Even if the Jan. 6 attack will not become a unifying moment for the country.
The opportunity for the Jan. 6 attack to serve as a unifying moment for the country has already been lost.
The initial bipartisan condemnation of it has given way to a partisan argument in which many congressional Republicans play down the attack. The Republican Party’s official organization described the riot as “legitimate political discourse,” and Republican leaders like Representative Kevin McCarthy quickly softened their initial denunciation. About half of Republicans voters say it was a patriotic attempt to defend freedom.
But the facts about Jan. 6 still matter. On that day, a mob violently attacked the Capitol — smashing windows, punching police officers, threatening members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence — to try to prevent the certification of a presidential election. The rioters justified their attack with lies about voter fraud, and they received encouragement from top Republicans, including President Donald Trump and the wife of a Supreme Court justice.
Last night, a House committee investigating the attack held its first public hearing, and today’s newsletter covers the highlights. These hearings are not going to transform the politics of Jan. 6, yet they do have the potential to affect public opinion on the margins. And the margins can matter.
There are still many Republican voters disgusted by what happened on Jan. 6. Nearly half say that finding out what happened that day is important. Almost 20 percent consider the attack to have been an attempt to overthrow the government, according to a recent CBS News poll. About 40 percent believe, accurately, that voter fraud was not widespread in the 2020 election.
“I actually think that there is an opportunity,” Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist, said this week on our colleague Kara Swisher’s podcast. The hearings, Longwell added, can help prosecute the case for how extreme some Republican politicians have become.
If Republican voters are divided over the attack and Democrats are almost uniformly horrified by it, the politicians making excuses for it remain in the minority. Candidates who base their campaigns on lies about voter fraud — as some are now doing in Arizona, Pennsylvania and elsewhere — will have a harder time winning elections. Future efforts to overturn an election will be less likely to succeed.
For the same reason, any Republicans who have consistently denounced the attacks — like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the only two Republicans serving on the Jan. 6 committee — are especially important. They are demonstrating that it’s possible to hold very conservative views and nonetheless believe in honoring election results. Until very recently, that combination wasn’t even unusual: Ronald Reagan and many other Republicans won elections by earning more votes.
The Jan. 6 hearings are part of a larger struggle over the future of American democracy. Americans will probably never come to a consensus on many polarizing political issues, like abortion, guns, immigration and religion. That’s part of living in a democracy.
But if Americans cannot agree that the legitimate winner of an election should take office and if losing candidates refuse to participate in a peaceful transfer of power, the country has much bigger problems than any policy disagreement.
The hearing:
The committee, led by Cheney and Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, cast the Capitol attack as part of Trump’s “sprawling, multi-step conspiracy” to overturn the 2020 election. “Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup,” Thompson said.
Lawmakers interspersed their presentation with videos of former Trump aides testifying that they had told the president that his claims of voter fraud were false. The committee also played never-before-aired footage of rioters attacking police officers.
Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer whom the mob knocked unconscious and pepper sprayed, testified in person about the attack: “It was carnage. It was chaos.”
Cheney addressed members of her party who remain loyal to Trump: “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
What we learned:
Trump believed the rioters were “doing what they should be doing,” Cheney said, and yelled at advisers who said that he should call them off. He said that rioters who chanted about hanging Pence “maybe” had “the right idea.”
The committee played video of Bill Barr, the former attorney general, saying that he had called Trump’s fraud claims “bullshit” and “crazy stuff.” Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, testified that she “accepted” what Barr said.
Footage shot by a documentary filmmaker showed members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, two far-right groups who stormed the Capitol, meeting on the evening before the attack.
In video testimonies, several rioters said that they had stormed the Capitol in response to Trump’s summons. “He asked me for my vote and he asked me to come on Jan. 6,” one said.
Cheney said that Pence, not Trump, ordered the National Guard to the Capitol during the attack, and that “multiple” House Republicans sought pardons over their efforts to overturn the election.
Related:
The hearing depicted Trump as “not just a rogue president but a would-be autocrat,” The Times’s Peter Baker writes.
On Fox News, which did not broadcast the hearing live, Tucker Carlson called the attack “forgettably minor.”
The F.B.I. arrested Ryan Kelley, a Republican candidate for Michigan governor, on charges stemming from Jan. 6.
At least 21 Republican legislators joined the crowds in Washington on Jan. 6. Here’s where they are now.
A bipartisan group of senators is nearing a deal to update the Electoral Count Act. One provision would clarify that the vice president cannot overturn election results.
THE LATEST NEWS
War in Ukraine
“Dead cities” in eastern Ukraine, ravaged by Russian attacks, have become the latest focal points in the war.
Marking the 350th anniversary of Peter the Great’s birth, President Vladimir Putin compared himself and the invasion of Ukraine to Russia’s first emperor and his conquering exploits.
Ukraine’s military and its government called for more arms from the West.
The Virus
The White House has made millions of Covid vaccine doses available in anticipation that children under 5 will be able to get shots next week.
Mysteries linger about how Covid spread to people, according to a new report from the W.H.O. on the origins of the coronavirus.
Politics
The U.S. sped up its deportations of Haitian migrants last month, expelling nearly 4,000.
Many state abortion bans that would go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned do not contain exceptions once widely supported by abortion opponents.
Carl Paladino, a Republican House candidate from New York, apologized for calling Adolf Hitler “the kind of leader we need today” last year.
The House voted to pass legislation allowing guns to be confiscated from people deemed by a federal court to be dangerous. It garnered only five Republican votes.
Other Big Stories
During the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, more than a dozen students remained alive in barricaded classrooms while officers waited over an hour for protective gear.
A white police officer in Grand Rapids, Mich., was charged with murder over the shooting of Patrick Lyoya, a Black man, in April.
The Justice Department is investigating the Louisiana State Police over the fatal beating of a Black motorist.
The truth is out there: NASA will fund a study into U.F.O.s.
Iran has begun dismantling U.N. cameras intended to monitor its nuclear program.
A Broadway theater will be renamed to honor Lena Horne, a renowned Black singer and activist.
Oklahoma’s softball team won the Women’s College World Series for the second straight year.
Opinions
Shanghai’s Covid lockdown exposed the myth of China’s superiority, Connie Mei Pickart says.
For conservative Christians, calling mass shooters “evil” has become an excuse to avoid passing new gun laws, Esau McCaulley argues.
MORNING READS
Beer lovers: Germany is facing a shortage of bottles.
A full office return: How about … never?
Modern Love: Is it time to stop privileging romantic connections over all others?
A Times classic: How to keep your muscles into old age.
Advice from Wirecutter: Tips for organizing your garage.
Lives Lived: Dmitry Kovtun was one of two men suspected of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko, a fellow former spy who had defected from Russia, with radioactive polonium in a London bar. Kovtun died at 56.
ARTS AND IDEAS
Your next great read
It seems impossible to replicate online the feeling of walking into a bookstore and discovering new books and authors. But some apps are trying.
Several companies have tried to tackle the issue, with mixed results, Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth Harris write in The Times. This week, the app Tertulia came out. It uses a mix of artificial intelligence and human curation to distill online chatter about books and point readers to the ones that might interest them.
But it’s not easy. “I don’t think anyone has found a tool or an algorithm or an A.I. platform that does the job for you,” Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, which analyzes the book industry, told The Times.
PLAY, WATCH, EAT
What to Cook
This strawberry cake is a lighter take on the French fraisier. (See how to make it.)
What to Listen to
The latest episode of “Still Processing” explores how one highway divided a Philadelphia community.
What to Read
The filmmaker Werner Herzog is making a foray into fiction with “The Twilight World.”
Late Night
“Exactly what you thought, but worse than you could have imagined”: Hosts weighed in on the first Jan. 6 hearing.
Take the News Quiz
How well did you follow the headlines this week?
Now Time to Play
The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were innovating and navigation. Here is today’s puzzle.
Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Scrumptious (five letters).
And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David
P.S. Kevin Quealy — a talented data journalist and friend of this newsletter — will be The Upshot’s next editor.
Here’s today’s front page.
“The Daily” is about Chesa Boudin’s recall in San Francisco. “Popcast” answers listener questions.
Natasha Frost, Claire Moses, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
