BRIAN WILLIAMS (HOST): I reacted with surprise when I heard the news that you had decided over this past weekend that you needed to part company with the nominee of your party after this video came out. Talk about that decision. 

HUGH HEWITT: Well I think it's evident now that Donald Trump isn't going to win, and it would be in the best interests of the country, the party, himself, and his family to step aside. Perhaps that will turn around tonight, I don't think so. The display tonight, I don't want to fool myself. There are millions of Americans who are applauding, but I suspect there are tens of millions of Americans who are more dismayed. I also anticipate that tonight Donald Trump will unleash a blistering attack on the media's double standard, and that will include a full throated condemnation of years of surprise attacks on Republicans but not on Democrats. I think it's all going to get his dwindling base -- and I think it is diminishing by the hour -- more and more excited so that false positives will be registered within Trump Tower. I will say though, if you go back to Victorian England, there was a particular trade of men who would go and take bodies and sell them to medical schools. They were called resurrection men. This is kind of resurrecting the '90s. They did not enjoy a great reputation, and this I don't think is going to play well in America when Bill Clinton was asked, answered, impeached, disbarred, repentant in a vague way, but enough for most of America to move on. I just, I tell you, I -- the general reaction among the media people is dismay, and it can't possibly help him, but I wonder, I know millions of his supporters are cheering tonight for what they think is going full Gondor, but I think it could be perceived as going full Mordor. 

[...]

NICOLLE WALLACE: I noted when [Hugh Hewitt] put out his tweet sort of rescinding his support, and it's a huge deal what Hugh Hewitt thinks inside Republicans. You can't overstate his importance within the party. He was a “Never Trump,” then he was behind Trump because of issues like the Supreme Court. He withdrew his support over the weekend. This is what's going on. That's why my phone's exploding. I've popped up twice. This is what's happening in the Republican Party. This is the bottom dropping out. That is what it looks like. People like Hugh Hewitt pull their support. People that I know from the Bush campaigns who were never behind Trump. They don't have any satisfaction. I remember Jeb Bush saying to me, Hugh, and I don't know if you remember this over the summer, that Trump had basically scammed the GOP, that he felt sad for everybody including folks like you who fell for it, and I wonder what you feel about all those Never Trump people who never took the step you took toward Donald Trump.

Previously:

Republican Strategist: Trump's Comments Are “Corrosive To Our Civics,” Expose “Massive Hypocrisy Inside” GOP

NBC's Steve Schmidt Excoriates GOP's “Intellectual Rot” For Empowering Donald Trump

The Reckoning Arrives For Trump, Fox News, And The GOP

Fox's Stirewalt: “Republicans Bought” Trump. “They're Going To Ride It All The Way Down”