‘This Really Changes Things’: Three Opinion Writers on Cassidy Hutchinson’s Jan. 6 Testimony

For the past month, the House select committee on Jan. 6 has held a series of public hearings on President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Yesterday it surprised all of us with some of its most stunning evidence yet.

In revelatory testimony, Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a top aide to Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, divulged details about just how much Trump and some of his supporters knew about the potential for violence at the Capitol before Jan. 6. According to Hutchinson, Trump knew that the crowd was heavily armed, but that didn’t stop him from calling on his supporters to march to the Capitol anyway. “They’re not here to hurt me,” she overheard him say.

Host Jane Coaston is joined by The Times’s columnist Bret Stephens and editorial board member Michelle Cottle to unpack the new testimony and what it might mean for Trump — and the future of the G.O.P.

Recommended reading from this episode:

Michelle Cottle’s Opinion essay “Cassidy Hutchinson Did Her Job”

Bret Stephens’ column “Will the Jan. 6 Committee Finally Bring Down the Cult of Trump?”

The Wall Street Journal opinion essay “Trump Needs an Apprentice”

(A full transcript of the episode will be available by the end of the day on the Times website.)