OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
No matter what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi thought that the select committee would do for her and Democrats politically, it appears that it has backfired.
An NBC News poll found that the percentage of Americans who say former President Donald Trump was responsible for what happened at the U.S. Capitol dropped to 45 percent.
By comparison, 52 percent of respondents said Trump was responsible back in January 2021.
In addition, the percentage of Americans in the new poll who say Trump was “not really” responsible jumped to 35 percent, up from 29 percent in January 2021.
Another poll from Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey showed that 58 percent of voters believe the commission is biased against Republicans, The Hill reported.
“Americans want an examination of the riots over the summer and the origins of the virus over investigating Jan. 6th,” co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey, Mark Penn, said. “The voters reject the Pelosi move to toss Republicans off of the committee and see it now as just a partisan exercise.”
The poll came after Speaker Pelosi would not seat Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks on the committee.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy responded by removing all of his Republican appointees from the committee, leaving Pelosi to select two anti-Donald Trump Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, to represent the GOP.
They were appointed, with three other Republicans, by Rep. McCarthy in an effort to cooperate with the Democrat-led committee as he was requested to do.
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken the unprecedented step of denying the minority party’s picks for the Select Committee. This represents an egregious abuse of power and will irreparably damage this institution. Denying the voices of members who have served in the military and law enforcement, as well as leaders of standing committees, has made it undeniable that this panel has lost all legitimacy and credibility and shows the Speaker is more interested in playing politics than seeking the truth,” he said on his website.
Beyond that, it appears that Americans are tuning out the sham hearings.
“The second public hearing of the House select committee investigating last year’s Capitol drew around 10 million total viewers Monday, less than half the audience that watched the committee’s primetime opening presentation last week,” the New York Post reported.
“Last week’s hearing aired on 12 different TV channels and drew an audience of 20 million Americans — more than watched this year’s Oscars or Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors, the latter of which aired the night before. The viewing figure came in just below that of both “NCIS” on CBS, which attracts around 11 million viewers, as well as the Tiffany Network’s “FBI” and its 10.3 million viewers. The number did however exceed the viewership of NBC’s “Chicago Fire” (around 9.9 million) and CBS’ “Blue Bloods” (roughly 9.6 million),” the report continued.
“The second public hearing of the House select committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot drew around 10 million total viewers Monday, less than half the audience that watched the committee’s primetime opening presentation last week. Monday’s hearing audience paled in comparison to other major political events like former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2019, which drew about 13 million viewers. A similar number tuned in to watch former special counsel Robert Mueller testify in July 2019 about his investigation into alleged links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russian officials,” the report added.
A poll from earlier this year found that 58 percent of voters believe the commission is biased toward Democrats
“Americans want an examination of the riots over the summer and the origins of the virus over investigating Jan. 6th,” co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey, Mark Penn, said. “The voters reject the Pelosi move to toss Republicans off of the committee and see it now as just a partisan exercise.”
The poll came after Speaker Pelosi would not seat Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks on the committee, further proving just how biased the entire thing is.
