- [Narrator 1] Production and distribution of City Club Forums, an Ideastream Public Media, are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.

(upbeat music) (audience applauds) - Good afternoon and welcome from the campus of Cleveland State University.

It's Tuesday, November 1st, and I'm Kristen Baird Adams, President of the Board of Directors of the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to convening conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

On behalf of the City Club staff and board, I am pleased to welcome you to today's forum, featuring a conversation with Congresswoman Liz Cheney, which we are broadcasting live with the sold out audience here at CSU's Student Center.

Congresswoman Cheney was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 2016, and is serving the remainder of her current term as Wyoming's lone member of Congress in the US House.

The former chair of the House Republican Conference, the third ranking Republican in the House, Cheney sits on the House Armed Services Committee, and is perhaps best known for her role as Vice Chair of the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the US Capitol.

Though a handful of other Republican congressional representatives have stood apart from party leaders in opposing former President Donald Trump and his claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, no one has done so as boldly or vocally as Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

(audience applauds) Cheney, who has emerged as one of the most visible and ardent defenders of our nation's democracy, her stance against the former president has come at a political cost, including her removal as a third ranking House Republican, and her recent loss in the Wyoming primary to a Trump endorsed candidate.

One week from the 2002 midterm elections.

Congresswoman Cheney remains adamant in her plea for Americans to vote for candidates who believe in democracy and not those who refuse to certify election results based on unfounded claims of election fraud.

In September, Cheney told an audience at the Texas Tribune Festival that she will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump isn't anywhere near the Oval Office, (audience applauds) and went on to state that if the 45th president is the Republican nominee for president in 2024, she will leave the party.

Today we will hear from the congresswoman on her thoughts on the state of our nation and the future of the Republic.

Moderating the conversation is veteran journalist, Judy Woodruff, Anchor and managing Editor of the "PBS NewsHour".

(audience applauds) For five decades, Ms. Woodruff has been a leading voice in political and other news, including her time at NBC, CNN, and of course, PBS, where she has served as a "PBS NewsHour" chair since 2013 Woodruff, who recently announced her plans to step down as NewsHour anchor later this year following the midterm elections, has received a multitude of prestigious honors, including recently the ME Lifetime Achievement Award in television news and more than 25 honorary degrees.

If you have a question for our speakers, you can text them to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

You can also tweet questions to @thecityclub, and our City Club staff will do its best to work them into the second half of the program.

Members, friends, and guests of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Judy Woodruff.

(audience applauds) - Thank you so much for that very warm welcome.

I am delighted to be here, and I'll let Congresswoman Cheney speak for herself, but we had a pretty hairy morning getting here.

(all laugh) We know each other a lot better than we did a few hours ago, (all laugh) but, I am delighted to be here, and honored to be taking part in this conversation at this important moment for our democracy.

So Congresswoman, I wanna begin with something that is sobering at this time, and that is the attack just a few days ago on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Paul Pelosi is still in the hospital.

We know the man involved in this has been charged with second degree murder.

You've been a target of threats.

You've had to hire additional security.

How did we get to this place?

We know the number of threats on lawmakers has more than doubled since 2017.

Why?

- Well, first of all, I know all of our thoughts and prayers are with Paul Pelosi, with Speaker Pelosi, with their whole family, and I wanna say a word about Speaker Pelosi.

I did not really know her before I began work on the January 6th Committee.

I'm not sure if I had ever spoken to her, actually, but since I have been on the committee, and I say this, everyone knows, she is a liberal from San Francisco.

I'm a conservative from Wyoming.

There are many, many issues, maybe most issues, on which we disagree, but I think that she is a tremendous leader.

I've watched her up close.

She's a leader of historic consequence.

She has put this committee together, and demonstrated her commitment to the truth, and I think that that the demonization that goes on on both sides, certainly Republicans have, through the years, demonized Speaker Pelosi.

Democrats have demonized Republicans including my dad, and it all has to stop.

I think that when you see what's happening in our country, when you watch the extent to which political violence or violence has become part of our political discourse, that's a road we just can't go down, and the fact that while Paul Pelosi was in ICU, had been brutally attacked, had a skull fracture, and numerous other injuries, that there were members of my party mocking him, that there were members of President Trump's family mocking him, that's not who we are in this country, and that is disgraceful, and as Americans, we have to reject it.

We have to be willing to say, "We can have disagreements.

We can have debates.

We can have intense debates, but violence cannot ever be part of our discourse."

And we know, because of testimony that the Select Committee has put on, because of testimony in the criminal trials that are underway, that the violence at the Capitol on January 6th was a direct result of Donald Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

And those claims, he continues to make those claims to this day.

Others continue to make those claims to this day, and we know it's entirely foreseeable that those will lead to violence.

So as a nation, we all should be keeping the Pelosi family in our prayers.

We all should recognize that we cannot go over an abyss of not being able to have the common human decency to stand against that violence, to condemn the violence, to pray for Mr. Pelosi and his family, and to reject those who are acting in a way that frankly is inhumane.

- Given, I mean, yes, people can wish for it to stop, but is there a way to make it stop?

- I think the way we make it stop is each individual has responsibility and every single one of us, you know, if you look at Republican elected officials, for example, who are tolerating the kinds of claims that we know led to the violence on January 6th, and there are many Republican elected officials tolerating, spreading, appeasing who know that those claims are false and who know that they led to violence, and so we need to hold them accountable, and it isn't complicated.

We all need to conduct ourselves in our public lives the way that, according to The Golden Rule, the way that we would conduct ourselves in our personal friendships, and we need to vote for people who do that.

It really matters.

We're at a moment in our history where you can't give power to people who are willing to excuse what happened, and I think it comes down to individual responsibility that each one of us has.

- And very quick question, $10,000 was allocated this past year.

I think it took effect this fall for members of Congress to be able to have more security at their homes.

Is more money needed?

I mean, you and others like the Speaker need more than that?

- Well, look, I mean, security is obviously a concern for elected officials.

The level of threats, as you pointed out, has increased.

We see a direct correlation between claims that are made on certain networks and by certain hosts, and the rise in threats, but I think that it requires, as a country, we take individual responsibility for saying we refuse to accept this.

We need to, certainly, a republic will have a very difficult time surviving if people have to make a decision about putting their family at risk in order to serve an elected office, and we just have to make sure that that's not the case.

That can't become standard.

- The January 6th Committee, which you've spent a great deal of time working on as Vice Chair.

You've helped to shape the direction of what the committee has done.

How much more investigating is there to be done?

- Well, it's the largest criminal case in the nation's history, and of course, the Justice Department is responsible for the criminal investigation.

The committee itself has to conclude our work by the end of this year, but we have far more to do, and we know a lot.

We've interviewed more than a thousand individuals.

Millions of pages of documents have been produced, and so it's been a very significant undertaking, and we will produce a report before the end of the year.

Obviously, we've had hearings that lay out what we know about what Donald Trump did, about his intent, very clearly laid out with respect to each of the parts of this plan to overturn the election, but I think that the work of the Justice Department will certainly go on, and I wish that we had had a bipartisan outside commission as we supported, the Republicans, 35 of us in the House supported, but the idea was killed by Kevin McCarthy, and then Mitch McConnell in the Senate.

If we'd had that bipartisan outside commission, the investigation would be able to go on beyond the election, but we'll complete our work, and produce a report based upon our work to date.

- So the committee has subpoenaed former President Trump.

I think that's a deadline of Friday for him to comply.

Do you think he will, and should the committee allow him to testify in person, live if that's what he says he'll do?

- Well, the committee's in discussions with President Trump's attorneys, and he has an obligation to comply, and we treat this and take this very seriously.

This is not a situation where the committee is gonna put itself at the mercy of Donald Trump in terms of his efforts to create a circus.

You can look back, for example, at his first debate against Joe Biden and sort of what that devolved into, and we believe these matters are very serious.

We haven't made determinations about the format itself, but it'll be done under oath.

It'll be done potentially over multiple days.

We have significant questions based on the evidence that we've developed and, as I said, what we know already about the extent to which he was personally and directly involved in every aspect of this effort.

- Do you think the odds are that he will testify or not?

- I think that he has a legal obligation to testify, but that doesn't always carry weight with Donald Trump.

- Should the committee recommend to the Justice Department that it indict him?

- Well, the committee will have to make decisions about criminal referrals, and I don't wanna get ahead of the committee on that.

The committee has been working in a very collaborative way, and I would anticipate we won't have disagreements about that, but we'll have to make those decisions when we come to it.

- If you take them together, former President Trump, the people who deny that President Biden won the election, the people who are defending what happened on January the sixth, what do they all mean for American democracy?

- Well, I think about it in terms of, I differentiate between elected Republicans and Republican voters.

I think that there are millions of Republican voters across the country who have been betrayed by Donald Trump.

There's a young man who ran for Congress in Texas named Michael Wood, and he, I think, put it just perfectly.

He said that Donald Trump preyed on the noble patriotism of millions of Americans, and he really did.

He didn't just prey on their patriotism.

He told them that their patriotism required, in some cases, if they wanted to save their country, they needed to march on the Capitol.

He took their patriotism and turned it into a weapon against our very democracy, and so I think that people have been betrayed.

If you look at our elected officials on the Republican side, you certainly have some who believe the lies.

I think that's a very small number, but you have a significant number who know that the lies aren't true, but who are accommodating them, and that's really dangerous, because it leads to this question around the country of people saying, "Well, if you know these really are lies, why aren't there more Republicans saying so?

And if this really is a dangerous moment, you know, why are people campaigning with some of the most dangerous election deniers?"

And they're doing it for their own political purposes, and I think that is a dangerous moment for the country.

- Dangerous for our democracy.

You've said in a television ad that the Republican candidates for Governor and Secretary of State of Arizona are a threat to democracy, and you have made, in the last few days, your first endorsement of a Democrat.

She's Michigan Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin.

You're gonna be campaigning for her later today.

This year, you received the John F. Kennedy Profile In Courage Award.

President Kennedy said, "Sometimes party loyalty asks too much."

- Well, look, I think I've been a Republican ever since I first cast a vote, which was 1984, and I don't think I've ever voted for a Democrat.

I've certainly never campaigned for a Democrat, but we're at a moment now where my party has really lost its way, and it's lost its way in a way that's dangerous.

It's dangerous because we've become beholden to a man who was willing to attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

That's never happened in this nation before, and my view is, if you really are a conservative, the most conservative of conservative principles is fidelity to the Constitution, and if you're willing to overlook an attempt to steal an election, to overturn an election, to stop a peaceful transfer of power, then you are being unfaithful to the Constitution, and I think, given the moment we're in, we can't give power to people who have told us they won't respect the outcome of elections, and that's more important than any party belief.

It's more important than any policy, and we can have big debates about policy, but you can't give somebody power if they've told you they'll only honor an election if they like the outcome, because that is how the republic unravels.

- So that endorsement, again, and you're campaigning for Congresswoman Slotkin today.

We know here in the state of Ohio, bitter contest underway for the United States Senate seat.

You've served six years in Congress with Tim Ryan.

You've often voted differently from him.

The Republican candidate here, J.D.

Vance, is a Trump loyalist.

He says the 2020 election "was not free and fair".

He said that some of the January 6th insurrectionists are political prisoners, and he said he doesn't really care what happens to Ukraine.

All that's very different from Paul Ryan's, I'm sorry, from Tim Ryan's positions.

(audience laughs) - And Paul Ryan's too, by the way.

(audience laughs) (audience applauds) - Thank you.

So who do you prefer in this race?

- I would not vote for J.D.

Vance.

(audience applauds) - So if you were a Buckeye state voter, you'd be voting for Tim Ryan?

- I would.

- Okay, few families, Congresswoman Cheney, have more of a Republican legacy than yours.

Your father, Vice President of the United States, served in the Congress, Defense Secretary, and now you and your service, and yet the vast majority of Republicans have turned against you and what your father represent.

Why?

- Well, I don't know that it's the vast majority.

I mean, certainly was the vast majority of my constituents.

(audience laughs) and it is the vast majority of elected Republicans, I would say, in the House, but I really do believe that the vast majority of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, fundamentally believe in our democratic system, and know fundamentally that we have to have elected officials who are responsible, who are going to do the right thing, with whom you might disagree, but who you know have the best interests of the nation at heart and in mind, and that gives me hope that we're gonna come out of this moment that we're in now, but I think it's going to require people being willing to say, "When I walk into cast my vote, I'm not going to reflexively vote for the Republican.

I'm not gonna reflexively vote for the Democrat.

I'm gonna think about the challenges we face as a country, and who among these candidates do I trust the most to be able to do what's necessary for our nation."

And it also means we need more people to run for office.

And I say that in a room where I'm sure there are many of you who have run for office, but we need many, many more to do that because the challenge we face is we often have really bad choices, and we need to demand excellence among our elected officials.

We need to demand competence and responsibility, and that means we need more candidates, so making sure that good people run for office, good people stay in office.

Too many people now are looking at the political landscape and saying, "This is a mess.

I don't wanna be part of it, or the threats to my family are too significant," and that also is something everyone needs to stop and think about.

We can't expect leaders who are up to the challenges we face if good people don't run for office, and so, I just, we really need more candidates.

We really need people to put your names on the ballot and get into this fight.

- Are there other Democrats you might endorse between now and next Tuesday?

(Liz Cheney and audience laugh) - Possibly Judy.

(audience laughs) - I endorsed one just now, five minutes ago, so.

(all laugh) (audience applauds) - We'll keep it in the room if you tell us.

(all laugh) - Sure.

- Just a kind of a lightning round here.

You've said of Republican House leader, Kevin McCarthy, that, "He's willing to sacrifice everything for his own political gain.

He's been unfaithful to the Constitution."

You clearly would not be supporting him for Speaker or for leader if you were voting on that.

Who would be the right leader for Republicans in the House?

- You know, I hesitate to give any names cause I don't think it would help them, (audience laughs) but look, there are many good Republicans.

There are many Republicans who are serious people, in the House, who understand what it means to be a real leader, and Kevin McCarthy, he's very consistent.

Every single time he has had to make a choice between what's right or his political future, he chooses his political future.

And so, the Speaker of the House is second in line to the presidency.

We need somebody much better to be Speaker of the House.

- No names.

(audience applauds) - This is kind of a sensitive question, but you've talked about what, it's all sensitive, (all laugh) but you've talked about the Donald Trump era of the Republican party, but my question is, do other Republicans, including Liz Cheney, bear any responsibility for where we've come in this country?

The rhetoric has grown very, very tough at times, ugly talking about killing babies when it comes to abortion, other very tough language criticizing President Obama in both directions.

Do you feel any responsibility for where we've come as a country when it comes to political rhetoric and the place we've ended up right now?

- I think all of us who have said public things, I certainly look back at criticisms I've made, and recognized that, at times, they were partisan, but it's not only Republicans.

I mean, Dick Cheney is my father, so I lived through some pretty terrible attacks on him by Democrats, and I think that the vitriol from both sides has to stop.

I think that we all also have to be honest about our partisanship in the past and that the country deserves better.

We shouldn't pretend we agree on everything because we don't, and frankly, it's better for the country if we can have policy debates, but Donald Trump is something different, and I think you will, books will certainly be written for decades to come about how did the Republican party get where we are today?

But in my view, and all of that matters, I'm not saying it doesn't matter, but to me, January 6th and his behavior post the election, leading to January 6th, that's a line we can never cross, and no matter what your analysis is of how we got there, I think we all, as Americans, need to be able to say that's a line you can't cross.

Every president has an obligation to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, to abide by the rulings of the courts, to guarantee the peaceful transition of power, and every president in our nation's history, Republican and Democrat, has done that until Donald Trump, and one thing that I think is interesting to do is go watch Al Gore's concession speech in 2000, which was a campaign I was obviously very involved in, very close hard fought campaign.

I'm sure that Vice President Gore believed that he won.

Go look at at the grace and the patriotism in his concession speech, and go look at John McCain's concession speech, and look at the grace and the patriotism in John McCain's concession speech.

Frankly, if you Google concession speech, and you go back and you look at presidential concession speeches, they're all very similar because they all say, "You know what, we're Americans, and this was a hard fought campaign, but, I lost and I owe the person who won my loyalty, and my commitment, and my hard work as an American."

That's how presidential elections should work.

- And this is supposed to be my lightning round, so I'm gonna ask it very quickly.

Are you worried, I mean, in just a few words, that there we will see a number of candidates next Tuesday who don't concede?

- Yes, I am, and I'm worried that we could see a number of candidates elected in really important positions as Secretary of State, as Governors, who could decide that they are not gonna certify results in 2024, and I think that that really oughta drive people as you go vote to think about that, to think about what does it mean?

You can disagree with somebody's policies, but once you give power to somebody who won't respect an election, you have to ask whether you're gonna get any other future elections.

- One sentence.

(audience applauds) One sentence, sum up President Biden's time in office so far.

(audience laughs) - It's been challenging.

I only get one sentence.

I think on some issues we've seen very important bipartisanship like aid to Ukraine.

Ukraine is on the front lines of the battle for freedom right now, and for J.D.

Vance to suggest that America can be neutral as between Ukraine and Russia demonstrates that he either doesn't know what he's talking about or he's willing to say something he knows isn't true, because our freedom depends upon supporting freedom around the world and certainly depends upon supporting the Ukrainians.

That's been very bipartisan.

I think that's been important.

I think the economic policies and the spending, I've disagreed with those.

I think that the inflation that we're facing today comes, at least in part, because of the spending that we've seen.

I disagree with the policy at the border.

We do not have control of our borders, and we need to have border security so that we can make sure that our immigration system, that our legal immigration system works.

We need to stop illegal immigration, but we also need to recognize and remember that we should be very proud that people wanna come to this nation, and that that's a huge strength of this country, but to make sure that people can come here legally, we have to stop illegal immigration.

You can't have cartels controlling America's border, so I think there have been a number of areas where we've seen bipartisan support and other areas where I disagree with the policies of the administration.

- Just a few more.

- [Liz Cheney] That was about seven sentences.

(all laugh) Sorry.

- Just a few more.

Liz Cheney's future.

What does it.

- I like to talk about myself in the third person, always.

(audience laughs) - All right, your future, I'll put it in the second person.

Your future, what do you envision, and does it include a run for president in 2024?

- I don't know the answer to that yet.

I haven't made that decision.

I don't think that's the most important question.

I think the most important question is whether or not, as a nation, we're gonna do everything we have to do to preserve the republic, and that's really what I'm focused on.

I think that a big part of that is education.

We were talking earlier, I've spent a lot of time on college campuses in the last several months talking to young people about the great blessings of this country and about their duty and their obligation to serve, and about what we all need to do to make sure that our young people are equipped with the knowledge about our Constitution and how it works and what does it mean to be a nation of laws.

We don't teach American History the way we should anymore, and I think that some of what we're seeing today is because of that.

When members of Congress stand on the floor of the House as one did, and say things like, "We don't have to abide by the rulings of the courts," that tells you how deep this problem is, and so we have to, there's an education piece of this that matters very much, but I'm gonna do whatever I can do to ensure that my kids get to grow up in a country where we have a peaceful transition of power.

- If you did decide to run, would it be as a Republican or an Independent?

- I haven't made any decisions about whether I'm gonna run or not, Judy.

(audience laughs) - But you're clearly giving it some thought.

(audience laughs) Didn't you hear that?

(audience applauds) And finally, next Tuesday, what do you believe is likely to happen?

- I don't wanna predict.

I think that we have a number of races that are very close, and I think that it's gonna matter what happens in places like Ohio.

It's gonna matter what voter turnout looks like, and I also think the challenges we face are gonna take more than one cycle to fix, and so certainly I hope that we defeat people who are election deniers.

I hope that we are able to incentivize serious candidates, and I'm working to make sure I do everything I can in that regard, but I do think it's gonna take more than one cycle.

- Is it better for the country if Republicans take control of the House?

- When you look at a number of the people who are in the Republican conference today, people whose views were fringe two years ago, but who now have got tremendous power, I think that the American people need to understand these are not serious people.

People like Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Green, who've appeared at white supremacist conferences, who've said things that are clearly antisemitic.

Those people will have tremendous power in a Republican majority, and you're already seeing what that means in terms of Kevin McCarthy being willing to placate them, and so I think that people just need to understand what it will mean to have a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

The people who will be running the House of Representatives in a Republican majority will give authority and power to some of the most radical members of the conference, and I don't think that that's good for the country.

- So you're saying it's better for the country if.

- I think I'll leave it the way I I said it.

(audience laughs) - We heard you.

(audience laughs) And just finally, if Republicans do take control of the House, is that among other things, a validation of Donald Trump?

- Look, as I said, this is number one, a fundamental fight for the soul of the country, not just for the soul of the Republican Party.

It's a fight that we have to win, because the stakes are so high, and it will likely take more than one cycle to make sure that the people who believe in our democracy, our Constitutional Republic, who believe in the importance of our oath that we prevail, and it's gonna take everyone getting involved.

I can't stress that enough.

So at the end of the day, I'm confident that Donald Trump, and those who would thwart our democratic process, will not prevail, and I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure that's the case.

(audience applauds) - Congresswoman Liz Cheney, thank you.

- We're about to begin the audience Q and A.

We're about to begin the audience Q and A. I'm Kristen Baird Adams, President of the City Club Board of Directors.

We are joined today by Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who is discussing her thoughts on the state of the nation and the future of the Republic with PBS NewsHour's Judy Woodruff.

We welcome questions from everyone, City Club members, guests, students, and those joining us via our live stream at cityclub.org, or on our radio broadcast at 89.7 Ideastream Public Media.

If you'd like to tweet a question, please do so @thecityclub, or you can also text your questions to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

May we have the first question, please?

- Hi, I have a question from our virtual audience, so we do have people bringing questions to us from online, and the question says, "It's sad, but understandable as to why Republican office holders are reluctant to speak out and put country above party at this time, but in this room right now, we have scores of prominent Republican business people, some of whom know your father, who have gravitas standing in the community, and checkbooks who remain mute in the face of looming autocracy and continue to support former President Trump.

Do you have anything specific to say to these non-politicians and members of your former party?"

- Well, it's not my former party, but look, I think I've been clear, and I think what everybody needs to recognize is that none of us can be bystanders, and while we certainly all can say, "Look, the Biden economic policies are not policies that we would support.

We believe in limited taxes and low taxes and limited government, a strong national defense."

We don't even get to have those debates and those discussions if we elect Donald Trump again.

If we elect election deniers, we don't even get to have those debates, and candidates who would embrace what the former president is doing and saying, now that we know what he was willing to do, we know what he did, and embracing that, in my view, makes you unfit for office.

So I would just say to everybody in this room, and what I say every place to everybody watching, nobody's a bystander and everybody has to speak out.

I've worked in countries around the world.

I've worked in Eastern Europe.

I worked in Moscow.

I worked in Kiev when it was Kiev across the Middle East.

I've seen what happens when countries are trying to obtain democracy, or when countries lose their democratic processes and systems.

It's really fragile.

It's really fragile and it slips away very, very quickly, and the fact that the United States of America is the oldest democracy in the world and we're only 246 years old, really should give everybody pause.

It slips away very quickly, and it can happen here, and that requires everybody, whether you're in politics or not, to stand up and say, "No".

(audience applauds) - Good afternoon, my name's Merle Johnson, and I'm on the State Board of Education for Ohio.

A critical race theory examines how systemic racism exists because of government policies.

It's not accidental.

It's not because of individuals.

It's systemic, and members of your party developed laws, they're pending in Ohio, haven't passed yet, but would punish teachers for telling the truth about history, for telling the truth about systemic racism, about what goes on in this country that has existed for 400 years.

My question to you is, where do you stand on those laws that censor teachers and punish them by taking their license away here in Ohio if they do tell the truth about American History?

- Well, I don't know the specifics about the Ohio laws, but let me answer you as a mother of five kids, and as a student of American History.

I think that we have to find a way in this country to recognize certainly that racism exists, certainly that racism has existed in the past, certainly that our nation is not perfect, but to, at the same time, teach our kids that we are the most perfect nation that's ever existed, and when I think about teachers, and I think about what we need to do to empower our teachers, I think if everybody in this room thought about the teachers that we all were the most affected by, they were teachers who had a passion for what they were teaching.

They were not teachers, today, I see, standardized testing, for example, that takes so much of a teacher's time.

They can't teach the subjects that they love, but I also see one of my daughters was in a history class in high school in Wyoming, and the teacher said to the class, "I want everybody who thinks America has been a force for ill to line up on this side of the room, and I want everybody who thinks America has been a force for good to line up on this side of the room."

And my daughter was the only one who lined up on the force for good side, and the teacher said to her, "Maybe you misheard me.

That's the side where you believe America's been a force for good."

And we must be able to acknowledge our deep flaws, while at the same time recognizing that there's no nation on earth in which human freedom and liberty and the values of our founding documents has been more respected than they are here, and I think we have to teach our children that the way to be a more perfect union is through the founding documents.

It's through the Constitution.

It's not a rejection of the Constitution, and recognize that teaching children to hate the country or teaching children that we're not an exceptional nation, to me, that is the real challenge that we face, and so I think we have to be honest, and we have to be truthful, but we have to make sure our children understand they should be proud and blessed and honored to be citizens of this great nation.

(audience applauds) - Ms. Cheney, as a first generation American, I'm horrified by the last elections and the message it sends abroad.

We see dictatorships taking hold of democracies and ongoing battle between Trump and the Republic makes it very hard to tell that America is on the right path and that's the way the world should be.

What do you say to those countries that were Erdogan in Turkey or Bellasano in Argentina, on and on and on, What do we do to change that outlook and for those countries to become more democratic rather than less democratic?

- Well, I think the first thing that I would say to them is no matter what challenges you see the United States going through right now, and they're significant.

In some ways, they're unique, but don't bet against America, that we as a nation have to recognize, and this is where the notion that somehow America is neutral in battles about freedom, that must never be.

We've got isolationist forces in our party.

They tend to be in the America first movement that they call themselves America first, but it's isolationists.

If you listen to the leaders of that movement, and historically we have had isolationism in both parties.

I'm sure everybody saw that you had about 30 progressive Democrats issue and then retract a letter suggesting a change in policy with respect to Ukraine, and when you think about America's role in the world, there's a lot of rhetoric now.

Sometimes people call me things like war monger because I believe America must lead.

Nobody wants war.

War is a horrific thing, but we have to make sure that democracy is better armed than tyranny because you will have situations like you have today in Ukraine where you have a tyrant who's decided to try to impose his will by force and democracy has to fight back, but in addition to that, we have to remember what it means to those fighting for their freedom to have America on their side, and I think about people that I've had the opportunity to meet people like Natan Sharansky, who was in a Soviet gulag when Ronald Reagan was president, and he talked about the hope that it gave him and his fellow prisoners to know they would spread messages among themselves through morse code and to understand that Ronald Reagan was talking about them, that America was standing with them.

Cuban refugees who have come to this great country because of the speeches of Ronald Reagan that they listened to secretly on radio so their neighbors couldn't hear.

Again and again and again, throughout our history, it's self evident that if we really are the nation that we say we are, which I fundamentally believe we are the only nation in the world, the only nation in history, founded on this value of human freedom and equality, that that means that we have a duty and an obligation.

We are Americans because we believe those values.

We have a duty to defend those values around the world, and that means we stand for people who are fighting for their freedom, and it means we understand and recognize if we don't, if we withdraw, if we say we're gonna just come home and we're gonna ignore what's happening globally, then we need to be ready to recognize that the people who fill that vacuum are China, are Russia, are Iran, are North Korea.

We'll be living in a global surveillance state if China has its way, and I think that we have to be able to have those debates and discussions here at home.

I certainly have a very clear view about where those have to end up, but we need to understand, as you point out, that the whole world is watching this and that our adversaries are, in fact the Chinese are, as we sit here today telling countries throughout Asia, "Don't count on America.

Look at the trouble America's having, don't count on America," and we have a duty, an obligation to make sure we get this ship of democracy righted, because if we don't lead, there's nobody who will.

- Congresswoman, it seems to me that over the years, voters have been less and what less willing to consider a candidate's character when they vote?

Do you you agree with that?

And if so, how do we elevate character again as a consideration when people are voting?

Thank you.

- Yeah, it's a very important point and it's one that certainly comes up as we think, for example, about legislative recommendations of the January 6th committee.

We have made legislative recommendations, we've passed a Electoral Account Act Reform Bill.

We'll have additional recommendations, and we have an obligation as part of the committee to propose legislation to help prevent another January 6th, but it is also very clear that if you elect people who are willing to blow through the guardrails of our democracy, they will blow through the guardrails of our democracy, and that goes to your point about character, and I think that we have to recognize that behavior that is tolerated becomes accepted, and I don't just mean that from the perspective of Donald Trump's illegal and unconstitutional activities.

I mean that from the perspective of Donald Trump Jr's tweets about Paul Pelosi.

I mean that from the perspective of recognizing that there's a coarseness and a lack of humanity in our political debate, and we shouldn't reward that.

Too many candidates now unfortunately seem to be learning the lesson of Donald Trump, which is that you can have a complete lack of regard and respect.

You can treat your political opponents like enemies.

- Thank you for your difficult stances you've taken, Congresswoman Cheney, over the past several decades, and as you said, pretty much since you've been politically active, Republicans have managed to use a long term strategic approach to push a conservative agenda in a lot of different political environments, even when they don't have control over the White House or the Congress.

What do you think Democrats could do differently over the next 20 or 30 years (all laugh) to make progress with their agenda?

- It's a really good question, and I'm just laughing because I spend more time with Democrats now than I used to, (audience laughs) but I think that like on some level, we each think that the other guys are better organized and more effective and more strategic, and I think that, I'm not sure, the things that we think about each other are not necessarily true, but I'd like to see both parties be forced to fight on the basis of substance and policy, and the most interesting and important debates that we have in the House are debates about substance.

There is nothing I think that's better for the country than having members of Congress really engaged in a battle of ideas where we're learning from each other, but we've also done our homework and we're standing up for what we believe in, and I think that we need to demand that from both parties and both parties could do a lot better at fighting these battles on the basis of substance.

- [Judy Woodruff] You don't wanna give the Democrats any more advice?

- No.

(all laugh) - Okay, do we have any other- (audience applauds) - Thank you Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Judy Woodruff for joining us at the City Club of Cleveland.

We would also like to thank our hosts here at Cleveland State University and our production partners at Ideastream Public Media.

Today's forum was made possible thanks to the George Gund Foundation, Falls Communications, G2G Consulting.

Additional support was provided by Capital Partners and Mary Corey.

Our forum today also was the annual Craig Spangenberg Memorial Forum created to celebrate Mr. Spangenberg commitment to the First Amendment rights of all citizens.

We're grateful to the law firm of Spangenberg, Shibley & Liber for its support.

We'd also like to welcome guests at tables hosted by Capital Partners, Chuck and Char Fowler, Cleveland State University, Kiva County Community College, Falls Communication, friends of Maryanne, Friends of Nancy Wolpe, G2G Consulting, the George Gund Foundation, Ideastream Public Media, Team Neo, Thompson Hine, and Ulmer and Berne.

We're happy to have all of you here.

Coming up next week at the City Club on Monday, November 7th, we will hear from the 2022 National Teacher of the Year, Kurt Russell.

Then on Thursday, November 10th, we'll have our annual conversation about the state of downtown with Downtown Cleveland Alliance, and on Friday, November 11th, it's a conversation about our state constitution and why it matters much more than you may think.

You can find out more about these forums, purchase tickets, and learn about other upcoming events at cityclub.org, and that brings us to the end of today's forum.

Thank you once more to Congresswoman Liz Cheney and again to PBS News Hour's Judy Woodruff.

Thank you members.

(audience applauds) Thank you members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland.

I'm Kristen Baird Adams and this forum is now adjourned.

- [Narrator 2] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to cityclub.org.

(upbeat tones) - [Narrator 1] Production and distribution of City Club Forums, an Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and