By Ashok Nilakantan

New York, Jun 30 (IANS): Liz Cheney, Republican and Vice-Chair of the Senate committee probing the January 6 Capitol Hill riots, has called upon Republicans to get "Rid of Trump" as she said he is a "clear and present threat to both the GOP and to American democracy at large".

She reiterated ex-president Donald Trump was a "dangerous and irrational man" to whom Republicans have played willing hostages as they cannot distinguish between loyalty to Trump and the constitution.

She said on Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan library at Simi Valley, California, according to USA today.

Condemning Trump's seeming encouragement of rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Cheney also chided unnamed Republican leaders "who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man".

Speaking to a friendly crowd - organizers of the event expressed concern about hecklers - Cheney also told fellow Republicans that they stand at "the edge of an abyss" and "we must pull back."

She termed the January 6 Capitol attack a "conspiracy" and that the threat was "ongoing".

She went to the extent of saying Trump is "clearly unfit" for future office, citing his refusal to stop the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill by his supporters to disrupt the announcement of the 2020 verdict electing democrat Joe Bide as President.

Cheney's attacks on Trump echoed those she had made months before, including during her work on the special congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection.

The Wyoming congressperson, who has been ousted by her own Wyoming republican party at the behest of Trump, now faces maximum political peril serving on the senate committee and criticizing the ex-president.

Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, faces a Republican primary challenge in August from Harriet Hageman, a well-funded attorney who has Trump's backing. Hageman called Cheney's speech ironic, saying she "is the last one who should be giving lectures about the future of the Republican Party when she is single-handedly trying to burn it to the ground".

The incumbent "is using Wyoming's only House seat to further her own personal war on President Trump, while helping Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats achieve their own political goals at the same time," Hageman said in a written statement she tweeted after the speech.

During a Tuesday committee hearing, Cheney led the questioning of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide who testified that Trump was aware that some of his supporters had weapons on January 6, even as he urged them to march on the US Capitol to protest the election.

Trump -- who reportedly vowed revenge on impeachment supporters -- has frequently attacked both Cheney and her father, former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney. During a rally in Wyoming in May, Trump said "the Cheney's are die-hard globalists and warmongers who have been plunging us into new conflicts for decades, spilling American blood and spending American treasure all over the world."

Toward the end of her remarks, Cheney praised the young women leaders she has met, and joked about their future challenges. Said Cheney: "These days, for the most part, men are running the world - and it is really not going that well."

"The reality that we face today as Republicans, as we think about the choice in front of us, we have to choose because Republicans cannot both be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution," she said.