The Jan. 6 riot hearings are delivering some startling testimony. Are they changing minds?
Polling suggests most viewers are Democrats
Around 1 p.m. ET Tuesday inside theCaucus Room of the Cannon House Office Building, near the U.S. Capitol,the murmuring among the roughly 70 spectators and100 journalists quieted down as anex-aide to Donald Trump's former chief of staff enteredthrough the back doors andsat at the witness table, wherehovering photographers snapped away.
Journalists weresqueezed into the 10 assembled tables for the abruptly called hearing by theHouse panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot. Last week, it was announced thatthere would be no more hearings until July. But on Monday, the panel unexpectedly saidit was convening a hearing to present "recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony."
That witness wasCassidy Hutchinson, who made a series of startling claims,including that, on Jan. 6, the then-presidentwas informed that people rallying nearby that morning had weapons but he told officials to "'let my people in'" and march to the Capitol.
Yet despite her headline-making testimony, and other revelationsfrom the hearings, so far itseems unclear how much of it isresonating with the American public, or changing minds.
"The evidence of impact at the hearings thus far is hard to come by," saidWilliam A. Galston, a chair and senior fellow of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
The first night of the hearings, thepanellaid out the beginnings of its case against Trump that his lies about the 2020 election and his pressure on Vice-PresidentMike Penceto overturn itdirectly led to the violence on Jan. 6, 2021.
Those hearings were televised on prime time, and drew an audience of about 20 million people, equivalent, as The New York Times pointed out, totelevision events like a big Sunday Night Footballgame.
But by the second hearing, broadcast in the afternoon,the audience had dropped by nearly half to 11 million. That followed tonine million the third day.
The committee has heard from a number of Trump's former top aides, and Republican after Republican, who havesaidthey told Trumpthey didn't believe his claims of electionfraud.
It's heardtestimony from former attorney general Bill Barr,presented through a video recording, that revealed he had told Trump there was no evidence of voter fraud, that he didn't agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen yet in Trump, said Barr, "there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were."
The hearings also heard about a plan by conservative lawyer John Eastman, which hepresented to Trump and which aimed toreverse Joe Biden's election victory.
As well, the hearings heard that Trump hounded the U.S. Justice Department to pursue his false election fraud claims, contacting the agency's leader "virtually every day" and striving in vain to enlist top law enforcement officials in a desperate bid to stay in power.
But an ABC News/Ipsos poll found thatonly 34 per centof Americans are following the hearings somewhat or very closely, with only nine per cent following it very closely.
The poll also revealed that, of those following closely,43 per cent areDemocrats and 22 per cent areRepublicans.
"Ithink it also shows that the Jan. 6committee is not really having an impact among Republicans," said Chris Jackson, a researcher for Ipsos.
A QuinnipiacUniversity pollfound that a majority of Americanssay they are following news about the committee very closely (26 per cent) or somewhat closely (32 per cent). About41 per centsaid not so closely (17 per cent) or not closely at all (24 per cent).
Meanwhile,aPolitico/Morning Consult poll, found40 per centof Americans say the Jan. 6 attacks had a major impact on their outlook, compared to 66 per cent for the 9/11attacks,62 per cent for the pandemic, and 52 per centfor the recent spate of mass shootings.
Galstonsaystaking intoaccount these and other polls, he concludesthat most people watching the hearings are Democrats and that relatively few Independents and Republicans are following.
But while Republicans may not be watching the hearings, they are hearing about them, he says.
"And what they're hearing is not good."
The hearings have also been peppered with moments of emotional testimony, including that of Arizona's Republican state House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who talked about the threats he and his family have had to endure for recognizingthat Joe Biden won the state.
Wandrea"Shaye"Moss, a former Georgia election worker, testified that sheand her motherfaced such severe public harassment from Trump allies they felt unable to live normal lives.
But Brian Gaines, a University of Illinoispolitical science professor,says there may not be as much impact as from, for example, 1973's Watergate hearings, which took place while Richard Nixon was still president.
"The biggest difference of all is that Trump isn't the sitting president," Gaines said.
Back then, the question "How much did the president know?"was "really what made [the Watergate scandal] take off," he said.
"How much the ex-president knew isjust a different question."
YetGalston says he believes some Republicans are beginning to worry that the hearings are having an effect on people's perceptions ofTrump and whether he's the person they want to represent the party in 2024.
"Thefact that almost all the witnesses are Republicans, I'm sure, hasn't escaped their notice," he said.
Trump himself has pummelled Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for his decision not to have more Republicans participate in the hearings.
"Trump is clearly worried that this is having an effect, if not on the Republican Party, on him personally," Galston said.
Jackson, of Ipsos, says their polls show most Americans believe Trump holds at least a good deal of responsibility for the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Yet he says the hearings may only be having a small impact on those beliefs.
"The Republicans who think Trump's innocent, the Democrats who think Trump is guilty, they're not moving."
With files from The Associated Press
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