One year after Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, former Vice President Dick Cheney joined his daughter Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney on the floor of the House to take a lonely position commemorating the anniversary.

The Cheneys were greeted warmly by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, then took their seats on the Republican side of the chamber. Looking around, they quickly realized they were the only Republicans there. The former vice president was stunned.

“It’s one thing to hear about what’s happening in our party, but to see it, like this, in such stark terms,” Dick Cheney told his daughter, according to her 2023 memoir.

Later that day, when reporters asked Dick Cheney what he thought about how Republican leadership had quickly reversed course and folded to Trump, he said: “Well, it’s not leadership that resembles any of the folks that I knew when I was here for 10 years.”

The episode is illustrative of the seismic shift inside the GOP since Trump became its standard-bearer, and the story of how Trump expelled former party leaders who broke with him after he attempted to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Liz Cheney says it is also the story of how her father influenced her life and career, and why she was able to stand up to Trump, a move which cost her both her leadership position and her seat in Congress.

“I want people to know that my father raised me to have the courage of my convictions,” Cheney told CNN.

No doubt many people will remember the 84-year-old Dick Cheney, who died on Monday evening, as one of the most powerful and controversial vice presidents in history. He became a lightning rod for criticism over his role in the Iraq War and earned the nickname “Darth Vader” for his unapologetic support for “enhanced interrogation” of US detainees after 9/11.

But Liz Cheney says she hopes people will also remember that her father was one of the few Republican leaders who broke with his party and spoke out publicly against Trump. In a blunt political ad for his daughter’s 2022 primary campaign, the former vice president blasted Trump as a “coward” and a “threat.”

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“I want people to remember that my father chose country over party,” Liz Cheney said.

When Liz Cheney voted to impeach Trump after January 6, the disgraced former president still had enough influence to make sure she became a pariah in the GOP. She was kicked out of Republican leadership then defeated in a primary by a Trump ally.

But neither father nor daughter backed down. Liz Cheney accepted Speaker Pelosi’s invitation to be vice chair of the House January 6 committee and accused Trump of inciting the January 6 attack on the Capitol.