CNN anchor Chris Wallace was stunned by revelations about former President Donald Trump in Liz Cheney’s new book, and wondered if democracy would “hold” in a second Trump term.

Cheney has been dropping bombs and nuggets via CNN’s exclusive first look at her forthcoming book Oath and Honor, with colorful details about the events surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol that Trump incited.

On Tuesday’s edition of The Lead, Wallace joined host Jake Tapper to discuss the book with Jamie Gangel, the correspondent who scooped excerpts like who called Trump “Orange Jesus.”

Wallace expressed amusement and shock at some of the revelations, but concluded by questioning whether our system of democracy would withstand a second Trump term, while Gangel called it “chilling”:

JAKE TAPPER: I remember the Senate came very close to convicting Trump, was it 57, 57?

CHRIS WALLACE: But I was looking at that actually today. They needed 67, so they were ten shy. But, but still, it was 57. I mean, that gives you an indication of how much even Republicans had turned on Trump. And that just seems like a different universe than where we are today.

JAKE TAPPER: And the Speaker Johnson revelations, the idea that, what does she mainly say about him, that Johnson was very easily buttered up by praise from Trump.

JAMIE GANGEL: So she says that he seemed you know, he wanted Trump’s flattery. He wanted — but I think the important part about Johnson is there really is chapter and verse in here about the role that he was playing at the time. And you have to take from that her clear concern that when you get to 2024, if the Republicans are still in charge of the House, if he is still speaker, this is someone who will do what Donald Trump wants.

CHRIS WALLACE: But but the bottom line to me is the first thing that you said, which is and a lot of people say it, Liz Cheney isn’t alone, which is that she very much worries whether the system that was set up by the founders in the 1770s, the checks and balances, the Constitution, whether it will hold. The institutions, if Trump is reelected, knowing what he knows now with the attitude he has now with the “I ain’t worried about the establishment” and and showing, you know, that I’ve got people like, you know, Jim Mattis you know, that he is, as he calls it, it’s the retribution tour.

JAKE TAPPER: Yeah. Adam Kinzinger said to me one time, you know, sometimes you drive on a highway and you see a guardrail and you see where a car hit it and it’s all smashed and dented. Right? And that’s fine. It saved the car that time. But what about the next time the car hits that guardrail?

JAMIE GANGEL: That’s exactly her conclusion. It is chilling. The guardrails, in her opinion, are gone.

Watch above via CNN’s The Lead.

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