We've got a lot to get to this morning.
Fascinating new poll, though, showing exactly how loyal Republicans remain,
even increasingly so, to Donald Trump as we approach Iowa.
Here, nearly three years after the January 6th insurrection,
new polling suggests the capital attack may still be a
liability for Donald Trump in the next election,
but not with his base or in this primary.
In the latest Washington Post University of Maryland survey,
50% of adults say the protesters
who stormed the Capitol were,
quote, mostly violent. While that overall number is down from
a December
2021 poll, that's largely because fewer Republicans now believe that
to be true.
When asked if Trump bears responsibility for the attack on
the Capitol,
14% of Americans say yes.
Excuse me? Of Republicans. Only
14% of Republicans. That's down 13 points since
2021. Still, 56% of independents say Trump is to blame
for the events of January 6th.
And so Trump appears to have had some success falsely
convincing Americans the last election was stolen from him,
62% overall. And 66% of independents still say Joe Biden
was legitimately elected in 2020.
So Charlie, that's just a a a few of the
numbers there from a sprawling Washington Post poll here.
It kind of tells us what we know to be
true,
that Donald Trump's support among the base among Republicans has
only strengthened.
And that his rewriting of the history of January 6,
whose 3rd anniversary by the way,
is coming up this weekend,
has taken hold and has become the truth to a
lot of
I guess, Trump Republicans, if you want to call him
that.
But if Donald Trump does come out of that Republican
primary field and get to a general election,
this question of democracy and what happened around the last
election of January 6th
will be a liability to him.
It will. It will be.
Look, it's an old story that Republicans are loyal to
Donald Trump that he is,
this is the Donald Trump's party.
But, but what is really striking is
that poll which shows his ability to rewrite history as
as you mentioned.
I mean, this is a post reality world that we
live in here because we saw January 6th with our
own eyes.
We watched it. It's on videotape.
In the wake of January 6th,
people like Mitch McConnell, even Kevin McCarthy came out and
said yes,
Donald Trump was responsible for all of this.
The evidence is voluminous, but we live in a world
in which 10s of millions of people will deny the
evidence of their own eyes,
will deny the testimony of people who were there,
and in fact will ignore,
you know, members, leaders of their own party.
So this is part of the the new reality of
the post reality reality that we live in.
And Donald Trump has proven rather remarkably successful in being
able to push this revisionist story.
So 2024 will be about whether or not
people can push back and obviously people like Liz Cheney
and Adam Kinzing or out there as vigorously as possible.
We will have a trial of this will be relitigated
again,
I hope. But we we see the the level of
the challenge in that poll.
And Jonathan Lemire, you wrote the book The Big Lie,
of course, on everything that happened around the 2020 election
in January 6th.
And what you see, as well as a sympathy among
Trump supporters,
among Republicans for the people in jail right now,
he's sort of recast them as hostages.
He's called them the J6 hostages.
There's the J6 choir. All of that turned them into
martyrs.
And some people among his supporters,
many of them are buying that argument.
But again, the question remains,
it may be good for him in Iowa coming up
in a couple of weeks.
It may work for him even in New Hampshire as
he goes through this primary season.
But if you look at this Washington Post poll,
it fits with what we've seen previously,
which is that independents, obviously Democrats,
but independents believe he bears some responsibility for what they
see as a terrible day in American history.
Yeah, within the Republican Party,
the big lie has become doctrine,
and those poll numbers reflect it.
That so many in the GOP don't think Joe Biden
was duly elected president,
that the RNC changed some of the language in their
platform.
That that downplayed the violence that we saw on January
6th, 2021, saying it was normal,
peaceful protests. So certainly, as we see as Trump barrels
into Iowa with a commanding lead
and seemingly New Hampshire after that,
it's not hurting the Republican Party.
But this poll is illuminating that it may hurt him
with independence.
And right now President Biden certainly has a base problem.
His aides know that that they need to re energize
those core Democratic values,
young voters, progressives, voters of color.
But they feel pretty good about where they are among
independents,
in part because independence, particularly next year when presented with
that binary choice,
Trump, Biden, that they feel like they simply won't be
able to break for Trump again.
And January 6th is part of that.
And more than that, it is this idea that he
remains a threat to democracy.
And the Biden campaign is really leaning into that.
In fact, brand new this morning.
We know that he will be giving a speech this
Saturday.
President Biden in Philadelphia, outside Philadelphia at Valley Forge,
of course. A place of historic significance,
A place so fundamental to this
country's founding. And he will speak on the January 6th
anniversary there and warn about the ongoing threats to democracy,
the latest in a series of speeches he has done
there.
And then on Monday, he'll head to South Carolina Mother
Emanuel Church there in Charleston,
the site of that racist mass shooting some years ago.
And he will again say that the extreme forces that
have been unleashed by the far right fueled that shooting,
too. And that is what is at stake in this
year's election.