INDEPENDENCE, Iowa — Sen. Joni Ernst doesn’t agree with Liz Cheney’s opposition to former President Donald Trump. The Iowa Republican still says her fellow GOP leader has the right to stand her ground.

Ernst, the Capitol's only other Republican woman in elected leadership aside from Cheney, said in an interview that her Wyoming colleague shouldn't be expected to fall in line rhetorically or keep her mouth shut just to appease her GOP critics. But as Cheney forgoes a fight to keep her House leadership spot amid a push to unseat her for her Donald Trump apostasy, Ernst urged their party to get past its long-running battle between pro-Trump and anti-Trump factions as it prepares its campaign to take back Congress next year.

“Any elected official should stand their ground. If you feel firmly about something, you should stand your ground. But I also believe that we need to come together as a party, recognize we have differences within the party but the goal with us should be to win seats,” Ernst said here after a stop on her annual 99-county tour.

With “what’s going on in the House," she added, "they need to evaluate: Is this helping or hurting our party?”

Ernst is the No. 5 leader in the Senate Republican conference and will seek to ascend to the No. 4 spot of Republican Policy Committee chair following next year's retirement of Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri. The second-term senator did not say explicitly she wants Cheney to remain as the No. 3 House Republican but had warm words for her colleague even as many in the House GOP seek to toss Cheney out of leadership.

“I know Liz. I appreciate Liz so much. And she feels very strongly about her stance. And again, I know many Republicans that feel very strongly about their stance: pro-Trump, not for Trump, whatever it is. But at the end of the day we have work to get done,” Ernst said.

Cheney may be ousted as soon as next week for continuing to push back against Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen from him. She survived a bid to remove her from leadership earlier this year after she voted to impeach Trump for inciting a riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Ernst voted to acquit Trump in his second impeachment trial, although she also voted to certify the election for President Joe Biden even as most House Republicans and a handful of Senate Republicans sought to challenge the election results.

Her warm words for Cheney on Wednesday went beyond those of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who declined to weigh in when asked if he would do anything to help Cheney keep her position.

"100 percent of my focus is on stopping this new administration," he said at an event in Kentucky. McConnell has previously backed Cheney amid the Wyoming Republican's criticism from within their party.

And when Ernst does talk about Trump, she doesn’t sound at all like Cheney — or McConnell, who criticized Trump before his own acquittal vote and has since avoided the former president's jabs.

“I appreciate President Trump and I appreciate all he has done for our country. And I think we made significant strides forward under the Trump administration, especially in our economy. But everybody has the right to express their opinion,” Ernst said.

She followed with a piece of advice for her party: “At the end of the day we need to all pull together as Republicans and make sure that we’re securing seats.”

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and some of his allies are moving quickly to nudge GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney from her leadership post, publicly criticizing her and privately lining up a potential successor.

During a Tuesday interview on Fox News, McCarthy gave his strongest signal yet that he would support a new attempt to oust Cheney from the No. 3 spot in leadership, saying his members have voiced concerns about her “ability to carry out” her job duties.

Meanwhile, some of McCarthy’s allies have started pitching other Republicans on Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for the post, according to multiple GOP sources familiar with the conversations. Stefanik herself has begun building support for a potential bid if Cheney is booted.

McCarthy’s moves are a stark shift from his public silence earlier this year when House conservatives mounted a failed bid to dislodge Cheney from her role after she voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

This time, McCarthy denied that intra-party frustrations with Cheney were rooted in the Wyoming Republican’s impeachment vote. Cheney's GOP critics say they're frustrated that she hasn’t acted like a team player, doesn’t stay on-message and has created an unwelcome distraction with recent headline-making comments about Trump.

“There’s no concern about how she voted on impeachment. That decision has been made,” McCarthy told “Fox & Friends” in an interview.

“I have heard from members concerned about her ability to carry out the job as conference chair, to carry out the message,” he said. “We all need to be working as one if we’re able to win the majority. Remember, majorities are not given, they are earned. And that’s about the message about going forward.”

Responding to McCarthy’s remarks, Cheney spokesperson Jeremy Adler released a statement later Tuesday morning framing the fight this way: “This is about whether the Republican Party is going to perpetuate lies about the 2020 election and attempt to whitewash what happened on Jan 6. Liz will not do that. That is the issue.”

McCarthy was also caught trashing Cheney on a hot mic Tuesday, saying he’s “lost confidence” in his top deputy and that she has “real problems,” according to Axios.

While tension between the top House Republican leaders has been steadily escalating, the relationship between the conference's No. 1 and No. 3 hit rock bottom after its annual policy retreat in Florida last week, an event designed to project a united front as Republicans look to take back the House. The conversation among senior Republicans now isn’t whether Cheney survives another vote on her future, but who will inevitably replace her.

Members of McCarthy's leadership team have begun whipping people against Cheney, according to one House Republican.

A handful of names have been floated to succeed Cheney, but Stefanik — who propelled herself to GOP stardom during Trump’s first impeachment trial — has emerged as a clear frontrunner, according to multiple senior Republicans and sources close to leadership. Leadership allies are essentially trying to sell Republicans on a replacement plan: swap Cheney for Stefanik.

Stefanik, 36, is said to be interested in the job if Cheney gets the boot and has been calling her colleagues to talk about her interest in the job and garner support, though her supporters believe she’s wary of looking eager to knife Cheney.

Stefanik, who mulled a bid for New York governor this year, has a number of things going for her: She's become a prolific and high-profile fundraiser, is considered an effective party messenger and launched a PAC dedicated to electing more Republican women. She's also liked by the MAGA crowd, including Trump and McCarthy. But Stefanik's PAC has required her to play in GOP primaries, which could be problematic if she winds up in leadership.

Some have also questioned her conservative credentials, noting that Stefanik was a former co-chair of the moderate Tuesday Group who boasts only a 48 percent lifetime score from the conservative group Heritage Action. By comparison, Cheney’s is 80 percent. Stefanik’s upstate New York district, however, has grown redder in recent years.

Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) said Stefanik has his support following Cheney's repeated criticisms of the party over Jan. 6. He lauded Stefanik’s fundraising prowess, her efforts to recruit women and her political instincts.

"I whipped votes actively for Liz Cheney the last time she was in a situation. I'm not doing it this time because I feel that there was an opportunity to pivot and move past the differences that we had as a conference, but every single interview, every single tweet just rehashes past issues,” Reschenthaler told POLITICO.

“That's why I'm actively behind Elise and pushing for a change in that position. We just simply are not going to move forward as a conference if we have somebody that is constantly looking in the rear view mirror,” he added.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a McCarthy ally and co-founder of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, also lent his voice to Stefanik's growing chorus of support during an interview on Fox News.

Republicans are well aware of the optics of booting the sole woman to serve in GOP leadership, with some stressing the importance of finding another woman to take Cheney’s place. Rep. Jackie Walorski of Indiana is another Republican whose name has been floated, but she is generally not viewed as strong of a contender as Stefanik.

Before the growing support for Stefanik became clear, other male GOP members were seen as possible contenders for the Conference chair. Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, chair of the Republican Study Committee, signaled an interest in the role, but as momentum began to build for Stefanik on Tuesday, Banks told The Hill he will not run to replace Cheney. Some have also pointed to Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who occupies the No. 4 slot as vice conference chair.

The discussions about who will replace her indicate that a vote on Cheney’s future is unavoidable, barely three months after she cruised to victory after the first attempt to oust her from leadership by House conservatives.

House Republicans will huddle next Wednesday for their weekly conference meeting, where McCarthy can call for a vote on Cheney's future. If the GOP conference does purge Cheney from their ranks, they’d have to hold another vote on her replacement.

While the timing of those votes is up in the air, Republicans are predicting that the process will move quickly, with many eager to rip the Band-Aid off. Others, however, are warning against a snap decision.

McCarthy defended Cheney privately during February’s vote over whether to keep her in leadership. But their relationship has since soured as McCarthy has sought to walk back his criticisms of Trump and tether himself more closely to the former president — all while Cheney has continued to insist Trump should play no role in the future of the Republican Party.

House Democrats quickly mocked the GOP for its apparent uneasiness with Cheney’s anti-Trump apostasy. Responding to Republicans’ interest in replacing Cheney with a female conference chair, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office released a statementon Tuesday headlined: “GOP Leadership: Help Wanted — Non-Threatening Female.”

Conservatives including Donald Trump Jr. attacked Cheney last week for fist-bumping President Joe Biden ahead of his first address to a joint session of Congress, and the Republican infighting ramped up further on Monday after former President Trump released a statement attempting to rebrand the 2020 election as the real “BIG LIE.”

Cheney responded on Twitter roughly an hour later, writing: “The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.”

The back-and-forth between the former president and the GOP conference chair provoked another round of backlash from conservatives and fueled already rampant speculation that Cheney could soon be booted from House leadership.

"Liz Cheney was put on notice when our conference held a vote to remove her in February. Her role is to lead House Republican messaging, but she is totally unaligned with the majority of our party," Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) said in a statement Tuesday. "We cannot fight for the America First agenda with her in a leadership position."

Later Monday afternoon, Trump released a statement touting “heartwarming” public polling in Cheney’s home state purportedly showing her with low approval numbers and predicted that “she’ll never run in a Wyoming election again!”

Cheney, for her part, rebuked Trump again on Monday night at a closed-door conference in Georgia, where CNN reported she called Trump’s false election fraud claims “a poison in the bloodstream of our democracy” and said that “we can’t whitewash what happened” on Jan. 6.

"Every person of conscience draws a line beyond which they will not go: Liz Cheney refuses to lie," tweeted Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who has voted twice to remove Trump from office. "As one of my Republican Senate colleagues said to me following my impeachment vote: 'I wouldn’t want to be a member of a group that punished someone for following their conscience.'"

Jim Banks is the head of the House GOP’s biggest caucus. He’s also earning another unofficial title: shadow chair of the House GOP Conference.

The Indiana Republican, who's made no secret of his future leadership ambitions, has used his new platform as chief of the Republican Study Committee to build a messaging operation to compete with that of Rep. Liz Cheney, the House GOP’s current — and embattled — conference chair.

On Banks’ watch, the RSC has begun blasting out weekly newsletters modeled after POLITICO Playbook that try to serve up a buzzy mix of politics, policy and personality. The RSC also regularly compiles talking points for its members that often get leaked to conservative media outlets. Banks crafted his own memo outlining his vision for the GOP’s future that won praise from top Republicans. And the RSC has also helped coordinate media opportunities for its members, with Banks routinely popping up in D.C.-based coverage himself.

Banks’ effort to assemble a rival messaging machine is widely viewed by his colleagues as an audition for Cheney’s job, which governs both communications and member services. That position may be available sooner than he expected: Tensions over Cheney’s outspoken criticism of former President Donald Trump are once again at a boiling point inside the GOP conference, with some senior Republicans predicting she’ll be pushed out of leadership before month’s end.

Banks, a veteran of the Afghanistan war who has aligned himself closely with Trump, has raised his own profile since taking the reins of the conservative caucus earlier this year. And the media-savvy 41-year-old is making clear that he views his RSC’s communications shop as superior to the conference’s formal, Cheney-led hub. Banks described it as "filling a void."

“We’re in the minority, and this is a messaging battle as much as a policy battle,” Banks told POLITICO in an interview. “RSC is providing that framework better than anyone else on Capitol Hill.”

But replacing the highest-ranking woman in GOP leadership with Banks, or any other white male, could be a major optics problem for a party that has made recruiting more women and minorities a key part of its strategy for winning back the House next year. Banks also insists he’s focused on the RSC chairmanship and would rather see Cheney become a team player than get the boot. Still, Banks’ attempt to bigfoot Cheney is only fueling speculation that he’s a top candidate to replace her — whether it’s this month or in the next session of Congress.

“If there’s a role to play, where I can continue to do what I’m doing as RSC chairman, I want to do it,” Banks said, when asked whether he’d run for leadership. “The most natural comparison to RSC chair is conference chair … And that’s something I think I would really enjoy, because it’s what I’m doing now.”

Cheney, once a fast-rising star in the GOP praised for her sharp tongue and conservative credentials, became conference chair as only a sophomore Wyoming lawmaker. The 54-year-old mother of five was unanimously reelected to that post in November.

And even though Cheney publicly split from most of her party when she voted to impeach Trump, her allies argue that she has continued to succeed in her leadership role by providing the conference with important messaging tools. Under Cheney’s leadership, the GOP conference has sent out messaging emails every morning that Congress has been in session, in addition to a weekly email with shareable social media content focused on hitting the Biden agenda, according to sources who have seen the communications.

But Cheney’s critics, who unsuccessfully tried to oust her from leadership in February, are growing ever more frustrated by her readiness to call out Trump and his baseless claims about the 202 election. Days after drawing attention at the retreat, Cheney fist-bumped President Joe Biden before his joint address to Congress, further enraging the far right. Even senior Republicans who had her back earlier this year, such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, have soured on her.

One senior Republican lamented that some donors will no longer contribute to the House GOP as long as Cheney is still serving in leadership. “It's a liability for us,” said the GOP lawmaker.

But even with her leadership job on the line, Cheney has not backed down. "The 2020 presidential election was not stolen," she tweeted Monday. "Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system."

The question of who can — or would — replace Cheney is a conundrum that vexed her critics last time around. Besides Banks, two other Republicans considered serious contenders for the role are Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), who won over the MAGA crowd defending Trump during his first impeachment, and Rep. Mike Johnson (La.), a former RSC chairman who now serves as vice conference chair. Other names floated to replace Cheney include Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.).

All of the potential candidates voted to challenge certification of Biden's victory in some states.

Banks, however, has earned high marks from McCarthy, and some Republicans think the GOP leader has been grooming Banks for the post. The two have grown extremely close as they’ve criss-crossed the country fundraising together, including in Banks’ hometown. And McCarthy, who stopped showing up to weekly press conferences with Cheney after they awkwardly clashed over Trump on Feb. 25, appeared with Banks on a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“I’ve been very impressed with what he's done as chair,” McCarthy told POLITICO at last week's retreat, shortly after taking a whack at Cheney in the same interview. “He's really made the members rise to the occasion on different things, and that shows real leadership.”

“It’s not just policy,” McCarthy added of Banks' skills. “He’s worked on communication.”

Tensions between Banks and Cheney have simmered for weeks. During a private Congressional Institute call last month, POLITICO reported that Cheney rebutted the contents of a Banks memo on how to connect with the working-class Trump voters who voted for Trump. Cheney argued the GOP is not the party of class warfare and that dividing society into classes while attacking the private sector is neo-Marxist and wrong.

Banks fired back in a fundraising pitch, with his campaign asking his supporters to “join Jim in standing up to Cheney’s attacks.”

And over the weekend, Banks escalated his criticism of Cheney, telling Axios in an interview that Cheney’s behavior at the retreat was an “unwelcome distraction” and “will only serve to hold us back from being focused on that nearly unanimous goal" of taking back the House majority.

At least one pro-impeachment Republican has praised Banks’ working-class memo: Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina.“It’s important that the Republican Party focuses on issues and not on divisions,” Rice said in an emailed statement.

The influential RSC gig is a well-worn springboard to GOP leadership; past chairs include House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and former vice conference chair Mark Walker (R-N.C.). The RSC position is also limited to a two-year term — and Banks doesn’t exactly deny his interest in running for leadership when his time is up. “I'll be looking for something else to do,” Banks said.

But his naked ambition could also rub some Republicans the wrong way, and there’s a risk that his candor could backfire: Members who want to climb the leadership ranks tend to keep their cards close to the vest for a reason.

“He used to be reasonable, but now you see what happened when you get a taste of power,” said one GOP lawmaker. "You sell out."

For now, though, the newly minted chairman said he's focused on his RSC job, where his goal is to marry "the core principles of the party of Reagan with the populist platform in the party of Donald Trump."

In addition to its ramped-up messaging focus, Banks has turned the RSC into a must-visit venue for 2024 presidential hopefuls and other key stakeholders to discuss the future of conservatism. His guest list so far this year has included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), and former Trump aide Stephen Miller, among others.

On the legislative front, the RSC has assembled a series of policy-focused task forces and already taken formal positions on nine different issues — a fast clip for the group, which only took one such position in the previous Congress.

Banks has also tapped a half-dozen members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus to serve on the RSC’s steering committee, in the hopes of bringing that once-rival group back into the fold.

“I felt that it was very important to bring the family back together again,” Banks said. “On my watch, I want RSC to be relevant."

Olivia Beavers contributed to this report.

TIRANA, Albania (AP) - Albania’s governing left-wing Socialist Party legislators have started the impeachment process against the country’s president who they accuse of violating the constitution during the last election, their parliamentary group leader said Monday.

Taulant Balla said that 50 Socialist lawmakers have asked parliament to launch an investigation ...

CNN's Brianna Keilar rolls the tape on the Republicans voting to censure party members who voted to convict former President Donald Trump during his impeachment trial. Even those who avoided censure, like Utah's Sen. Mitt Romney, are still facing criticism from voters.