Steve Roberts ABC News - July 25, 2022 - KRDO’s Morning News

As the Jan. 6 hearings concluded for the summer Rep.Liz Cheney said, “Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6 ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation?” Trust is one of the most vital words in the political lexicon, and the big question now is: have the hearings eroded public trust in Trump who seems almost certain to run again. There are two answers to that. To core Trump supporters the answer is clearly no. Many of them continue to parrot his grievances about the 2020 election and in a recent NYTimes poll half of all Republicans say they wanted Trump to seek a second term. But there is a second answer, with growing signs that a sizable slice of Republicans agree with Cheney and no longer trust Trump. Half of Republicans told the Times they want someone else to get the nomination and 16 per cent said they'd never vote for Trump. Clearly the hearings have magnified those growing doubts as they document how Trump encouraged the rioters on Jan 6 and failed for more than three hours to quell the uprising.  As GOP pollster Whit Ayres told the Washington Post, "“You can see the effect of the hearings in the percentage of Republicans who want him to run again. A great many Republicans are protective of him and defensive of their support for him but increasingly of the view that he carries way too much baggage to be the nominee in 2024.”