hot texas sun. and now word of children among the victims. plus, shocking new video of a powerful blast in the war that russia started, as the u.s. and allies rush to prevent any chance of a similar fate in two other countries. welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. we start today with our politics lead and the paulout from the damning, stunning january 6th hearing yesterday. it is becoming more and more clear just how distressed trump and his allies seem to be in the wake of the testimony from former white house aide cassidy hutchinson. based on how relentlessly they re attacking her. nonetheless, the former top aide to the chief of staff, mark meadows, is standing by her comments. cassidy hutchinson s lawyers telling us in a statement, you re hearing about first on cnn, quote, ms. hutchinson stands by all of the testimony she provided yesterday. under oath, to the select committee to investigate the january 6th attack on the united states capitol. unquote. now, one mig
meanwhile, some republicans are pushing back. questioning hutchinson s credibility. trump himself clearly watching the hearing, claimed, quote, i hardly know who this person cassidy hutchinson is. but privately, republican leaders expressed real concerns. one senior republican member of congress telling cnn the testimony could, quote, lead to indictments. trump s former chief of staff, mick mulvaney, rushing to hutchinson s defense, saying, quote, i know her. i don t think she is lying. so it s clear that the committee would like to speak with pat cipollone, the former white house counsel, but it is not exactly clear how they plan to compel him to cooperate. at this point, they re making it a very public showing of the fact that they would like him to do so voluntarily. the question is, do they put some legal weight behind it and formally issue him a subpoena? that could be complicated because as white house counsel, there are privilege issues involved in it. at this point, they re t