Washington – House GOP Conference Chair and Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) joined Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” to discuss infighting among House Democrats and their party’s embrace of socialism. Click here to watch the full interview and see a transcript below:

MARTHA MACCALLUM: Here now, House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney. Good to see you this evening Chairwoman, thank you for being here. What’s your reaction to what’s going on there?
 
REP. LIZ CHENEY: Well thank you for having me, Martha. I think what you’re watching is really the unraveling of the Democratic Party as we’ve known it in the past. You have a situation where you’ve got this very radical wing of the House Democrats and the Speaker has attempted many times to try to sort of keep everybody under control by, in the past, moving very far left and you see now that that’s not working for her. But what you do have is a situation where the Democratic Party both here in the House as well as the candidates that they put up for president, has become the party of socialists, they’ve become a party that are advocating this far-left set of positions and I think on some level, Speaker Pelosi knows that those are not positions that the vast majority of the American people agree with. She knows the vast majority of the American people do not want to give free government-provided healthcare to all illegal immigrants, but we know that that is what the Democrats in the House, many of them want to do, we know it’s what the Democratic presidential candidates want to do, and so she’s in a very difficult situation, but she’s dealing with a situation where she’s being drug, the whole party is being drug, very far to the radical left fringe.
 
MACCALLUM: It’s interesting that this conversation, because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said today that she does not believe Nancy Pelosi is racist and yet, there is this pull towards the identity politics of this by bringing that up—it’s a very loaded weapon to bring that up, in many ways. And here is Rep. Jayapal, who backs Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. she says, “We women of color have faced this for such a long time. We’re in a body of mainly old white men. You don’t get to be here without having dealt with that, most people.” What do you make of that?
REP. CHENEY: I think we all have an obligation and a responsibility to our constituents, to the people who send us here, to the American people, to make arguments, to make our case, to stand for what we believe in. Based on the substance, based on policy. We all have the responsibility to debate based on standing up for facts. I think that falling back into identity politics too often is an excuse for not standing up for facts and substance. On the Republican side you will see us make sure – and I can tell you this as the Republican Conference Chair – someone who is responsible for a large part of our messaging, that we are going to be having these debates based on substance. We know that the American people do not want this to be a socialist nation. The problem on the Democratic side is that a lot of them do want this to be a socialist nation. They don’t understand, fundamentally, that when you give government the amount of power they want to give the federal government, you are taking people’s freedom away. We love won’t let that happen on our side of the aisle.

MACCALLUM: I thought it was very significant that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went after DHS. She obviously believes that they have had policies that she finds very disturbing in terms of the way the families are being treated on the border. They have pushed back strongly on that notion in terms of how they are doing their job down there. But she then said that she thought the creation of DHS in the early 2000’s, and she doesn’t mention 9/11 when she talks about this, but she said that it was an egregious mistake on the part of the Bush administration. What is your response to that?
 
REP. CHENEY: It’s just fundamentally irresponsible and uninformed. The Department of Homeland Security is comprised of approximately 22 agencies, they have hugely important cyber security responsibilities, intelligence security responsibilities, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, FEMA. All of those are part of the Department of Homeland Security, and part of the hugely important mission that department has and the hundreds of thousands of professionals that staff that department. I did note that when Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez talked about its creation, she failed to mention 9/11. That’s pretty much something we see consistently, frankly, on their side of the aisle. A lack of willingness to recognize what the nation went through, the worst attack in our history. And the fact is that we put the Department of Homeland Security together to help ensure the security of the homeland. It was one thing when they were out there saying they were going to abolish ICE, that in and of itself is absurd and irresponsible enough. But now for Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, who frankly seems to be emerging as one of the intellectual leaders of their party in the House, and I think that tells you that it’s a pretty low bar — but she is now saying we should abolish DHS. That’s just absurd, and dangerous, and highly irresponsible.

MACCALLUM: Chairwoman Liz Cheney, thank you very much. Good to have you with us tonight.
 
REP. CHENEY: Thank you Martha, good to be with you.