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Liz Cheney called Donald Trump a “domestic threat” of the kind the US has never faced before in her speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday night.

“We are confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before — and that is a former President who is attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional Republic,” said Ms Cheney. “And he is aided by Republican leaders and elected officials who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.”

She began the speech by saying: “My fellow Americans, we stand at the edge of an abyss, and we must pull back.”

“As the full picture is coming into view with the January 6 committee, it has become clear that the efforts Donald Trump oversaw and engaged in were even more chilling and more threatening than we could have imagined,” Ms Cheney said.

Speaking on MSNBC on Wednesday, 2012 Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said that “the January 6 hearings have been incredible television. I think they’re way past Watergate. I think they’re doing really big harm to the President and his party with those swing voters”.

“Half of independent voters think the President did something wrong. You’re seeing Republicans sort of walk away from the president this morning … This kind of civil war inside the Republican Party continues,” he added.

Lawyer Anita Hill, who testified in 1991 that Justice Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her, said on MSNBC on Wednesday that his wife Ginni Thomas should be “compelled” to speak to the January 6 committee.

“Of course I think she should speak to the committee,” Ms Hill said on Andrea Mitchell Reports. “I also think that every other individual who they have identified should be compelled to speak … or have to answer for it under whatever legal protections the committee has.”

Michael Flynn, the retired three-star general who served as Donald Trump’s first National Security Advisor, used the fifth amendment several times to avoid answering questions from the January 6 Select committee.

He avoided answering if he believes in the peaceful transfer of power.

“It’s really chilling because these are the most basic questions that you could ask somebody about our democracy … I think it shows the depth of the radicalization of aspects of the Republican Party,” Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor in the Obama administration, said on MSNBC on Wednesday.

Concerning Tuesday’s witness, Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Mr Rhodes said: “There are very few people in this country who are better positioned to know what happened on January 6 than Cassidy Hutchinson … She’s beyond a credible witness.”

Fox News Channel is airing the Jan. 6 committee hearings when they occur in daytime hours and a striking number of the network’s viewers have made clear they’d rather be doing something else.

During two daytime hearings last week, Fox averaged 727,000 viewers, the Nielsen company said. That compares to the 3.09 million who watched the hearings on MSNBC and the 2.21 million tuned in to CNN.

It completely flips the typical viewing pattern for the news networks. During weekdays when the hearings are not taking place, Fox News Channel routinely has more viewers than the other two networks combined, Nielsen said.

Last Thursday, Fox had 1.33 million viewers for the 2 p.m. Eastern hour before the hearing started — slightly below its second quarter average but on par for early summer, when fewer people are watching TV.

After the hearing started, Fox’s audience’s sank to 747,000 for the 3 p.m. Eastern hour and even lower, to 718,000, at 4 p.m. Fox cut away from the hearing at 5 p.m. to show its popular panel program, “The Five,” and fans immediately rewarded them: viewership shot up to 2.76 million people, Nielsen said.

The apparent lack of interest explains why the frequently Trump-friendly network stuck with its regular lineup during the committee’s only prime-time hearing, while ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC all showed the Washington proceedings. “The Five” has also been cable television’s most-watched show, on average, for nine months.

ABC won the week in prime time, averaging 3.6 million viewers. CBS had 3 million, NBC had 2.5 million, Fox had 1.6 million, Univision had 1.1 million, Ion Television had 1.04 million and Telemundo had 990,000 viewers.

Fox News Channel led cable networks with an average viewership of 2.17 million in prime time. MSNBC had 1.41 million, ESPN had 1.21 million, HGTV had 938,000 and Hallmark had 777,000.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” won the evening news ratings race with an average of 6.6 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 6.1 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 4.5 million.

Appearing on MSNBC on Wednesday, DC Police Officer Daniel Hodges spoke about the January 6 hearings.

“Seeing images of that day and footage always makes my blood pressure shoot up, but … the more evidence is out there the better, because people really need to see the truth of what happened,” he said on Andrea Mitchell Reports.

He said Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony “demonstrates how” Donald Trump “doesn’t really care about anything other than himself. And he would do whatever it took for him to stay in power”.

“I have hope that people in positions of power will be held accountable … The Department of Justice has been active, we’ve seen a little bit of that … and I’m hoping it comes to some fruition down the line,” he added.

Speaking on MSNBC on Wednesday, Washington Post Deputy National Editor Philip Rucker said, “We’ve not heard anybody from the White House or former President Trump himself dispute her characterization of what he said in that moment, which is an acknowledgement that he knew his supporters had guns”.

“I couldn’t think of a more damning day for Donald Trump than yesterday,” Politico’s Eugene Daniels added on Andrea Mitchell Reports.

DC Police Officer Daniel Hodges said: “He did knowingly and with great malice … send a mob of violent delusional people to become terrorists and attack the US Capitol, and attack law enforcement, members of Congress, the VP, congressional staffers, all the support staff.”

In a letter dated 29 June to President Joe Biden, Justice Breyer said his retirement from active service, after nearly 30 years on the bench, will be effective at noon on Thursday after justices deliver final opinions before a summer recess.

Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was nominated by the president and confirmed in the US Senate earlier this year, will be formally sworn in as the nation’s 116th associate justice, the first Black woman and first former public defender to serve on the high court.

“It has been my great honor to participate as a judge in the effort to maintain our Constitution and the Rule of Law,” Justice Breyer wrote.

On Thursday, justices are expected to issue opinions in to high-profile cases – Biden v Texas, on the so-called “Remain in Mexico” measure, and West Virginia v Environmental Protection Agency, which could determine how or if the federal government can regular carbon emissions.

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