An advisor to the January 6 committee said Mark Meadows' texts provide 'irrefutable' proof of a comprehensive plot to overturn the 2020 election

Kelsey Vlamis

Mon, September 26, 2022 at 12:00 AM

In this article:

• Mark Meadows

  American politician
• 

  Donald Trump

  45th President of the United States

• A former technical adviser to the January 6 committee discussed the investigation with "60 Minutes."

• Denver Riggleman said texts from Mark Meadows showed a "roadmap" to overturning the election.

• Meadows was receiving texts about the alternate electors plot just days after the election.

A former technical adviser to the January 6 committee said texts former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows turned over provide "irrefutable" proof of a plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman, made the comment during an interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes" on Sunday. He said Meadows' texts showed a "roadmap" for how allies of former President Donald Trump were trying to overturn the election.

"It showed actually the evolution of the beginning arguments from alternate electors all the way through rally planning, all the way to day of," he said.

Host Bill Whitaker asked Riggleman to confirm his belief that Meadows' texts "provide irrefutable, time-stamped proof of a comprehensive plot at all levels of government to overturn the election."

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Riggleman responded affirmatively: "Irrefutable. Early in the text messages they were talking about alternate electors, you know, I think as soon as November 5th or November 6th."

Whitaker went on to note the many text messages Meadows had received in the days after the election, including one from Donald Trump Jr. in which he explained an alternate electors plan that would allow his father to win pending Congress's actions on January 6.

Meadows, who was Trump's chief of staff from 2020 to 2021, was also receiving texts about how to address the "stolen" election from people like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Insider previously compiled a list of all the texts Meadows had received while the January 6 insurrection was unfolding.

Video: House committee targeted Mark Meadows' texts in 2021

House committee targets Mark Meadows as texts reveal his role and Trump's inaction on January 6

A House panel has disclosed the texts of Donald Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, from January 6. Meadows is refusing to cooperate with a Congressional probe of the deadly Capitol attack.

"The Meadows text messages show you an administration that was completely eaten up with a digital virus called QAnon and conspiracy theories: an apocalyptic, messianic buffoonery. You can look at the text messages as that roadmap, but it's also a look into the psyche of the Republican party today," Riggleman said.

Riggleman noted it's unclear if Meadows turned over all of his relevant texts but said "what we got is pretty valuable."

A lawyer for Meadows did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

NYS Atty Gen Letitia James files a $250 million civil lawsuit against Trump.

 New York attorney general Letitia James announced that her office has filed a $250 million civil lawsuit against Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and two executives from the company—Allan Weisselberg and Jeff McConney—accusing them of years of fraudulent financial practices, lying to banks about the value of their assets by billions of dollars while undervaluing those same properties for tax purposes. 

The investigation began more than three years ago when Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, testified under oath that Trump lied about the value of his properties to get better loan terms and lower taxes. The instances James identified today were eye-popping. Mar-a-Lago is worth around $75 million; Trump valued it at $739 million based on its potential for development even though Trump himself had signed deeds sharply restricting that development. Rental units worth $750,000 were valued at nearly $50 million.

“The pattern of fraud that was used by Mr. Trump and the Trump organization for their own financial benefit was astounding,” James said.

Forced to testify in the investigation last month, Trump refused to answer questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 440 times. In a civil trial, jurors can draw negative inferences from a witness taking the Fifth. Last month, James rejected an offer from the Trump Organization to settle the case.

The suit seeks to recover the profits from the scheme, to ban the Trumps from engaging in real estate transactions for five years, and to prohibit Trump or his children from running any business licensed in New York state. James also filed a criminal referral to federal prosecutors and a tax fraud referral to the IRS.

If the suit succeeds, it will devastate the Trump Organization.

Trump takes the fifth

 

By late afternoon, a large crowd of onlookers gathered outside Trump Tower. One man, dressed in a Trump mask and a prison uniform, gave a thumbs up to photographers.

The fallout continues from the FBI search of former president Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. Trump and his supporters have begun to circle around the idea that the FBI agents “planted” evidence while they were there, which suggests they’re afraid of what’s going to turn up. While right-wing figures are saying Trump’s lawyers were not present during the search, two of them—Christina Bobb and Lindsey Halligan—confirmed to Politico that they were there. Remember, while the Department of Justice can’t say what was in the warrant or what they took, Trump could but is choosing not to.

ImaThe fallout continues from the FBI search of former president Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. Trump and his supporters have begun to circle around the idea that the FBI agents “planted” evidence while they were there, which suggests they’re afraid of what’s going to turn up. While right-wing figures are saying Trump’s lawyers were not present during the search, two of them—Christina Bobb and Lindsey Halligan—confirmed to Politico that they were there. Remember, while the Department of Justice can’t say what was in the warrant or what they took, Trump could but is choosing not to.

Meanwhile, there are reports that a close associate flipped on Trump to tell the Department of Justice what was at Mar-a-Lago that they might want to see. It is crucial to remember that anything we hear is coming from Trump supporters; the Department of Justice is not talking. So rumors are just that—rumors—although this one has been reported in multiple places, so I am making a note of it.

What is not just a rumor is that Trump testified under oath today in the civil case being investigated by New York attorney general Letitia James regarding the widely different valuations of Trump’s properties for purposes of taxes versus security for loans. Trump answered a single question only about his name, then pleaded his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent to avoid incriminating himself. He said he “declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.” Then, from about 9:30 to around 3:00, aside from breaks, he responded to questions with “Same answer.”

In civil cases, jurors can make negative inferences from an invocation of the Fifth Amendment. If James brings charges, today’s deposition will strengthen her case.

Trump Has Big Plans for 2025, and He Doesn’t Care Whether You Think He’ll Win

By Thomas B. Edsall


Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.


As he contemplates a third straight run for the presidency, Donald Trump has a multimillion-dollar political machine and a network of tax-exempt advocacy groups at his disposal. He also has a plan. The plan is to wrest control of the federal government from what he sees as a policy apparatus dominated by “radical left-wing Democrats.”

While many in Washington were arguing (or hoping) that Trump was fading, Trump himself outlined his agenda for a second term in a speech at the America First Policy Institute last week:

To drain the swamp and root out the deep state, we need to make it much easier to fire rogue bureaucrats who are deliberately undermining democracy, or at a minimum just want to keep their jobs. They want to hold on to their jobs. Congress should pass historic reforms, empowering the president to ensure that any bureaucrat who is corrupt, incompetent or unnecessary for the job can be told — did you ever hear this? — “You’re fired? Get out. You’re fired.”

In the same speech, Trump announced his intention to enact legislation granting the president authority to send in the National Guard in the case of violent protests by Black Lives Matter or other groups:

Where there is a true and total breakdown of law and order where citizens’ most basic rights have been violated, then the federal government can and should send the National Guard to restore order and secure the peace without having to wait for the approval of some governor that thinks it’s politically incorrect to call them in. When governors refuse to protect their people, we need to bring in what’s necessary anyway. We have to go beyond the governor.

Trump declared that he would remove “the homeless, the drug addicted and the dangerously deranged” from city streets and place them in “thousands and thousands of high-quality tents” on “large parcels of inexpensive land in the outer reaches of the cities.”

“Now, some people say, ‘Oh, that’s so horrible,’ Trump added. “No. What’s horrible is what’s happening now. Because now they’re in tents but most of them aren’t even tents that function.”

It’s clear that no matter what anyone else thinks, Trump is getting busy.

Theda Skocpol, a political scientist and sociologist at Harvard, emailed her reply to my query about Trump, 2024 — and 2025. Like many others, she is apprehensive:

Trump, in a second term, would bring in like-minded loyal and lawless authoritarians from the get-go, especially to run Justice, Homeland Security and Defense. From all he says, it is clear that exerting domination and using the government apparatus to reward loyalists and punish perceived opponents is his main thing now.

American institutions, Skocpol continued, would not survive another Trump term, especially because of parallel reinforcing developments in a majority of states and in the federal courts. Discouragement and outright repression and popular threats of violence would push most centrists and liberals into full retreat. Minority rule would lock in.

The nation, Skocpol argued, “would enter a major new decades-long era of U.S. politics. We may already have done so, given the 6-3 SCOTUS majority devoted to eviscerating federal government power for many Democratic Party agenda priorities.”

Skocpol’s point remains on target whether or not Trump runs, or whether the 2024 Republican presidential nominee is a Trump clone in the mold of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida or Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, both of whom are openly campaigning to be Trump’s political heir.

The so-called Trump-in-waiting PACs and tax-exempt advocacy groups not only ensure that Trump would enter the 2024 presidential race with an immense bankroll, but, in contrast to the 2016 campaign and to his four years at the White House, he would be armed with a set of policy and personnel goals designed to institutionalize his dominance.

The architects of one of the most radical of Trump’s proposals have described it as “the constitutional option.” It would provide for the wholesale politicization of the elite levels of the civil service through the creation of a new “Schedule F” classification, allowing the president to hire and fire at will thousands of government employees “in positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating character.”

This is no idle threat; Trump has taken some lessons from his first term.

The broad outlines of the emerging Trump 2025 agenda are sketched in a recent two-part Axios series by Jonathan Swan, “A radical plan for Trump’s second term” and “Trump’s revenge”; in a number of stories by Erich Wagner at Government Executive, including “Trump Is Threatening the Return and Expansion of Schedule F” on March 14; and in Donald Moynihan’s article for The Public Administration Review, “Public Management for Populists: Trump’s Schedule F Executive Order and the Future of the Civil Service.”

On July 22, Swan wrote:

Well-funded groups are already developing lists of candidates selected often for their animus against the system — in line with Trump’s long-running obsession with draining “the swamp.” This includes building extensive databases of people vetted as being committed to Trump and his agenda. The preparations are far more advanced and ambitious than previously reported. What is happening now is an inversion of the slapdash and virtually nonexistent infrastructure surrounding Trump ahead of his 2017 presidential transition. These groups are operating on multiple fronts: shaping policies, identifying top lieutenants, curating an alternative labor force of unprecedented scale, and preparing for legal challenges and defenses that might go before Trump-friendly judges, all the way to a 6-3 Supreme Court.

Swan described the creation of the Schedule F classification, which would eliminate civil service protection for top-level government workers as “the centerpiece” of Trump’s plans for his second term in the White House, writing that “sources close to the former president said that he will — as a matter of top priority — go after the national security apparatus, ‘clean house’ in the intelligence community and the State Department, target the ‘woke generals’ at the Defense Department, and remove the top layers of the Justice Department and F.B.I.”

An executive order gutting these civil service protections for a large part of the federal work force with the innocuous-seeming name, “Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service,” was actually proposed on Oct. 21, 2020, in what turned out to be the waning days of the Trump administration. It was never put into force.

Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown and an expert on the administrative state, emailed me to say that Trump’s “Schedule F represents the biggest threat not just to the civil service since inception, but to the underlying ideal of a merit-based public service.”

The category of Schedule F, Moynihan observed, “is defined so broadly such that anyone with a policy advisory role could be reclassified as a political appointee. Most civilian government work is now white-collar work, where it’s possible to argue that almost every job has some policy role.”

In 2020, the Trump administration asked agency heads for an estimate of the extent of the proposed Schedule F classification, Moynihan wrote, and “almost 9 out of 10 Office of Management and Budget officials were proposed for Schedule F reclassification.” The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to give a second example, estimated that 74 percent of its employees would be subject to Schedule F reclassification.

Max Stier, founding president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service — a nonpartisan nonprofit group committed to the revitalization of public service — argued in a phone interview that “the broad contours of the Trump proposal are profound. This is about our democracy. What is at risk is a government made up of professionals committed to the public good.”

To better understand the dangers posed by ending civil service protections and merit requirements, Stier suggested envisaging the country under a Trump administration, or a president with a similar program, in which the “I.R.S. agents, the F.B.I. agents and prosecutors were all there on the basis of their loyalty to the president.”

Stier pointed out that the federal government already has an extraordinary number of political appointees — 4,000 of them — that every president gets to make. No other democracy has anything remotely close to that number, and our government would be much, much more effective with fewer of them and not lose out on accountability. The last thing we need is an even larger cadre of patronage appointments, which is what in effect Schedule F would do.

While Trump gears up for a possible 2024 bid, he has some clear vulnerabilities as a general election candidate. Not only have the Jan. 6 Committee hearings damaged his reputation, especially with independent voters who are key in general elections, but also those hearings appear to have threatened a prime source of Trump support: Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, including The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and, most important, Fox News. Fox News has been a central pillar of the Trump machine; if it were to turn against him, it would put the viability of the machine at risk.

If Fox break its ties to Trump, the network would be likely to seek out another candidate as the conservative standard-bearer — with DeSantis a front-runner, although the competition for the Fox imprimatur would be intense.

Trump is the subject of a wide array of lawsuits and of a host of criminal and civil investigations. The Washington Post reported on July 30:

Trump is facing historic legal and legislative scrutiny for a former president, under investigation by U.S. lawmakers, local district attorneys, a state attorney general and the Justice Department. Authorities are looking into Trump and his family business for a medley of possible wrongdoing, including his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and how he valued his various assets for loan and tax purposes.

The filing of formal criminal charges against Trump, much less a conviction, would have a major impact on his prospects as a candidate.

At the same time, it would be a fundamental mistake to underestimate Trump’s prospects. In a Wall Street Journal column last week, Karl Rove described the amount of money awaiting Trump should he decide to run for a second term:

The former president controls four political-action committees — Save America; Make America Great Again, Again! Inc.; Trump Make America Great Again PAC; and Make America Great Again Action. The PACs’ cash on hand as of June 30 came, respectively, to $103.1 million, $10.3 million, $7.3 million and $700,000, giving Mr. Trump more than $121 million at his disposal.

Fred Wertheimer, founder and president of Democracy 21, a campaign-finance reform advocacy group, wrote in an email responding to my inquiry that Trump cannot directly transfer this money into a Trump for President 2024 committee:

But he can arrange the money in a way that the money will be spent only on his campaign. Trump can consolidate all his PAC funds into one super PAC, which is informally known as a single-candidate super PAC. The super PAC must make expenditures “independent” of the candidate it supports and it makes all of its campaign expenditures to support one candidate, in this case Trump. But everyone gets around the “independence” requirement by having close political associates control the single-candidate super PAC. It’s a wink and a nod situation.

In addition to the political action committees cited above, the network of fund-raising organizations and tax-exempt advocacy groups at Trump’s disposal include the America First Policy Institute, The Conservative Partnership Institute, America First Legal, American Moment, the Center for Renewing America and the Claremont Institute, Save America JFC joint fund-raising committee, Save America leadership PAC, Trump Victory, and Make America Great Again Policies Inc.

Tracking the flow of money to and from these organizations is exceptionally difficult because the organizations continuously transfer money among themselves. For example, in the 2019-20 election cycle, America First Action, a super PAC, reported contributions of just over $20 million from America First Policies, Inc., a nonprofit charitable organization categorized as a 501(c)(4) under I.R.S. rules, according to the Federal Election Commission. During the same period, America First Action gave America First Policies $2.04 million to cover the cost of “in-kind payroll/offices expenses.”

Trump has a vast array of 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit tax-exempt advocacy groups that serve several purposes. They perform what Peter Singer, a senior fellow at New America, describes as a “shadow government” function, “filled with people who either have been or want to be in government — or both,” a way station for prospective political appointees. These advocacy groups, Singer continued, can “set a political party’s agenda,” giving a 2025 Trump administration a “jump-start.”

I asked several political scholars about Trump’s 2025 agenda. Some were less alarmed than others at the threat posed by the former president.

Gregory Wawro, a professor of political science at Columbia University, replied by email to my questions: “My bet is that 2025 Trump would look a whole lot like 2017 Trump. He would try to play the ‘hits’ again (immigration ban, wall building, tariffs, tax cuts, etc.), because he doesn’t seem like the kind of person who evolves or is going to come up with innovative policy ideas.”

It’s hard, Wawro continued, “to see how a second Trump administration would be more effective and purposeful — and less chaotic — than the first. Chaos has long been Trump’s modus operandi and it’s difficult to believe that he would or could change at this point.

Wawro did agree, however, that Trump’s civil service proposals could be significant:

The Schedule F approach could actually be an effective way to undercut the professional civil service. In my view, these kinds of moves would be generally more effective for changing the functioning of American democracy than are the more visible tactics Trump and his supporters have pursued. There is compelling evidence that democratic backsliding happens more through existing democratic procedures and institutions than it does through moves pursued outside those channels. Trump’s supporters seem to have figured out that the way you subvert elections is not by storming the Capitol or through post-hoc, meritless lawsuits. You put structures and people in place in existing institutions prior to the election that give you ways to change the popular outcome.

David Brady, a political scientist at Stanford, wrote to me that he and two colleagues, Morris Fiorina and Bruce Cain, “think the odds of Trump getting the nomination are decreasing daily. The combination of the Jan. 6 hearings, his insistence on making the 2020 election an issue, moves Republican voters to say it is time to push on.”

Brady believes that DeSantis “is running for sure and he is not crazy. People who know him and whom I trust say he does his homework and politically he is good at playing off Democratic liberal excesses — Defund, L.G.B.T.Q. and other issues where Democrats give up their advantage by pushing too far left.”

Alison Dagnes, a professor of political science at Shippensburg University, argued:

Trump would violate many of the tenets of the bureaucratic infrastructure. Thus, the people who would do as Trump wished, instead of doing as law or administrative order mandated, would change the administrative state for the foreseeable future. Trump seems poised to avenge his grievances to the detriment of all else, including country, duty and Constitution.

A DeSantis agenda, Dagnes continued, “would be a mega-MAGA agenda, but without the 2020 grievance and without the Trump swagger. DeSantis’s agenda, which he has made clear from his re-election campaign, is to stoke the fires of the culture wars and lead the G.O.P. to a post-Trump presidency.”

Skocpol, in her email, emphasized the idea that with or without Trump, “the Trumpism takeover of the G.O.P. is real and likely to persist.”

To prove her point, she cited DeSantis:

He has obvious caudillo-like proclivities and would certainly do similar things to gut the federal civil service and turn security agencies into praetorian guards and election manipulators. He already has in Florida. I am not sure he would have as much capacity to cow the G.O.P. as a whole as Trump has proved to have, so his presidency might be more turbulent, and he might have a harder time assembling an authoritarian gang. However, the Steve Bannon-type networks will join him, and they have plans ready to go.

Trump has catalyzed racism and racial resentment, misogyny, white status decline, identity threat, economic anxiety, hatred of liberal elites and rage at globalization. Now this incendiary mix is at hand for any willing politician to capitalize on. There is no shortage of takers. But Trump is not just going to walk away and let other candidates stir his toxic political brew.

 

Jan. 6 hearings chip away at Trump's hold on GOP, as 2024 hopefuls circle

July 30, 20225:00 AM ET

DOMENICO MONTANARO

Twitter

Then-President Donald Trump looks on as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during the Florida Homecoming rally at the BB&T Center in 2019.

SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

When Casey DeSantis was introducing her husband, Ron, to Florida voters in an ad during his first run for governor four years ago, she insisted he was "so much more" than a Trump devotee.

He was a caring dad who played with their son, read him books and was teaching his daughter to talk. But there was a punchline. The ad showed the blocks they played with were to "build the wall," the book was about how then-President Donald Trump likes to fire people (DeSantis' "favorite part") and the talking lesson used a Make America Great Again campaign sign.

The point of the joke was clear – Trump was the man, and a Republican would be a fool to deviate. Lots of other GOP candidates were finding ways to genuflect to their leader, too. But now, four years later, times are starting to change with some Republican voters contemplating something new.

"I think one of the vulnerabilities for Trump running again in 2024 is that he doesn't have a lot of new material," Sarah Longwell, a Republican political consultant opposed to Trump who has conducted a number of focus groups with Trump voters since the Jan. 6 committee hearings began, told NPR.

She noted Trump's continued relitigation of the 2020 election is getting old for many Republicans.

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"I'm not sure that's the right strategy," she said. "One of the things I hear in focus groups all the time from Republican voters is how much they want to move on from the Jan. 6 conversation."

Make no mistake — Trump is still the big fish in Republican politics. Scores of GOP candidates continue to channel him and seek his endorsement. He remains the most popular figure in the party and the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, if he wants it.

But there are signs that Trump's once-ironclad grip is beginning to loosen. Having lost reelection by millions of votes, and under pressure from multiple investigations, including the Justice Department's probe of his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, focus groups and surveys (more on the data below) are starting to show that rank-and-file Republican voters are starting to see Trump as a liability.

Even editorial boards once friendly to Trump, like the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post and Wall Street Journal have in the last week called him "unworthy" to be president again, citing his "character" and conduct on Jan. 6.

GOP presidential hopefuls, like fish circling chum, are testing the waters. That includes DeSantis, who is now increasingly seen as the most likely post-Trump MAGA standard-bearer; Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence; and lots of others.

The steps taken by these Republicans who are openly angling for presidential runs show they feel safer doing so now than they might have before Jan. 6, the hearings investigating them and Trump's persistent lies about a stolen election.

If not Trump, who?

Ron DeSantis

His is the first name that comes to the lips of Republican strategists and voters when asked who could win the nomination, if it's not Trump or if Trump doesn't run.

Some voters are even saying they like DeSantis more. A University of New Hampshire poll out this week showed DeSantis besting Trump in a primary and faring better than the former president against Biden.

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The fact that DeSantis focuses so heavily on Biden's policies is raising eyebrows about his intentions, though his office says he is focused solely on his reelection to governor this year.

• Why the buzz? For as divisive as DeSantis has been in Florida, pushing culture-war issues like how racism is taught about in schools and backing what's been seen as anti-LGBTQ legislation, the Yale and Harvard graduate, who also served in the U.S. House, is seen as Trump, without the baggage. He's their culture warrior without the endless loop of chaos and drama.

DeSantis' popularity hasn't gone unnoticed at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's opulent Florida residence. It's likely why Trump's PAC has sent out polling showing Trump leading a potential GOP primary field – and why he has floated making DeSantis his next vice presidential running mate.

• One challenge: The latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found DeSantis is well liked by Republicans with a 63%/10% favorable/unfavorable rating with them. Trump, though, maintained a higher 83%/15% rating. The survey shows DeSantis has some work to do to increase his name identification, as more than a quarter of Republicans said they weren't sure or hadn't heard of DeSantis, mirroring the 28% of adults overall in the broader sample who said so.

Mike Pence

Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Young Americas Foundation Student Conference Tuesday.

Nathan Howard/Getty Images

Pence and Trump's relationship soured after Jan. 6. Pence refused to go along with Trump's scheme to overturn the election by not counting the chosen electors. The rioters at the Capitol then targeted Pence after Trump said he didn't have the "courage" to do what was needed to help him retain power.

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Pence is now taking a higher-profile role than at any time since leaving office. This past week, he held rallies and speeches in Arizona and D.C., the same places his former boss did, and he has endorsed opposing candidates to those Trump is backing.

• What he's said: "Some people may choose to focus on the past," Pence said in D.C., alluding to Trump's focus on the 2020 election they lost. "But elections are about the future, and I believe conservatives must focus on the future to win back America."

Pence also has a book coming out, and there's no surer sign of a candidate wanting to run – because they always write a book.

• Reality check: While Pence and Trump held what has been billed as dueling events, Trump's crowds and energy were far greater than Pence's. Pence's favorability ratings also lag the former president's with the base. In the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, Pence had a 62%/29% favorable/unfavorable rating with Republicans, lower than Trump's.

Nikki Haley

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has been on the conservative speaking circuit, hinting at a potential 2024 run.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

The former ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration and former South Carolina governor was critical of Trump's actions on Jan. 6 in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection. But she's since softened her tone.

She's been on the conservative speaking circuit lately, including in the key early caucus state of Iowa last month. "If it looks like there's a place for me next year," she said she would run. Haley seemed a little more bullish on a potential presidential bid two weeks ago when she spoke to the Christians United for Israel summit in D.C. Haley referred to a potential return to an Iran nuclear deal under Biden – with a little something added.

• What she's said: "If this president signs any sort of deal, I'll make you a promise – the next president will shred it on her first day in office," Haley said with a wry smile. After extended applause, Haley added, "Just saying, sometimes it takes a woman."

Kristi Noem

The South Dakota governor is from a state where it's hard to launch a national campaign. She's largely out of the limelight being from there, but she's taking steps to fix that by running national cable ads and digital ads in key early primary states.

• What her ads say: "Here, freedom runs free, so saddle up. We're just getting started," Noem says of South Dakota in a gauzy bio ad showing her racing a horse across an open field. She touts her handling of the COVID pandemic: "Over the last two years, South Dakotans faced dark days, but as dad always said, we don't complain about things, we fix them. And we did. I held the reins and refused to let fear steal our freedom."

• In another ad from earlier this year, she focuses on the culture issue of transgender people in sports – "In South Dakota, only girls play girls sports," an announcer says.

Tom Cotton

The Arkansas senator was in Iowa earlier this month, making two stops. It was his seventh trip there since 2020 – and he didn't rule out a 2024 bid.

• What he said: "We do have a lot of opportunity in 2024, not just for the White House but for the Senate as well," he said, adding about his own presidential prospects, "Future elections I'll consider in the future."

• Taking it seriously: Cotton met with two dozen of his top donors at a posh D.C. hotel last month, Politico reported. Among other things outlined in the story, a senior political adviser to Cotton ran donors through a 15-slide PowerPoint that noted his team had studied past GOP presidential campaigns and that they were taking steps to build an infrastructure. Trump would not necessarily be a deterrence, the report said. Cotton is set to make a final decision after the 2022 midterm elections.

Tim Scott

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. addresses the 2020 Republican National Convention. Scott has been talked about as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The South Carolina senator is the only Black Republican in the Senate. He delivered the rebuttal to Biden's first address to Congress last year, and he, too, has made multiple trips to Iowa. When out there last month, he downplayed a potential 2024 bid.

• The exchange: The state GOP chairman asked Scott: "Take us on a little journey of what you're dreaming right now. Someone from the audience shouted: "President!" Scott replied with a laugh: "Of my homeowner's association, yes."

Others are taking steps as well, including Trump's former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo; Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2016; as well as Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Jan. 6 committee Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who would run as explicitly anti-Trump.

Despite their profiles being raised, Trump's decision looms large.

"I'm sure it clears it out significantly," Cruz told Fox News. "We'll see what happens. Look, the lay of the land is everyone is waiting to see what Trump decides to do. Anyone who tells you they're not is lying to you."

Trump made sure to circulate Cruz's comments via his PAC.

The loosening of Trump's grip

Former President Trump holds up a fist to supporters on the campaign trail in 2020. Trump's grip on the party, by many accounts, appears to be loosening.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

There's lots of evidence of Trump erosion. Here's just a sampling – and how the Jan. 6 hearings may be shifting things:

• Increase in blaming Trump for Jan. 6: A Reuters/Ipsos poll also found that 40% of Republicans said before the last Jan. 6 hearing that they now "believe Trump is at least partially responsible for the deadly riot." That's up from 33% before the hearings.

• A drop in Republicans saying the election was stolen: Reuters/Ipsos also found that before the hearings began, 67% of Republicans believed the election was stolen, now it's 55%.

• More Republicans saying they don't want Trump to be the nominee: 55% of Republicans in a recent CNN poll said they don't want Trump to be their standard-bearer in 2024, up from 49% in February. Similarly, Reuters/Ipsos found a third of Republicans said Trump should not run again, up from a quarter before the Jan. 6 hearings.

• Republicans saying Trump's focused too much on the past: 52% of Republicans said in an Echelon Insights survey that Trump is too focused on what happened in the 2020 election, the top reason given for what would be a good reason to oppose a Trump 2024 run.

Trump's choice

Of course, Trump doesn't have to win a majority in the primaries to win the nomination again. He just has to win a plurality, as he did in many of the early 2016 primaries.

And Trump has shown no signs of backing off from a 2024 run. Just the opposite, in fact. At every rally and event he attends, including in Washington, D.C., Arizona and Florida in the past week, he teases that he's running. Trump told New York magazine that he's "already made that decision," and that his "big decision will be whether I go before or after" the 2022 midterms.

"We may just have to do it again," Trump said in D.C. this week. "We have to straighten out our country."

He called the members of the Jan. 6 committee "hacks and thugs," and added, "They really want to damage me, so I can no longer go back to work for you. And I don't think that's going to happen."

That was met with chants of "four more years."