First Read: “The unprecedented political insurrection, the violence and the vandalism at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday was no spontaneous accident.”

“It was the culmination of the last four years, which started with Donald Trump’s words of ‘American carnage’ at his inaugural address.”

“It carried over to Charlottesville (after which Trump said he condemned ‘many sides’), to last September’s first presidential debate (‘Proud Boys, stand back and stand by’), to Trump’s inability to denounce QAnon (‘I know nothing about them’), and then finally to Trump’s words to his supporters before they stormed the Capitol.”

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), a freshman congresswoman sworn in just days before President Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, argued Thursday that the deadly siege had “wiped out” his administration’s legacy and any accomplishments he had achieved over the last four years, Politico reports.

Said Mace: “I’m disappointed right now. I think that after last night — and I’m on my 100th hour of being a member of Congress, I’m working on about two hours of sleep — I’m distraught. We’ve got to rebuild our nation, and we’ve got to rebuild our party. This is not who we are. It’s extremely distressing. And it’s saddening. It’s heartbreaking.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) says President Trump’s election “gambit” has “disgraced the office of the presidency,” the AP reports.

Said Romney: “President Trump has disrespected the American voters, has dishonored the election system and has disgraced the office of the presidency.”

Aaron Blake: “When President Trump lost in November, he joined some select and unpleasant company: Presidents who failed to win a second term. Modern presidents most often win reelection, including all three of Trump’s immediate predecessors. Trump became just the 10th elected president to run a second time and lose.”

“And Tuesday’s results in Georgia are now in line to put him among an even-more select group: Presidents who not only lost the reelection, but also lost both chambers of Congress… Trump would become the first elected president since the Great Depression to lose all three in a single term, and he would join just five other presidents in doing so.”

“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.”

— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), on Twitter, May 3, 2016.

Kevin Williamson in the National Review:

“I have on many occasions criticized the abuse of the word coup in our politics, but that is what this is: an attempted coup d’état under color of law. It would be entirely appropriate today to impeach Trump a second time and remove him from office before his term ends.”

“No one who has participated in this poisonous buffoonery should ever hold office again. There was a time when there was a plausible if sometimes self-serving rationale for working for the Trump administration — that the president is a clueless poseur surrounded by crackpots and frauds, and that he desperately needs good counsel from responsible adults. But the Trump administration is not currently under the guiding influence of any such responsible adults — and there simply is no defending what it is up to. This cannot be excused or explained away.”

“I can tell you, Sean, any senator or any congressmen — meaning on this side — that does not fight tomorrow, I’m telling you, their political career is over, because the MAGA movement is going nowhere… they will get primaried.”

— Eric Trump, speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News.

Jonathan Chait: “Trump has spent his entire presidency battering away at democratic norms. He has been previewing his intention to deny the legitimacy of the election since before the 2016 election, which he relentlessly dismissed as rigged. He has been hinting at his intention to stay in office beyond his constitutionally allotted term since at least 2019, when he began saying ‘the people’ would ‘demand’ he stay in office ‘longer’ than eight years.”

“To support Trump’s reelection was always to endorse an attack on democracy. The chief divide between the party was between those Republicans who denied Trump’s clearly signaled intent to attack the democratic system, and those who reveled in it.”

Rick Hasen: “As with so many things in this presidency and president, the question is whether Trump is drinking his own Kool-Aid. Reading the entire one-hour rambling call transcript, it is hard to know if Trump actually believes the fever swamp of debunked conspiracy theories about the election or whether he’s just using the false claims as a cover to get the political results he wants…”

“Trump is the rare potential criminal defendant to have plausible deniability about whether he accepts truths as clear as gravity, making any prosecution difficult. Add onto that concerns of prosecutorial discretion for both the new Biden administration and Georgia officials, possible claims of legal immunity, a presidential self-pardon that could relieve Trump of liability under federal law, and other political hurdles, and a prosecution of Trump is unlikely.”

“Despite the long odds, I would hope at least Georgia prosecutors will consider going after Trump, or that the House of Representatives might impeach him again with the goal of disqualifying from running in 2024. Lack of prosecution or investigation demonstrates that there’s little to deter the next would-be authoritarian—perhaps a more competent one—from trying to steal an election. Trump came a lot closer than he should have this time, and next time we may not be so lucky.”

First Read: “The last two months since the election — Nov. 3 to Jan. 3 — have been arguably the two most turbulent months of the Trump Era.”

“They also perfectly encapsulate the entire Trump presidency.”

“False claims and conspiracy theories. Chaos. Firings and staff shakeups. Controversial pardons. Defeats in Congress and the courts. A divided Republican Party – split between those willing to do the president’s bidding and those thinking he’s gone too far. And to top it all off, a leaked phone call asking Georgia’s secretary of state to overturn the election results on a day when U.S. coronavirus deaths surpass 350,000.”

Harry Enten: “Love him or hate him, President Donald Trump made most Americans feel strongly about politics in a way no politician has in our lifetimes. Record numbers of Americans felt strongly favorable or unfavorable toward Trump during his time in office. (The strongly favorable and unfavorable was 71% in a Fox News poll last month, for instance.)”

“Trump’s presidency drove historic turnout and record donations to political campaigns in a country whose voters have often shown a disinterest in politics.”

John Harris: “The president’s demagoguery with his baseless assertions of a stolen election, and his increasingly erratic behavior since the election, has put an old puzzle in a frightening new light: Does seemingly irrational behavior actually serve a rational purpose? I’m already on record with my hunch — not a prediction! — that Trump will fade faster than most people and probably even he assumes once he no longer occupies the White House.”

“But this is the dominant question hovering over Republican politics. A subordinate question is whether his adult children have any real political sway of their own once dad is ex-president.”

New York Times: “Throughout late summer and fall, in the heat of a re-election campaign that he would go on to lose, and in the face of mounting evidence of a surge in infections and deaths far worse than in the spring, Mr. Trump’s management of the crisis — unsteady, unscientific and colored by politics all year — was in effect reduced to a single question: What would it mean for him?”

“The result, according to interviews with more than two dozen current and former administration officials and others in contact with the White House, was a lose-lose situation. Mr. Trump not only ended up soundly defeated by Joseph R. Biden Jr., but missed his chance to show that he could rise to the moment in the final chapter of his presidency and meet the defining challenge of his tenure.”

“Efforts by his aides to persuade him to promote mask wearing, among the simplest and most effective ways to curb the spread of the disease, were derailed by his conviction that his political base would rebel against anything that would smack of limiting their personal freedom. Even his own campaign’s polling data to the contrary could not sway him.”

“As his days in office come to a close, President Donald Trump has hinted to those close to him that he’s worried his influence within Republican circles may be waning,” the Daily Beast reports.

“Fearful of party stalwarts growing comfortable crossing him, the president has pushed to keep up the pressure and plot possible revenge scenarios against potential turncoats.”

“His mood darkened as soon as he walked into his members-only club Mar-a-Lago, three days before Christmas, according to multiple sources. The changes to his private quarters, many of which were overseen by his wife, first lady Melania Trump, were not to President Trump’s liking, and he was mad about it,” CNN reports.

“Several weeks in the works, the renovations, undertaken to make the approximately 3,000-square-foot space feel larger and updated in preparation for the Trumps post-White House life, didn’t appeal to Trump’s aesthetics, according to his reaction. Trump was also displeased with other renovations at the property, the source said, not just in the living space.”