I want to thank everyone who’s contributed to the TPM Journalism Fund over the last 24 hours and over the last couple weeks. When we started this drive I was … well, I hesitate to say ‘skeptical’ that we’d reach our goal but I thought we had our work cut out for us. We’re now increasingly confident we’ll get there. But the last leg of the race is always the most challenging. Yesterday we started at $150,000, 3/4 of the way to our goal. We’re starting today just over $170,000 over $180,000. That’s a big jump in 24 36 hours, especially when we’ve been at it for two weeks. Again, we all really appreciate it. Big things ahead. If you’d like to contribute, just click right here.

TPM Reader NL chimes in from Virginia …

I just called the DC offices of my Senators — Warner and Kaine. I asked the staffers whether the Senators supported suspending the filibuster to codify abortion rights.

Warner’s office said that the Senator supports legislation to codify abortion rights but that he does not have a position on the suspending the filibuster for it. Kaine’s office was similar, except that Kaine’s position is that he supports a rule change to reinstate the talking filibuster.

From TPM Reader JR …

Hi, Illinois reader here.

I just called the DC offices of Senators Durbin and Duckworth. Both liberal stalwarts, obviously, but neither staffer showed particular awareness of the question of whether the filibuster will need to be suspended to enact abortion protections.

Neither seemed clear on any kind of promise that the Senate would do something concrete if people vote in the Fall.

Over the last couple weeks I’d shared reports from TPM Readers struggling to get a response from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire on whether she supports making Roe law and changing the filibuster rules to allow that bill to get a straight up or down vote. This morning I chatted with Shaheen’s Communications Director Sarah Weinstein who confirmed to me that Shaheen not only supports making Roe federal law (which she and 48 other Democrats attempted to do a few weeks ago) but also “supports amending the filibuster rules so a bill to codify Roe could pass by simple majority.”

We talk a lot about potential Democratic Senate pick ups. But Democrats also need to hold on to endangered seats in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. I was frankly stunned to see this new Quinnipiac poll showing Warnock opening up a 10 point lead over Herschel Walker, 54%-44%. The results seem mostly driven by Georgians thinking Warnock is a good guy who cares about ordinary people and many fewer thinking the same about Walker.

Earlier this month, Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, made a big show of her willingness and desire to march right up to Capitol Hill and clear her good name before the Jan. 6th investigation committee. Yesterday, her lawyer said the committee just turns out to be too biased. So she won’t be testifying after all.

Two White House security officials who allegedly scuffled with the President in the presidential limousine are now denying through intermediaries what Cassidy Hutchinson said under oath in yesterday’s hearing. But Ginni Thomas’s switcheroo is a good reminder that talk — or rather claims through intermediaries — is cheap. People who claim they are just champing at the bit to testify usually end up refusing to testify.

We’re about to get inundated with news. So before that, quickly: we’re 3/4 of the way toward our goal of raising $200,000 in our TPM Journalism Fund drive. That’s a great. But we really need your help finishing this off. It’s really critical this year.

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A number of you have written in to say about the hearings, “No, that wasn’t the big deal. This other thing was the big deal!” In almost every case I find myself agreeing with you. What it comes down to is there was just a huge amount of critical new detail in Hutchinson’s testimony. And it was a challenge to evaluate the significance of it all in real time or organize it on a rank of significance. So TPM Reader KB notes that all the stuff about a war room at the Willard with Rudy and the top crazies starts appearing in a very, very different light if the plan was that Trump was going to go to the Capitol to in some sense lead the confrontation. It definitely seems like that wasn’t just a possibility or something that was discussed but rather definitely Trump’s plan and, one would imagine, what Rudy and his crew thought was going to happen.

From TPM Reader KB …

For me, the really significant testimony from today was that Trump WANTED and EXPECTED to go to the Capitol with the mob. The part about the drama in the limo is wild and also Trumpian silly, but up until now, I always assumed that he was just lying to the crowd, like he often did, or speaking metaphorically when he said he’d be right there with them. Or, I assumed that he wimped out. But the fact that he knew the mob was armed and STILL planned to march with them  – and was royally pissed when he was prevented from doing so – shows his clear intent to lead the insurrection. 

Just a few thoughts on today’s rather stunning testimony. The crazy drama in the presidential limousine is certainly the wildest and most explosive part. Legally, the most important is what seems to me like very specific evidence that the former President is guilty of seditious conspiracy, among numerous other crimes. That detail about the magnetometers is key. According to this witness, the President knew the crowd was heavily armed and prepared for violence. He continued to exhort them to march on the Capitol. He specifically said that he didn’t want federal authorities to try to disarm the rioters because they weren’t there to hurt him.