“The View” co-hosts devoted an entire segment to gushing over former Trump staffer Cassidy Hutchinson on Tuesday.
Hutchinson, who worked as an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, joined the panel to tout her new book one year after multiple sources close to the Secret Service and the Trump White House disputed her claims about former President Donald Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6, 2021.”The View” co-hosts did not challenge Hutchinson on any of those claims during the segment.
“You’re actually the first unelected official to have Capitol security because of the threats you were receiving,” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, also a former Trump official, told Hutchinson.
Hutchinson said she experienced a “learning period” following her June 28, 2022, testimony and spent time pondering how she would tell her story.
“Well you know, Cassidy, I admire you so much,” co-host Joy Behar said. “I watched you and you were very good. You were an honest and brave woman in the middle of liars and cheats and criminals and you spoke out. Good for you!”
Behar and co-host Sunny Hostin challenged Hutchinson for saying previously that she adored Trump and would be willing to take a bullet in the leg for him, and for traveling to Mar-a-Lago after the Capitol riot. Hutchinson and Griffin both agreed it is easy to become enamored of Trump and that it is important to warn his fan base about the “dangers of Donald Trump.” (RELATED: ‘Corroboration For That Story Would Be Good’: Tapper Presses Rep. Raskin On New Allegations Against Trump)
Hutchinson praised Griffin, who she referred to as one of her best friends, for publicly condemning the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“I give Alyssa so much credit because I know how hard it is to come out now,” Hutchinson told the co-hosts. “But she was really one of the first people to take that stand.”
Hutchinson testified before the Jan. 6 Select Committee that two Secret Service agents, Tony Ornato and Robert Engel, informed her that Trump allegedly reached for the steering wheel of the presidential limousine to veer toward the Capitol and that he grabbed Engel’s clavicle. She also testified that Trump said he did not care if protesters had AR-15s and knives.
Sources close to the Secret Service have denied her claims, and Engel and Ornato were both prepared to testify that neither had been physically attacked by the former president.
She also told former Republican Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney that she was the author of a handwritten letter held up by Cheney during the hearing. Hutchinson testified that she wrote the note after Meadows asked her to take down what she was saying. Former Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann disputed Hutchinson’s account, claiming that he was the one who wrote the note.
“The handwritten note that Cassidy Hutchinson testified was written by her was in fact written by Eric Herschmann on January 6, 2021,” a Herschmann spokesperson told ABC News on Tuesday. “All sources with direct knowledge and law enforcement have and will confirm that it was written by Mr. Herschmann.”
Trump aides told the Daily Caller that Hutchinson begged senior Trump officials for “financial assistance” after being subpoenaed by the Select Committee in Feb. 2022.