 years of opening restaurants across California, Texas and Arizona, Silverglide said her growing list of challenges has been unlike any other.
“We joke that it’s like Whac-A-Mole. We solve one thing, then something else pops up,” she said. “Especially as we’re looking to build out new restaurants, we’re finding it really hard to just get standard equipment — we place the orders and then as we get closer, they’re like, ‘Oh, actually, it’s gonna be another four to six months.'”
“It’s a hard place to be running a restaurant today,” Silverglide told GMA.
Lamboglia thinks restaurants can strike a balance by offsetting expensive entree lists with a section of the menu that’s affordable.
“At least giving the guests the option not to feel like, ‘Wow, I almost can’t even go out to eat because it’s just too much,” he said.
Rather than constantly revising menu prices as inflation rose to 7% this spring, Leslie Whitney, the owner of Sunset Grill in Virginia, told GMA she and her husband decided on a “temporary fix” to add an “inflation fee” of 3.5% to diners’ checks.
“As food prices were literally rising and changing every day … we had to do something to recoup some of the money loss,” she said. Although the flat fee won’t cover all their new costs, they are “simply trying to stop the bleed.”
Staffing has been one of the “lasting effects of COVID” that Whitney has grappled with.
“We can fluctuate with rising food prices, but not having appropriate staff really puts a wrench in our operations of service — we’re constantly trying to hire where we are short staffed,” she said. “Back-of-the house positions are the hardest to hire because we have high expectations and aren’t willing to cut corners in knowledge and experience.”
A push for federal funding
“The one big player here that has not done enough is the government,” Nayfeld said. “[The government] has had the ability with multiple bills to refill the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which would really do a tremendous amount – not just for now, but for a couple of years, making sure that these restaurants can stabilize.”
Scelfo, who applied and said he never received money from the bill that was part of the American Rescue Plan, added that the “RRF only funded maybe a third or half of restaurants that applied for it and they’ve still never replenished that.”
Despite the constant battering, resilience has created a resounding sense of gratitude and respect in the industry.
“To look for a positive in all this, I’ve never been more proud of our teams,” Scelfo said of the staff who continuously rises to the occasion.
“Restaurants are continuing to find a way to provide a great customer experience so that they really try to minimize the effect of what’s happening out there and make you feel like you’re escaping it … that’s why I’m trying not to pass along that cost.”
“None of that would be possible without a lot of dedicated people that continue to work in this industry and work harder than they ever had before,” Scelfo said.
(NEW YORK) — Since the monkeypox vaccine began being distributed in New York City, the rollout has been plagued with issues.
The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has cycled through several scheduling platforms in a matter of weeks, which have experienced crashes as people tried to book appointments.
Additionally, the demand for the vaccine has far outpaced the supply. Whenever the city has released a few thousand vaccine appointment slots, they have been filled up within a matter of hours, sometimes minutes, officials said.
“My general thought about the rollout is that it is a hard situation,” Dr. Dana Mazo, an infectious diseases specialist and clinical associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health, told ABC News. “The good news is that there has been a high demand, that the high-risk communities are definitely interested in the vaccine. And so that is good.”
“But when there is a limited supply, we are put in a hard situation and all of us feel the difficulties,” she added.
Shortage of vaccine doses
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in mid-July it had ordered nearly 7 million doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine, which is a two-dose vaccine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prevent smallpox and monkeypox. However, they will not all be available until mid-2023.
As of Tuesday, the Biden administration has shipped more than 630,000 doses to states, according to HHS data. An additional 786,000 doses have been allocated, but it will take several weeks to distribute the doses.
So far, New York City has received more than 77,800 doses, HHS data shows, but local health officials estimate that as many as 150,000 residents may be at risk for monkeypox exposure.
Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, a professor of health policy and management at City University of New York School of Public Health, said there are only so many doses that can be sent to the city and state when other places are suffering from large outbreaks.
“New York City obviously has had the most cases, but then you’ve had a lot of cases in other places like California, Illinois, Florida, for instance,” he told ABC News. “So how then do you determine how much of those vaccines are supposed to be in New York versus the other locations?”
There have been some attempts to try to stretch out the supply. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said it is prioritizing administering first doses to get as many people as possible at least some level of protection.
“If you have received the first dose, you will be contacted about scheduling the second dose in the coming weeks,” the department states on its website. “You can wait longer than four weeks between doses.”
To increase the number of JYNNEOS doses available, the FDA authorized a new strategy to inject the vaccine intradermally, just below the first layer of skin, rather than subcutaneously, or under all the layers of skin.
This will allow one vial of vaccine to be given out as five separate doses rather than a single dose.
In theory, this should work because the supply would be quintupled and, for example, 6,000 slots being opened would now increase to 30,000 slots, experts said.
However, there are a few roadblocks. Administering vaccines intradermally is a skill that most health care workers are not trained or experienced in, although it can be taught.
It also would require patients to be told that this way of administering is under emergency use authorization rather than full FDA approval.
“The concern is whenever you do things that are off label or splitting doses you have to make sure you get the same efficacy, you get the same protection,” Lee said. “If you do split doses that basically convert the same amount of vaccine to like multiple doses for a greater number of people, we have to ask ourselves what will be the impact in terms of protection?”
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has not stated whether it intends to adopt this strategy.
Glitchy websites and slots filled within minutes
Another problem that has plagued the rollout is the multiple websites that resulted in crashes and glitches as people intend to access them.
In June, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene partnered with MedRite, a chain of urgent care centers, to operate the appointment scheduling website.
The website was scheduled to launch on July 6, but some people were able to access vaccine appointments before the launch time. Officials quickly took down the portal but, when it went back up again, it crashed.
Next, the department turned to Affiliated Physicians, a health care provider, to schedule vaccine appointments.
The website went live on July 12. Less than half an hour later, the health department tweeted the site was down due to a “high level of traffic.”
Eventually, the department switched over to VAX4NYC, the portal that was used for scheduling COVID-19 vaccines.
Dr. Amish Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, said VAX4NYC should have been used from the start.
“[The health department] should have used systems that anyone had been familiar with,” he told ABC News. “That was a tried and tested system and had been working fine rather than contracts with certain companies, where they’ve had glitches.”
He continued, “A new system that people had to learn on the fly when there was such demand, I think is not ideal when you’re trying to be as efficient as possible with a resource that was in a very limited supply.”
During a City Council oversight hearing last week looking at “failures of New York City’s technological response under critical demand,” Matt Fraser, the city’s chief technology officer, said the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene contracts with MedRite and Affiliated Physicians were drafted under the administration of former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“This vendor had been previously cleared by another administration,” he said during testimony. “Our look at this is that it’s a vendor that’s done similar work in the city for this purpose, and unfortunately, it did not work out this time.”
Questions have also arisen over MedRite’s role due to being cited for fraud in the past. In 2016, then-New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman settled with MedRite after paying for fake positive reviews on various websites.
“I would just say that this is an important question to ask: how was the trust established that they would be able to deliver in an emergency situation when they’ve already been deemed a fraudulent company?” Adalja said. “They should have articulated the rationale. ‘This is why we use it, and we know we’re going to use it, or they should have said that upfront’ They should be transparent about their decision-making process.”
(NEW YORK) — Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., is projected to have lost her primary on Tuesday to Donald Trump-backed Harriet Hageman, ABC News reports, after Cheney built her political profile — and her campaign — around criticizing the former president as an existential threat to American democracy.
Cheney’s defeat was largely expected, given the partisan makeup of her seat and polling that showed her trailing Hageman. Trump won Wyoming in the last presidential election with some 70% of the vote. Still, Cheney’s defeat marks Trump’s biggest win in his revenge tour against intraparty detractors and a warning sign for other anti-Trump Republicans thinking of crossing him.
“Tonight, Harriet Hageman has received the most votes in this primary. She won. I called her to concede the race. This primary election is over,” Cheney said in a speech Tuesday night from a ranch in Jackson, contrasting that call with Trump, who still refuses to concede the 2020 race.
The choice between Cheney and Hageman, both of whom staked out conservative policy platforms, played out largely along national themes and loyalty to Trump.
Cheney focused on criticizing Trump over his role in last year’s deadly Capitol insurrection, casting her reelection bid as a fight to maintain the GOP’s principles.
Hageman, meanwhile, echoed Trump’s unfounded election fraud claims and berated Cheney — whom Hageman had previously advised — as a lawmaker more focused on toppling the de facto GOP leader.
Cheney boasts a famous last name and significantly out-raised Hageman. But over time it became clear that the three-term lawmaker was the underdog as polls showed Wyoming Republicans increasingly favoring her opponent.
In a sign of Cheney’s tenuous footing with members of her own party, her campaign started an outreach effort to voters to explain how they could change their party registration the day of the primary to vote for her — though operatives said there was little hope there were enough Democrats to change Cheney’s fate.
“Two years ago, I won this primary with 73% of the vote. I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear,” Cheney said in her speech Tuesday. “But it would have required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic — that was a path I could not and would not take.”
“No House seat, no office in this land, is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect,” she said. “And I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty.”
Hageman now is expected to coast in the general election — against projected Democratic opponent Lynnette Grey Bull — in one of the country’s reddest states and be a staunch Trump ally in the House.
“Absolutely the election was rigged. It was rigged to make sure that President Trump could not get reelected,” she said at a campaign event earlier this month indicating her ideological alignment with Trump. “What happened in 2020 is a travesty.”
Hageman on Tuesday touted her win over Cheney, describing it as returning Wyoming’s House seat to the people.
“I will be accountable to the voters and citizens of Wyoming because I am one of you and, just like you, I am sick and tired of having no voice in the U.S. House of Representatives,” she said. “Today we have succeeded at what we set out to do — we have reclaimed Wyoming’s lone congressional seat for Wyoming.”
“Assume that if we put you in power, you will be accountable to us and you will do what is in our best interest. And if you don’t, we will fire you,” she said.
Cheney’s defeat marks a bookend to a meteoric rise and swift fall for an erstwhile GOP star.
She was first elected in 2016 and became the No. 3 Republican in the House in late 2018, a climb that fueled rumors she had an eye on the speakership one day.
However, after last year’s insurrection, she became the highest-ranking House Republican to back impeaching Trump and ultimately became the vice chair of the special committee investigating the Capitol riot.
Her consistent condemnations of Trump infuriated both other House Republicans who accused her of derailing their messaging strategy and some voters in Wyoming who viewed Cheney as an absentee representative more focused on the former president than state issues.
Beyond her tough primary challenge, she also lost her leadership spot in the House and was censured by the Republican National Committee and the Wyoming Republican Party.
Still, Cheney refused to modulate her messaging — given, she said, the danger Trump represented — and indicated that she would continue her focus on combating election conspiracies even after her expected loss.
“Like many candidates across this country, my opponents in Wyoming have said that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen. No one who understands our nation’s laws — no one with an honest, honorable, genuine commitment to our Constitution — would say that. It is a cancer that threatens our great Republic,” she said in her closing ad. “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.”
All eyes now will be on what Cheney plans to do after leaving the House, with her hinting that “now the real work begins.”
Speculation has bubbled that Cheney is eyeing a presidential bid in 2024 to challenge Trump, should he run again in two years, a theory that gained more ground in her concession speech in which she noted Abraham Lincoln’s own failed House and Senate bids before he won the presidency.
“Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our union, and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history,” she said.
Regardless of what form her advocacy takes, Cheney indicated that she will still hold candidates’ feet to the fire over unproven claims of election fraud.
“Today, as we meet here, there are Republican candidates for governor who do deny the outcome of the 2020 election and who may refuse to certify future elections if they oppose the results,” she said in her concession speech. “We have candidates for secretary of state who may refuse to report the actual results of the popular vote in future elections. And we have candidates for Congress, including here in Wyoming, who refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and suggest that states decertify the result.”
“No American should support election deniers for any position of genuine responsibility where their refusal to follow the rule of law will corrupt our future,” she said.
Cheney’s loss marks the end of a largely successful campaign by Trump to expel his impeachment-backers from the GOP, arguing they were not true Republicans.
Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last year, four decided to not seek reelection. Of the six who did, four have now lost their primaries. Only two of the 10 have advanced to the general election.
“Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious words and actions towards others,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “Now she can finally disappear into the depths of political oblivion where, I am sure, she will be much happier than she is right now.”
ABC News’ Miles Cohen, Lalee Ibssa, Allison Pecorin and Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.
