After a strategic misfire by House Republicans, Donald Trump has been left twisting in the wind as Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, vice chair of the select committee investigating Jan. 6, dismembers Trump in real time in the Jan. 6 hearings. At the outset of Tuesday’s hearing, Cheney landed yet another blow, noting that Trump—and Trump alone—is responsible for his actions.
"President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child,” Cheney noted. “Just like everyone else in our country, he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices."
In other words, just because Trump petulantly throws plates of ketchup against the Oval Office walls doesn’t mean he escapes culpability for trying to get congressional lawmakers and his own vice president killed.
Cheney’s framing was pitch perfect, evoking Trump’s childish impulses while reminding viewers that, dammit, he’s a 70-year-old man. And just like all the other adults being held responsible for their actions on Jan. 6, Trump must be too.
Politically speaking, Cheney’s dismantling of a defenseless Trump is incredibly important. Trump’s cultists view him as muscular, imposing, and omnipotent, and yet here he is getting absolutely dragged by an establishment Republican—a woman at that—who never blinks, never flinches, and never misses her mark. Cheney’s politics are horrific, but she’s a stone-cold killer. Not a single Republican in this country has shown more poise, more vision, and more courage than Cheney. And she looks, in this moment, to be in far more control of Trump’s destiny than he does.
That’s a political loser for Trump. In a recent Hacks On Tap podcast, longtime GOP strategist Mike Murphy observed something along the lines of: Trump is either the alpha or he’s the beta, and he’s heading toward Betaland. Murphy’s comment wasn’t within the context of Jan. 6, but it’s a broadly applicable theme.
Trump is increasingly looking beta in multiple settings. He’s losing ground in the polls, including a New York Times/Siena poll released Tuesday showing Republican support for Trump in the 2024 GOP primary falling below 50%. That simply will not fly. Trump derives all of his power from being feared and therefore revered. Cheney doesn’t fear him, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis doesn’t seem to fear him—not even 26-year-old former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson feared him enough to stay quiet.
That’s a serious political problem for Trump.
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