Will GOP jettison a damaged Donald Trump?
Day 6 of the hearings yesterday by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol consisted of one bombshell after another. The Committee’s witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, the top aide to former Donald Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, came to the hearing with stunning revelations to share. Among Hutchinson’s revelations:
–When Trump learned in December 2020 that the Department of Justice had not found evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election that would nullify Joe Biden‘s victory (i.e., Trump’s “Big Lie”), Trump became so angry that he threw his porcelain plate full of lunch at the White House dining room wall, leaving ketchup dripping down the wall. On other occasions, an angry Trump either threw dishes or “flipp[ed] the table cloth to let all the contents of the table go onto the floor and likely break or go everywhere.”
–Trump and other top administration officials knew about the risk of violence on January 6 days beforehand, but did nothing to stop it.
–Indeed, on January 6, Trump was upset that the Ellipse in front of the White House, where he was to speak, was not full enough for a flattering photo op. Trump was told the reason was that many of the rioters were armed with AR-15 rifles and other weapons and did not want to go through the metal detectors and have such weapons confiscated, instead choosing to march directly to the Capitol with their weapons. Upon hearing this, Trump wanted to have the metal detectors taken away and to let the armed insurrectionists onto the Ellipse, saying “they’re not here to hurt me.”
–When told that the rioters were chanting “Hang Mike Pence” and that Trump should take action to try to quell the violence (such as telling the protesters to leave the Capitol), Trump refused, saying “Mike deserves it” (for not stopping the Congressional count of Electoral Votes as Trump wished) and that the rioters were “not doing anything wrong.”
–Trump attacked his own Secret Service detail leader and tried to grab the steering wheel of the Presidential limousine when told he would not be taken to the Capitol after speaking on January 6.
When Tuesday’s hearing ended, this was the reaction by the panel at Fox “News”:
This post-hearing moment of awkward silence on Fox kinda says a lot. pic.twitter.com/5yRNJ0btKd
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 28, 2022
In the clip, after wondering whether there is “some other angle to this,” Bret Baier says to his fellow Fox panelists, “the testimony in and of itself, is really, really powerful.” Afterward, the silence by the panelists is so long that one of them (John Roberts) has to ask the other, Sandra Smith, “Sandra, could you still hear?” To which Smith replies:
To your point, I just wonder, for the country watching this, in this moment, how much this changes what people believed or did not believe?
Indeed, one has to wonder whether this will be looked back upon as the moment where Fox “News” ditched Donald Trump for the 2024 presidential election.
After all, there is an alternative to Trump who holds the same views, takes the same fascist actions that many Republicans seem to love, is younger, and doesn’t have Trump’s personal baggage. This candidate is also from Florida, and indeed is Florida’s Governor. Of course, we are talking about Ron DeSantis. And there are other Republican presidential hopefuls who may be salivating at the prospect of a weakened, damaged Donald Trump.
If Fox pulls its all-important support for Trump, will that lead to an ugly GOP battle between die-hard Trump MAGA supporters and the rest of the Republican Party, who might recognize that following Trump off a cliff is sure-fire loser in 2024? Will some of the die-hards themselves abandon Trump? Will Trump quit the race rather than face possible humiliation in his own party? Stay tuned.
Photo by Steve Baker, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/PIkHdr
