Liz Cheney IS considering a run for president: Republican Trump critic will decide in early 2024 if she runs as a third-party candidate to stop Donald - even though she could help him by taking votes from Biden

Former Rep. Liz Cheney said Monday she is considering a run for president in 2024 with the goal of keeping former President Donald Trump out of office. 

She sat down with USA Today for an interview published Tuesday and said she was interested in creating a new third party. 

Cheney revealed she was also open to joining a bipartisan ticket, like the one being proposed by the moderate No Labels group. 

She said: 'I think that the situation that we're in is so grave, and the politics of the moment require independents and Republicans and Democrats coming together in a way that can help form a new coalition, so that may well be a third-party option.' 

At the same time, Cheney was insistent she wouldn't run on the No Labels ticket if it seemed poised to suck votes away from Democratic President Joe Biden.

That would help put Trump, the leading contender for the Republican nomination, back in the White House. 

Cheney told USA Today that calculation - whether her votes would come from Biden or Trump - would impact her decision. 

A number of Democratic and nonpartisan analysts have warned that the No Labels effort would likely damage Biden's standing more than Trump's in next year's general election, as Trump has a very reliable voter base. 

Democrats have urged Biden to take independent and third-party challenges seriously and to reach out to Cheney, as well as Sen. Joe Manchin - who's also flirting with a No Labels bid - to bring them on board with his campaign instead. 

She's not yet supporting Biden, but has encouraged Republican voters to vote Democrats into Congress for fear that new House Speaker Mike Johnson might not adhere to the results of the 2024 presidential election. 

'It's not a position that I've arrived at lightly,' she said. 

Cheney said her top priority is to defeat Trump and protect the Constitution. 

'The president who's willing to ignore the rulings of the courts, the president who's willing to ignore the guardrails of our democracy is an existential threat,' Cheney said about the ex-president. 

The former Republican House member also said she hoped to 'play a role' in the formation of a 'new, fully conservative party.' 

'And so whether that means restoring the current Republican Party, which ... looks like a very difficult if not impossible taks, or setting up a new party, I do hope to be involved and engaged in that.'  

Cheney had been the No. 3 House Republican before her leadership post was stripped away due to her vote to impeach Trump over his role in the January 6 Capitol attack and her continued Trump criticism.

She then joined the House select committee on January 6, much to the chagrin of her GOP colleagues. 

Cheney lost her Republican primary in August 2022 to Rep. Harriet Hageman, who backs Trump, and has been out of office since January. 

'My only regret is supporting Donald Trump,' she told Page.  

Her new book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, came out Tuesday. 

She used it, in part, to shame 'enablers' and 'collaborationists' of Trump, who are willing to be critical of the ex-president behind closed doors but appear to be in lockstep with him in public. 

Cheney ruffled feathers with the office of Tennessee Republican Rep. Mark Green, who she wrote 'sheepishly' said 'the things we do for the Orange Jesus' as he signed up to contest the 2020 presidential election results, on Trump's orders. 

Green's spokesperson denied the congressman said such a thing. 

She also inspired a Trump rant on Truth Social on Monday for writing that former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told her that Trump knew he lost the 2020 race.

Three weeks after the January 6 Capitol attack, McCarthy traveled to Mar-a-Lago to visit with Trump, which he told Cheney was because the ex-president was 'really depressed' and 'not eating.' 

'That statement is not true. I was not depressed, I WAS ANGRY, and it was not that I was not eating, it was that I was eating too much,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'But that’s not why Keven McCarthy was there. He was at Mar-a-Lago to get my support, and to bring the Republican Party together - Only good intentions.'

Trump also called Cheney 'crazy' and said she 'suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome at a level rarely seen before.' 

The ex-president also falsely claimed that Cheney and other January 6 select committee members destroyed the evidence and findings of the committee.