A former ambassador who served under President Donald Trump says the Jan. 6 committee hearings are having a “corrosive effect” and are “certainly starting to wear on” the former president’s support. “I think what everyone thought was that the first prime-time hearing was such a non-event that it was going to continue,” attorney Randy Evans, who served as ambassador to Luxembourg under Trump, told Politico’s David Siders. “But during the hearings, the stability, the repetitiveness, had a corrosive effect,” he said. “You’d have to ignore the way the media works, the way rumors work, the way politics works, not to realize that it’s never the same thing. It’s the accumulation.” The committee’s seven hearings so far have featured dozens of former Trump aides and others around him testifying about the intensity and brazenness of Trump’s efforts to sway the 2020 election, his efforts to pressure and arm officials and his knowledge of about the violence that could break out on January 6. Evans added that “it’s all definitely starting to take a toll — how much, I don’t know. But the bigger question is whether it’s starting to eat through the Teflon. There’s some indication that maybe it is. But it’s too early to tell right now.” Whatever impact the Jan. 6 hearings will have on Trump’s position has yet to be fully realized, as the committee’s investigation and public hearings are still ongoing. But some recent polls point to potential trouble for Trump as he moves closer to announcing a 2024 presidential bid, possibly before the 2022 midterm elections in November. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that half of Republican voters want a Republican other than Trump to be the Republican nominee in 2024. However, Trump still leads the hypothetical 2024 presidential field with 49% of the vote, followed by the Governor. Florida’s Ron DeSantis at 25% and other Republicans in single digits. Sarah Longwell, a Republican operative who frequently holds focus groups of GOP voters, told Politico that the Jan. 6 hearings did not turn the Republicans in her focus groups against Trump so much as they “turned up the tension on the Trump baggage,” contributing to further voter fatigue and exhaustion. “I can’t tell you how much these Republican voters want to move on from the Jan. 6 debate,” he said. Loading Something is loading.
