Bob Woodward: 20% Of Republicans Would Now Like To ‘Push Trump Off The Cliff’
Washington Post Watergate journalist Bob Woodward said Thursday on CNN that “dramatic” hearings by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection are having such a significant impact that “at least 20% of Republicans” would now like to figuratively “push” Donald Trump “off the cliff.”
Whether Republicans are watching the hearings “or not, a lot of them know that the earth is shaking,” Woodward’s Watergate partner Carl Bernstein added in a panel interview with Anderson Cooper.
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“Why is the earth shaking? Because “both the committee and the Justice Department” know that “before, during and after Jan. 6,” there was a “massive obstruction and conspiracy from the president down … to not allow the transition of power,” Bernstein said. “What we do know, factually, is the Justice Department has the evidence of this massive conspiracy and cover-up,” he added
John Dean, a Richard Nixon White House counsel who flipped on him, said the insurrection proceedings are “working much better than the Watergate hearings,” with “very effective … presentations.” They’re “probably getting to Trump because they are so effective. He appreciates good media.”
“We forget how protracted the Watergate hearings were,” Dean noted. “They were seven months. I didn’t testify for a few hours; I testified for five days, eight hours a day. They were grinding.
Woodward agreed that the House select committee’s hearings are “very dramatic.”
“I think if you can step back, what’s going on here right now in the Republican Party … 50% roughly of the Republicans would walk off the cliff for Donald Trump,” said Woodward. “Now I think at least 20% want to push him off the cliff.”
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And 30% are fixated on simply winning, Woodward noted.
“If there’s one lesson from writing three books about Trump, spending hours interviewing him, there is the lexicon: Win. You have to win. And they want to win,” he added.
Voters “can make the calculation: Is this a winning hand with Donald Trump or not? And it’s eroding. Whether significant, we will see.”
The hearings are uncovering “meaty, dramatic” information, Woodward said.
Check out the full interview here: