Gives the finger...

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy demanded Liz Cheney apologize after voting to impeach Trump

Joshua Bote

An Axios report found that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., demanded that Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., apologize after voting to impeach former President Donald Trump.

During the fraught confrontation, McCarthy said that members of the House GOP wanted to hear an apology from Cheney.

"Several members have asked me to apologize for the vote, they’ve asked my colleagues who also voted to impeach to apologize for the vote," Cheney said, per Axios.

But she refused, allegedly telling House Republicans: "It was a vote of principle — a principle on which I stand and still believe."

In recent weeks, she's doubled down on her role as a Trump critic within the Republican party — most notably in a Fox News interview Sunday in which she condemned the president's conduct following the Jan. 6 storming at the Capitol.

"What we already know does constitute the gravest violation of his oath of office by any president in the history of the country, and this is not something that we can simply look past or pretend didn't happen or try to move on," she told Fox News' Chris Wallace, per CNN.

This also was not the first time House Republicans criticized Cheney for her vote. Last month, two members of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. and Matt Rosendale, R-Mt., spread a petition among caucus members calling for her resignation from the House Republican Conference, per the Hill.

President Donald Trump's impeachment trial begins Tuesday.