Yesterday, the January 6th Committee sprung a surprise hearing on us all, featuring bombshell

testimony from a former A to President Trump's chief of staff.

Cassidy Hutchinson was working for Mark Meadows on January 6th, 2021.

She said Trump tried to join the rioters on January 6th of the Capitol.

Even when a secret service detail told him it wasn't safe to go.

The President said something to the effect of, I'm the A to President, take me up to the Capitol now.

She also said Trump demanded security checkpoints be lifted at Israel, even though he knew the crowd was heavily armed.

I overheard the President say something to the effect of, you know, I don't think that they have weapons.

They're not here to hurt me, take the A thing that makes a way.

Let my people in, they can march the Capitol from here.

And she said that Trump and some members of his team had known about the potential for violence of the Capitol in the days leading up to January 6th and done nothing.

It was stunning testimony, but as usual the question remains, was it enough to change anything?

To debrief, I'm joined by a Times columnist and Times editorial board member, Brett Stevens and Michelle Cotto.

Hi, Brett, hi, Michelle, good to see you. Thank you so much for joining me today to talk about yesterday's hearing. Let's get into it.

Michelle, what we heard yesterday, this was not a hearing, it was on the original agenda, but obviously the committee realized that hearing from Hutchinson was important.

What was new here and what is her testimony change?

There's been a lot of discussion on whether it changes the legal aspects of this, but I think just in terms of like lurid details about Trump knowing the crowd was armed and still wanting this to go forward, I think it really drives home the point that he absolutely knew of the dangers and he just did not care.

And a lot of her testimony in terms of like conversations she overheard with Mark Meadows, the chief of staff talking with other advisors who were begging Trump to step in and calm the fury, made really clear that he had no interest in that that he thought it was fair that Mike Pence was being threatened with hanging.

So I think just kind of her very personal, very kind of nitty gritty from the front lines of this testimony made it almost unavoidable to accept that Trump knew what was going on and was perfectly fine with what was happening.

So I think that this may have been a moment that broke through not to Trump's most faithful, but to his voters who were prepared to let a lot of things slide, including January 6, precisely because what Hutchinson described was so vivid and so credible.

It's worth remembering that this young woman was an intern for Ted Cruz, she before she came to the White House, she comes very much from within the conservative movement.

It's not a case like judge Ludig whose testimony I found persuasive, but who was a George H. W. Bush at pointy kind of traditional mainstream conservative.

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