The damaging revelations of the Jan. 6 committee hearings are fueling skepticism among Senate Republicans that Donald Trump can win the GOP nomination in 2024 or even run for another term in the White House.
One Republican senator, who requested anonymity to comment on the former president, said the “cascade” of embarrassing details about Trump’s conduct in the weeks before Jan. 6, 2021, and during the attack on the U.S. Capitol will seriously damage his political viability ahead of the 2024 election.
“I don’t think he’ll run again and that’s a good thing, because of the whole cascade of events,” the senator said, referring to testimony by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson that Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent when he refused to drive him to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, is now cooperating with a Justice Department investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, according to media reports.
A second GOP senator, who requested anonymity, said the overwhelming majority of Republican senators don’t want him to be the party’s nominee for president again.
“I could count on one hand the number of Republican senators who want Donald Trump to be our nominee,” said the lawmaker, adding: “I could count it on one finger.”
The senator said “the cumulative effect” of the Jan. 6 hearings is weighing on Trump’s viability in 2024.
Publicly, Senate Republican leaders predict Trump will face stiff competition in the 2024 GOP primary. They believe Trump’s grip on the party is slipping amid polling showing surging voter interest in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters recently that Trump will face a “crowded field” for president.
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) on Wednesday predicted the former president will have to contend with “robust” competition from fellow Republicans in the next election cycle.
Thune emphasized the importance of the party’s nominee appealing to independent and swing voters if Republicans are to win back control of the White House.
He also said the Jan. 6 hearings are “filling in some blanks” and while the revelations won’t hurt Trump with Republican voters who already support him, voters in the middle are more likely be swayed by new details.
Several more major details emerged in the House select Jan. 6 committee’s last hearing, which aired outtakes from Trump’s taped message to the nation in which he refused to say the election was over, even though Congress has just certified the results.
GOP senators themselves are weighing how much damage to Trump has been done, even as they also look at a weakened President Biden, who has seen his approval rating drop below 40 percent.
“That’s what an election process would sort out,” Thune said. “There are different polls and surveys and focus groups that are all trying to assess what the impact of all this and how it affects 2024. I think it’s too early to tell.
“I also think people are going to be looking at taking into consideration the strongest and best candidate in a general election setting and trying to get the White House back,” Thune predicted.
“There are folks who aren’t in one camp or the other that are probably susceptible to new information and there’s been some new information that’s come out,” he said.
“Elections get decided — national elections at least — by the people in the middle. That’s who everybody in the end is going to have to win. The two sides will go to their respective corners, their respective camps and there’s probably nothing that changes their minds about any of this but those independent voters that decide late … or maybe aren’t paying all that much attention right now are probably going…
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