Loyalists turn silent after ex-aide’s testimony on Trump’s Jan. 6 actions: The Note

The TAKE with Rick Klein

Ketchup on the wall and shattered dishes inside the White House, knowing about weapons in the crowd and seeming not to care, a grab for the steering wheel and a lunge at a Secret Service agent — they are indelible images, as impactful and downright frightening as anything elicited to date by the House’s Jan. 6 committee.

They stick because they contribute to a portrait of a former and still-perhaps-future president and, at least for now, a political party still largely in his thrall. The fact that the images are being left to linger, with no serious effort yet from Donald Trump’s orbit to say the depictions are wholly fabricated or simply unimportant, is one measure of their potential meaning.

Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony on Tuesday can and is being minimized as hearsay, flatly improbable or with assertions that portions aren’t true, as the Secret Service is prepared to do, according to ABC News’ Pierre Thomas. Former President Trump himself has been attacking Hutchinson’s “body language” and suggesting on his social media platform that she is a “phony” former low-level aide.

But she said what she did with evident professional and personal risk. She also did so under oath — an oath to which her former boss Mark Meadows and a long list of congressional supporters of Trump have been unwilling to subject themselves.

Most prominent Trump loyalists aren’t trying to directly rebut Hutchinson; a few, like Meadows’ predecessor as chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, are saying they believe her. Republicans are turning to a familiar routine of what-aboutism and claims that what voters really care about is not being addressed in these hearings.

That may be true. But the behavior in question casts doubts on Trump’s fitness for office — doubts that, as the committee is keen to remind others, no shortage of Cabinet secretaries or members of Republican congressional leadership expressed amid the horrors of Jan. 6.

Hutchinson testified on a day that Republican primary voters again displayed Trump’s influence inside the GOP. Election-deniers and Trump-endorsed candidates won nominations for offices from Colorado and Utah to Illinois and New York — though Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew, got blown out in the primary for governor.

Winning primaries, though, doesn’t answer the questions raised by Hutchinson and elevated by the committee.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, testifies during the sixth hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol, in Washington, June 28, 2022.

Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

The RUNDOWN with Averi Harper

Efforts by Democratic groups to boost far-right candidates in Colorado were largely unsuccessful in Tuesday’s primary elections, though they were more successful in Illinois.

The not-so-new strategy aimed to help GOP primary hopefuls who, in theory, would then be easier to beat in a general election. What is new is that many of the candidates being promoted also espoused lies about the 2020 election, underscoring fears that the election-deniers could be eventually vaunted to positions of power over future races.

Democrats spent lots of cash to promote Colorado Senate candidate Ron Hanks, gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez and secretary of state candidate Tina Peters. Every single one lost to more moderate politicians.

Hanks lost to Joe O’Dea, a construction company CEO, who both accepts the outcome of the 2020 election and doesn’t support near-total bans on abortion. O’Dea will face Sen. Michael Bennet, a vulnerable Democrat, come November. In a victory speech Tuesday night, O’Dea slammed Democratic efforts to back his more extreme opponent.

“I gotta tell you, this multimillion-dollar campaign by Democrats in the Republican primary is everything that the American people hate about politics. It is pure cynicism and deceit,” O’Dea said. “All of the millions of dollars, all of the scheming, all of it to shield a single politician — Michael Bennet — from the accountability of the voters. It is the worst in our politics.”

While GOP establishment candidates won decisively in Colorado, similar efforts in Illinois’ GOP gubernatorial primary did yield a more extreme candidate: Trump-backed state Sen. Darren Bailey is projected to win the nomination and go on to face incumbent Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

An election judge tears off a couple of “I Voted” stickers to hand to a voter as people cast their ballots in the State Primaries on June 28, 2022 at the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building in Denver.

Marc Piscotty/Getty Images

The TIP with Alisa Wiersema

The tragic discovery on Monday of more than 50 dead migrants in an overheated vehicle in San Antonio, Texas, comes as the state’s top Republican turns back to rhetoric regarding border security amid a tense reelection campaign.

Incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott blamed what happened on President Joe Biden, tweeting, “These deaths are on Biden. They are a result of his deadly open border policies.” (The majority of the victims were Guatemalan, Honduran and Mexican citizens, authorities said.)

The president issued a paper statement on Tuesday in response to the deaths and although he did not call out Abbott directly, Biden appeared to reject Abbott’s claim, saying, “Exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit is shameful, as is political grandstanding around tragedy, and my Administration will continue to do everything possible to stop human smugglers and traffickers from taking advantage of people who are seeking to enter the United States between ports of entry.”

The Texas governor made the southern border a cornerstone issue both in office and on the campaign trail by pledging to fulfill the Trumpian promise of a physical border wall. Meanwhile, Abbott’s push for “Operation Lone Star” — an initiative that aims “to prevent the criminal activity along the border” — has been the subject of scrutiny over its alleged success rate and is criticized by human rights attorneys despite the governor escalating the stakes of his focus.

“If Republicans take control of the United States Congress, they can, I think, begin by impeaching Homeland Security Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas. Last night, he said that this has nothing to do with the Biden administration and because the borders are not open,” Abbott said during a radio interview on Tuesday.

It remains to be seen how the rising tensions over the border play out in heavily Latino areas in Texas that Abbott aims to win over. Just last week, his campaign announced a “historic multi-platform Hispanic media buy” totaling $2.75 million.

Members of law enforcement investigate the scene of the discovery of at least 46 people, believed to be migrant workers from Mexico, who were found dead in an abandoned tractor trailer in San Antonio, Texas, June 27, 2022.

Jordan Vonderhaar/Getty Images

NUMBER OF THE DAY, powered by FiveThirtyEight

7. Kansas. Pennsylvania. Arizona. Wisconsin. North Carolina. Michigan. Georgia. Those are the seven states FiveThirtyEight has identified where the results of the 2022 midterm elections could play a significant role in whether abortion is protected or banned. As FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich, Geoffrey Skelley and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux write, these aren’t the only states where shifts in the electoral mood could affect abortion access — but it is where the consequences are highest. Read more from Nathaniel, Geoffrey and Amelia on why midterm races in these seven states could have an outsized effect on abortion access.

THE PLAYLIST

ABC News’ “Start Here” Podcast. “Start Here” begins Wednesday morning with analysis from ABC’s Jon Karl on the latest Jan. 6 hearing. Then, we go to San Antonio where ABC’s Matt Gutman reports on the tragedy in which 50 migrants were found dead in a tractor trailer after crossing the border. And ABC’s Kate Shaw breaks down the state of abortion in America — where is it legal and where is it not. http://apple.co/2HPocUL

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