(Updated: This summary has been updated to include the comments of Jason Miller.) As Day Two of the Jan. 6 hearings began, Vice Chair Liz Cheney made a surprising statement about Rudy Giuliani that caught the attention of many on social media, as in this tweet from Steve Inskeep of NPR. What the GOP congresswoman said:
- "Trump rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night, and instead followed the course recommended by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani, to just claim that he won," she said, per CNN.
The statement was met with "a few scoffs and chuckles from the crowd in the hearing room," wrote Emily Cochrane in live coverage at the New York Times. Cheney said the panel learned about the apparently tipsy Giuliani through "eyewitness testimony," and the panel later played videotaped testimony from senior campaign adviser Jason Miller. "I think the mayor was definitely intoxicated, but I do not know his level of toxic intoxication when he spoke with the president, for example," said Miller, per the Hill. (More Jan. 6 hearings stories.)