Hutchinson’s lunge allegation was not the most important piece of information, Stirewalt says

(NewsNation) — The Jan. 6 committee held a surprise hearing Tuesday with testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, revealing she heard that former President Donald Trump allegedly lunged at his Secret Service agents after he was told he was unable to go to the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riots.

Now sources say two Secret Service agents are willing to testify that Trump did not lunge at any agents, refuting the claim.

NewsNation’s political editor Chris Stirewalt, who was also called to provide testimony to the committee earlier this month, analyzed Hutchinson’s testimony on “Morning in America.”

Stirewalt points out, that regardless of whether or not Trump lunged at his security agents, that isn’t the most important claim that Hutchinson made during her testimony.

“The most important stuff is what she saw or heard. She said she saw or heard firsthand, which is the president’s awareness that the mob was armed. The president’s awareness that he wanted to get rid of the magnetometers that the Secret Service was using to screen people as they were coming into the rally,” Stirewalt explained. “The fact that he wanted to go to the Capitol at all. And the fact that he was rather content with the fact that there was this very angry armed mob, and that their targets were not him — that it was Mike Pence, and then it was the Congress of the United States.”

Those things that Hutchinson heard firsthand, Stirewalt hadn’t heard any refuting of by others so far.

Stirewalt said that the Secret Service is in a tricky spot on this claim and it would be difficult for the Secret Service’s ability to do its job if members were called in to testify.

“We know from history, and we can imagine that for the future, how difficult that would be for them to do their work if they were also going to be able to be called,” he explained. “So, Secret Service is in a tight spot here. And I will be very interested to see exactly how the agency plays this in the days and weeks to come.”

Stirewalt explained that people don’t know how exactly the Jan. 6 hearing is going to play out politically, nor is the endgame of the Jan. 6 committee completely clear.

“Obviously, it has not been good for Donald Trump’s chances to run for another term in 2024. For Republicans, as they look to people like Ron DeSantis, and others, they could sort of move past this. I’m sure that this has not been helpful to Trump in that way,” Stirewalt said.

However, Stirewalt that there are certain places where the former president has enormous sway over core groups of Republican voters.

“But, what we’ve also seen is that in other places, and we know, Georgia, particularly the primary there, and we also had some primary results last night pointed to the same thing, which is this is not the future of the Republican Party,” Stirewalt said. “Relitigating 2020 is not the future of the Republican Party.”

“And we’ll see whether or not he decides he wants to make a run. But this has certainly changed the construct that he’d run again,” Stirewalt said.