Former GOP Representative Barbara Comstock Urges Female Republicans Not to Become “Handmaidens” for the Party

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Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:28 pm

Former Republican representative Barbara Comstock, who once represented the state of Virginia, defended Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) amid a push within the party to oust her from her position as conference chair because she called out former President Donald Trump for his baseless falsehoods about the 2020 general election.

Comstock urged female Republicans not to become “handmaids” for the party, a reference to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel––which was adapted into a 1990 film and a critically acclaimed Hulu series that debuted in 2017––tells the story of a woman who is forced into sexual slavery and forced to birth children under a totalitarian dictatorship that is experiencing a fertility crisis.

“All Liz Cheney did is say what Attorney General Bill Barr said, that there wasn’t election fraud. She would not embrace the big lie,” Comstock said in remarks to CNN‘s “New Day.”

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“I think this is a mistake. It’s a bad message,” she added. “I say ‘whoa’ to any woman who wants to be a handmaiden to this and to get a leadership spot on the heels of really something that is unseemly. To embrace the big lie.”

You can watch Comstock’s interview below.

JUST NOW: "I say 'whoa' to any woman who wants to be a handmaiden to this & to get a leadership spot on the heels of really something that is unseemly. To embrace the big lie."

Former GOP Rep @BarbaraComstock warns @EliseStefanik about job she wants.pic.twitter.com/5ZLfcryfum

— John Berman (@JohnBerman) May 5, 2021

Cheney pushed back against Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 general election after Trump issued a statement yesterday morning, more than three months after President Joe Biden took office, calling Biden’s victory “the big lie.”

Cheney responded shortly afterward with a statement of her own affirming that the 2020 general election “was not stolen.”

“Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system,” she wrote.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has denied that efforts to remove Cheney from her position as the House’s third-ranking Republican are in any way related to her vote to impeach Trump for inciting an insurrection against Congress.