Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), garnering headlines this week amid a fresh round of GOP tensions, sparked a rare moment of bipartisanship on Wednesday night.
Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, was seated along the House’s center aisle and got a greeting from both President Biden and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as they each, respectively, entered the chamber.
McConnell exchanged a lengthy handshake with Cheney, who he stood behind against attempts to oust her from her leadership position, by allies of former President Trump. The two appeared to exchange words.
Biden then subsequently gave her a fist bump on his way up to the House podium.
The dual greeting comes even as the two men involved — McConnell and Biden — are at odds over much of the administration’s agenda.
McConnell and Biden served in the Senate together and cut deals under the Obama administration. But McConnell disclosed earlier this year that they had barely spoken and he knocked Biden’s first 100 days from the floor earlier Wednesday.
Cheney, meanwhile, is facing revived tensions within this House GOP caucus this week, including breaking with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Cheney told reporters at a House GOP retreat that she viewed McCarthy and McConnell — not Trump — as the leaders of the GOP and broke with McCarthy over the scope of a Jan. 6 commission.
She also floated, in an interview with the New York Post, that leading the effort to overturn the election—which many of her House GOP colleagues and a handful of Senate Republicans supported — is “disqualifying” for those thinking about running for the White House in 2024.
Trump lashed out at Cheney in a statement this week and McCarthy declined to say if Cheney was a “good fit” for the GOP’s leadership team.