Trump Allies Plotting Massive Effort to ‘Counterprogram’ Jan. 6 Hearings, Brand Democrats ‘The Real Election Deniers’

Photo credit: Tasos Katopodis, Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump and his allies are planning a large-scale effort to “counterprogram” the televised hearings from the Jan. 6 committee this month, according to a new Axios report.

The House select committee investigating the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol will hold its first hearing on June 9. According to Axios, the hearings will be met with a blitz of denialism from Trump, his media allies, conservative groups, and Republican lawmakers.

“Republicans are plotting to compete with wall-to-wall cable coverage by using their own platforms to argue the committee is a partisan fishing expedition that lacks legal legitimacy,” Axios reported. “That framing will be central to their hopes of defanging whatever negative revelations come to light during the hearings.”

CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp has reportedly been leading the effort, which will involve Trump’s most loyal supporters in Congress blitzing cable news, and potentially an appearance from Trump himself.

Vox also obtained a messaging memo from the RNC with talking points on how to undermine the committee, which includes “defining “Democrats as the real election deniers”

Another section of the memo includes “requests” from Trump himself. Per Vox:

Trump’s requests include “shaping coverage on networks” through surrogates as well as especially using conservative media to “control and drive messaging using the channels we control” while also checking if there were trackers available to “ask members of congress about what their priorities should be” and get them on the record about the hearings.

The committee hearings are being held to further investigate Jan. 6, when a horde of Trump supporters, encouraged by his false claims of a stolen election, ransacked the U.S. Capitol, violently beating police.

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