Liz Truss attacks Biden and ‘CINOs’ in Tory party as she rants to half-empty crowd at US right-wing conference
Liz Truss has hit out at Joe Biden and members of the Tory party over the “most almighty backlash” that led to her own failed UK premiership.
At times echoing the rhetoric of former president Donald Trump, Ms Truss – who lasted just 49 days in office – also blamed “quangos and bureaucrats and lawyers” for her political demise.
Ms Truss made the remarks as she ranted to a half-empty crowd at the right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac), on Thursday. Her appearance is part of a publicity tour for her forthcoming book, Ten Years to Save the West.
She has also attempted to coin a new phrase, “CINO”, meaning “Conservative In Name Only” – similar to Mr Trump’s “RINO” (Republican In Name Only).
“It’s people who think ‘I want to be popular, I don’t want to upset people, I don’t want to look like a mean person, I want to attend nice dinner parties in London or Washington DC, I want my friends to like me, I don’t want to cause trouble’,” she told the conference.
“What those people are doing is they are compromising, and they are triangulating, and they are losing the argument.”
Ms Truss left office shortly after taking it, following her disastrous 2022 mini-budget, which sent the pound into a nosedive and sparked a crash in global markets.
During her 15-minute address on Thursday she claimed that the “catastrophic reaction” to the budget had come from the “usual suspects” in both the media and the corporate world, as well as government, the Office of Budget Responsibility and the Bank of England.
She went on to blame the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Mr Biden, accusing him of having “intervened to have a go at my policies”. “Can you imagine being attacked on your economic policies by the inventor of Bidenomics? Talk about offensive,” she said.
Ms Truss later launched into a laundry list of complaints and conspiratorial musings about how “the left” is undermining the Conservative-led British government because they “did not accept that they lost at the ballot box” – similar to Mr Trump’s infamous claims of a “stolen” US election.
“Instead, they’ve been weaponizing our court system to stop us contorting illegal immigrants, they’ve been using the administrative state to make sure that conservative policies are faulted and they’ve been pushing their woke agenda through our schools, through our campuses, and even in our corporations,” she said.
Elsewhere, despite not endorsing Mr Trump – the GOP frontrunner and Cpac favourite – by name, Ms Truss also asserted that the world “needs a Republican back in the White House” and that it was the only way to “save the West” from opponents such as Russia, Iran and China.
“Of course we need a Republican back in the White House. By the way, it isn’t just America that needs it desperately, we need it desperately right across the free world, because you are the leaders of the free world, like it or not,” she said.
“We need Republicans who are prepared to fight. We need Republicans who aren’t going to cave in to the establishment.
Ms Truss’ appearance at Cpac came a month after her predecessor in Downing Street, Boris Johnson, used his Daily Mail column to endorse the former president, who continues to claim the 2020 election was stolen from him, faces multiple criminal charges, and suggested he would be willing to let Vladimir Putin attack Nato countries.
Liz Truss (left) accusing Joe Biden of having ‘intervened to have a go at my policies’ during her appearance at Cpac
