Insurrection is no joke. But it was hard not to laugh during the Jan. 6 committee's public hearings on Monday as the theme of Day 2 came into focus: the truth behind the Big Lie. Witness after witness testified to the outlandish schemes, absurd conspiracy theories and drunken advice President Donald Trump used to falsely declare he'd won the 2020 election.
What emerged was a picture of a Trump White House whose alternate reality makes "Veep's" fictional Selena Meyer look like a policy wonk: There were "the suspicious black suitcase"; ballot mules; rigged voting machines; deep state operatives; armies of dead voters; a deceased Venezuelan communist conspiring to sink the incumbent. Peter Sellers couldn't have concocted a more deranged flight of fancy.
The televised hearing, helmed by Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., signaled a tonal shift from the violence and horror of the attack on the Capitol documented in Thursday's emotional, prime-time premiere. The proceedings delivered on the committee's promise to examine the events that led to the attempted coup in clear installments, or episodes. "Trump rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night, and instead followed the course recommended by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani to just claim that he won," said Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., in her opening statement, setting up viewers for a juicy segment examining the former New York mayor's role. (Giuliani's attorney denied that he was drunk to CNN.)
