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sen. Pat Toomey suggested that the January 6 committee hearing has hurt Trump, even among Republicans.
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The outgoing senator says Trump’s grip on the 2024 nomination is now “much thinner”.
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“I think we will have a stronger candidate,” Toomey said, suggesting Trump is weak.
Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania suggested on Thursday that the Jan. 6 committee ongoing public hearings have damaged former President Donald Trump politically, even among Republicans.
At the end of a extensive interview with Bloomberg which mainly focused on a Supreme Court ruling affecting the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Reserves approach to tackle inflationthe outgoing legislator was asked whether he believes the hearings will ultimately dissuade Trump from seeking a second term as president in 2024.
“I don’t know if it means that, I mean, he gets to decide whether to run,” said Toomey, who one of seven Republican senators who voted to impeach Trump for inciting an uprising after the riots.
“Look, I think he disqualified himself from serving in public office because of his behavior after the election, especially in the run-up to January 6,” Toomey said. “I think this committee’s revelations will make his path to even the Republican nomination much more difficult.”
Recently, the committee received testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified that Trump knew the crowd gathered in the National Mall on January 6 was armed with gunssaid he was prone to throwing plates and turning over tableclothstried to take the wheel of his SUV when told that he would not be taken to the Capitol on the day of the riots, and that both Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani asked for a pardon from Trump in the last days of his reign.
Members of the former president’s inner circle told Insider that Hutchinson’s testimony was “definitely the most damning day” of the entire session of the hearings, and that her allegations were “very hard to refute.”
Toomey further suggested that the former president, who is still seen by most of the party as its undisputed leader and a shoe-in to the 2024 nomination, is in fact a weak candidate.
“You know, never say never – and he decides whether to throw his hat in the ring – but I think we will have a stronger candidate,” Toomey said.
Read the original article Business Insider