henry olson is a senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center. he has written books about conservatism, the republican party. mr. olson, how will last week's events and the final days of the trump presidency shape where the republican party goes from here? affect thes going to republican party very much. there has been a simmering civil war within the party over multiple issues. president trump took those pre-existing differences and moved them in the particularly personal direction.

there is going to be a vigorous debate and battle within the party, culminating in the 2022 midterms, where there will be challenges from both sides. i suspect there are many more republicans who are troubled by the turn that elements in the party have taken. even at the end of the trump presidency, nearly as many republicans said they were as supportive of the republican party as they were president trump. it is going to be a battle within the party. the 2022 midterms are likely to be fierce. the primaries in 2022. --t: we had two collars is ars say they hope there third-party, the republican party splits and they follow president trump into a third-party. is that a possibility?

guest: it is entirely possible. the question is always leadership. will somebody like president trump do that? is there going to be financial backing that a party like that needs, as opposed to an independent or presidential party? really a rossas perot personality vehicle, and not a party that could run candidates up and down ballots. end up givingely democrats super majorities because there is not a majority of people who would follow that. large, but nota majority party and not win many elections. it is plausible that people would be angry enough for one election cycle. again --ld he win

could he run again? caller: if he is impeached, he can't. willie? this will he? time het for a long would keep that as an option and see where he stood at the end of 2022. as we can see, this is a man who does not like to lose. if you were to run again and understand there was a substantial possibility of a genuine loss, i think he would spare himself that embarrassment and personal pain. i do think you will hold that as an option through 2022, then reassess. host: do you think he should be impeached or removed? guest: yes. host: you wrote in a column that the effort of removing him could make him a martyr. guest: it could make him a martyr for many of the reasons you have heard from callers.

the democrats are not blameless. there are far from blameless in the situation we find ourselves in. they turned up the temperature for four years, made baseless allegations, and have consequently driven many people into a corner where they feel they have no choice but to oppose them with all of their might. officeg trump from allows those people not to see what trump actually did, and to say he was driven from office. which is to say, he was removed from office because he was an effective champion for them. [indiscernible] terrible for america if that were to happen. happens.see what

the president is large enough for problem he should be barred from office. i think it is worth the risk of turning him into a martyr and a temporary period of democratic dominance. ecp.org, that is where -- nine if you want to join the conversation, phone lines are open. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. henry olson with us. what do are calling in, you make of the political futures of ted cruz and josh hawley? guest: their political futures will be dependent on the overall battle within the republican party. nevertheless, achieving

dominance over a minority party is a precious small prize to win. was vocallyne who and forcefully involved in the certify theefuse to electoral college votes will not win the presidency in 2024. already, joe biden did win legitimately. the election was not fraudulent. millions of republicans voted nottrap -- trump who will support anyone who engaged in the rights or the efforts today legitimized the election. dissident republicans if they lose the 24 primaries, i do not think either man can be president in 2024.

how far into the future? american policies is notable for its ability to forgive. i do not want to predict beyond 2024, but neither man will be president in 2024. host: sean in north carolina, for democrats. good morning. things ine of the think needs to happen is every journalist across the country needs to start telling the truth. no more of these lies, misleading the people. -- dr. needs to be reinstalled. there is too much media not holding anybody accountable. hear the hoax of the russian thing, it is not a hoax. they actually had a meeting in trump tower with russian spies. host: where do you go for your news?

caller: who's going to take over the republican party? , we will does anything be at a place where you can't go back no more because you've got one group believing lies, and one people believing truth and science and things that actually work. these people won't even acknowledge that trump caused this. guest: there is a lot there to unpack. has explainedller why 75 million republican voters are fearful. aree described it, we liars, his site is truth tellers. the fairness doctrine would be a fight against us, not the ludicrous statements put across msnbc and cnn. ad that would be basically legal means to suppress center-right viewpoints. not beequentially should

put forward in a democracy, with respect to the meat -- the meeting in trump tower, i believe that was a rogue operation by paul manafort, who is particularly venal character. allegations that have been spewed against president trump is that he is a willing and russia new test dupe of and there is no evidence to support that. ist was a lie, and it something the mueller investigation failed to prove any support for. anyone who believes that at this point is simply ignoring with the facts show. host: north miami beach, florida. republican. caller: good morning. very sad times for my country. born and raised here, i am in my 60's. allink i took for granted

that the constitution and the bill of rights gave me. anyone who forced their way into the capital were destroyed property should be arrested and criminally charged. i have been a democrat my whole life. for the first time, i joined the republican party as a small business owner and saw the best economy of my career. i want you to consider the difference in how this event was covered by the mainstream media and how the media cover the riots over the summer. rationalizeught to and defined obstructive behavior during the summer riots that burned cities and left citizens injured and dying in the streets. as a necessary movement -- in fact, kamala harris echoed the statement in july by stating they are not going to stop. this is a movement, they are not going to let up, they should not let up to sanction violence is

wrong. no matter what side. i fear the worst is to come if we continue to erode the first amendment of free speech and freedom of the press. this is not a good idea to impeach or censor this president. this is a mistake. roade being taken down a of revolution between the left radicals and the right radicals who want to own the middle. host: mr. olson? guest: my great fear for years has been that we are facing exactly what the caller talked about, a battle between left radicals and right radicals, leaving the middle underrepresented or tyrannized. that is the great danger america faces. both sides, both parties need to combat that.

both party leaderships have winked at, or turned a blind eye to the existence of radicals and people who are not committed to american ideals, whether that is democrats who were slow to condemn or did not condemn the riots in the cities of america during the summer, or today. , -- republicans who want to turn a blind eye to what happened last week. as long as our freedoms remain intact, the american people will be -- in the long term. we have a neighbor to the north that has a party on the right and parties on the left and are governed largely by a canadian liberal party. there is nothing the united states that precludes that from happening if people choose to bring that together. that would be a fruitful option if either of the two parties

cannot contain the extremists within their midst. stops themthing that from creating a majority center party. host: from milwaukee, johnny. caller: thank you for this opportunity to speak. you are always a great host and give people a great -- because i am independent, i want to make this point clear. what happened in washington, uprising against to the government of the united states and the will of the people. those are important keys in maintaining democracy and an orderly way of life. when people compare the black lives matter movement and try to equate those two is a great tragedy. i am a 70-year-old black man. one of the things i have seen over the years is that generally

black people do not attack the seat of government in order to overthrow. let's make that clear. don't --ery people -- black people would never do that. what we have been fighting for for 400 years, we have been captive people, we were brought here as slaves and worked hard to help build america. with all this chaos, what we want to do is work with the system so we can get full citizenship, full respect for jobs, opportunity, housing and equal justice. we have been fighting for that. we have been trying to work with america we have been trying to work with the government to see if we can be accounted as full human beings. to be5 of a man, we want

counted as full human beings with the ability to pursue the right of freedom and justice. don't do this unfair comparison. the people who were looting and rioting, the majority of those people were crazy people. i don't believe in burning nobody's business down, on either side. host: mr. olson. guest: i think almost everybody in america now wants what the caller wants. --e blackley poop -- we need to continue to make progress on that goal. i commend his condemnation of the riots that are carried out in the name of that goal. i agree with him that what happened last week was not the equal to what happened in the summertime.

all that sincerely, what happened in the summertime was bad. what happened in the summertime cannot repeat itself. when we come into the summer of 2021, given the moral stance of the -- party, it will be their position as to how to deal with that if it does come. if it does not come, that is something that should be commended as well. we saw in the 1960's how one summer of rights begat another. that would be -- one summer of riots begat another. that would be destructive to any attempt at american unity. theok forward to a time in not-too-distant future where we don't have to worry about that and where we can debate about how to elevate black people in america to the level of human citizenship they rightly reserve -- rightly deserve. trump touted the

republican party as the party of law & order. after last week, what happened to the mantle of law and order? guest: americans want law and order whether there democrats, independent or republican. what we need to do within the republican party as we need to show we are as committed to law as to order. that is the great problem with president trump. when he uses those words, the emphasis is on "order." when we use those words, and democrats that say they too are the mantle of law and order, you have to be equally supportive of law and order. there is a lot of emphasis placed on the republican party. in a democracy, people form parties according to their -- gs andsaw with the whi

federalists, when one party can't represent those people they will find another vehicle. fallshe republican party apart, there are millions of centrist voters who can be called upon to support a new political organization that will be short of the toxic activities of this present and would be able to talk about law and order simultaneously. what is important is that center-right and centerleft and people across the order speak in favor of law & order, and mean law is a democratic process, not as a tictac process. when that happens, we will have law and order. host: back to milwaukee, this is michelle am a democrat. caller: i am happy you allowed me -- the republicans to call in first because it has shown how

insane they have gotten. it is remarkable and amazing to see how naive adults are 2it iso see how naive adults are 2 -- [no audio] remorseful to coronavirus, he is not -- that hador the been launched at the capital. he only cares about his followers praising him. as soon as he is done with them, he is going to kick them to the curb. host: mr. olson.

dangeroushink it is to ascribe intent to people. helpful to sayot that people on the other of the political aisle for ordinary citizens are insane, crazed, people. oft is the language suppression of equal citizenship. i think what happened is awful. there are too many lies that have been spread to people who believed them because people they trust have been spreading them, and that is the battle. -- within the right. that has been happening within the democratic party as well. at somesomething that point democratic party leadership will have to address, whether it will continue to wink at forces within it.

whether they will have the courage to stand up for that. now is not the time to focus on that. republicans and the right have their own problems and faults that have to be dealt with. about-ism is not a defense to make sure that truth in american ideals of freedom, tolerance and dignity become the uniform on the right and not people use to advance political combat with the other side. host: the caller ended by talking about mike pence. what is his future in the party? guest: i always have had difficult times seeing how mike pence becomes president. different forces at work within the party and his particular skills as a campaigner. future ande pence's

the party rests on him being on andside of being a vocal active leader, repudiating the toxic legacy of the man whose ticket he served on. he can be a unique leader on that. i believe for the last four years, he and many other patriots have been waging a silent internal battle within the administration to set the guardrail up on this man who was the legitimately elected president the united states. i think he needs to cast off his reticence and be somebody who is a leader in the fight for a sane and humane right. if he were to do so, i think he would have a strong future. otherwise, i think he is somebody who is too compromised by association with trump and too compromised by what he did, thetfully, in upholding election on january 6, defying

support within the republican party. ,ost: we talked about your book the four faces of the republican party and the fight for 2016. what are the four faces? are there still just four? guest: the four faces were the pre-trump division in the party and moderates, religious, small government secular conservatives. what i showed conclusively was that the strong majority of the republican party was in the somewhat conservative majority camp. why those candidates did not win. what happened in 2016 was a conduct -- was a consolidation. won the nomination, not because he was the choice of

the right, but he was the choice of the centerleft. strongest among moderates and somewhat conservatives and weakest among very conservatives. i think what is happening is going to confound that because there are those divisions based on old questions. we have new questions coming to the floor. when we have new questions, we find new facts. up to january 6, those four faces still existed, with the addition of a fifth face, a trump faction that is populist. prior to january 6, the battle for the republican party was going to be what it always was, a battle among the factions for dominance and alliances among voters within different factions once the presidential race came down to a one-on-one battle. we will see whether or not the new questions create new factions.

host: 15 minutes left with henry olson. orc but if you want to check out his work. -- eppc.org. we will head to the lone star state. this is david, a republican. caller: i want to thank both of you for taking my call. i want to unpack a couple of was talkingler about. a lot of people have been comparing what happened last week to the 68 months of rioting and looting that place from plm and nt five. -- antifa. the first thing we have to acknowledge is, you said these are people that anti-five people are saying -- these are black-and-white people saying they want to work within the system to change it.

i do not know what defending the police and the hatred for our country and the values our country has, the president has given many of these people opportunities already, i do not know how dismantling the apparatus that gave them the opportunities they have today is working within the system. completely, as they say. both sides had elements within them that were destructive, both on january 6 and the six to eight months the writing took place. i think it is fair to compare those two. if we ignore that, we are continuing the alienation of conservatives that has been taking place that gave us trump in the first place. i really appreciate the work your guest has done understanding the republican party. i don't believe trump is the type of person -- i do not think

he is too different than what conservatives and republicans have been speaking about since the decade of reagan. i think he just pushes a lot of suppressed issues that our representatives ignore, people on the others thinking everyone , and if you are not in for immigration, you're racist, he pushes a lot of those elements to the top and says we are tired of being called names. we want to have a reasonable debate and discuss these things. host: let's let henry olson jump in. guest: i am also a daily columnist for the washington post. if people want to read my thinking, they can be posed subscribers. today through friday i have a column that talks about this on an ongoing basis. there is a lot there. when i want to concentrate on is something that the left either

,illfully or blindly ignores that most anger rank-and-file republicans have is being labeled as being outside the pails of polite discussion. when you infer racism from nonracist motives, your dehumanizing the people who patriotic views on the basis of policy disagreement. that is something that has continued over the past couple of weeks. it is something that many on the left want to continue. robert reich, former cabinet secretary continually refers to fascists without defining them. the 99% majority or more of people who vote republican have no sympathy with anything akin to authoritarianism.

what they are tired of his being inferred that they are beneath contempt. that is something that donald and highlyartfully brought to the surface. that is the focal point of future conservative, center-right, whatever you want to name it statesman show to give a positive assessment to the deep longing of people on ed asight to be respect well as providing a framework which will allow people across the spectrum to also feel respected so we can restore the idea of disagreement without disparagement. opposition,loyal with whom you disagree but share a bond of citizenship is central to a liberal democracy. that is a concept that is being discarded. once we discard the concept of

loyal opposition, we cannot have a free republic. host: this is david out of georgia. caller: good morning. good morning mr. olson. to geton, i would like philosophical. what is going on in america is easily described as "we the and the we people. wee -- they have used slavery to divide us. they are still using that same card today. what we saw on january 6, which , anll never forget insurrection. it is the same thing fidel castro did in cuba with his people when he marched in and took over. i don't want that to happen to

us. many of those people kept saying, this is not us. what we saw was the radical people that they have been dividing us with. the we people. the we people are the richest ones in the country who said we are just going to -- they have used it against us ever since. i appreciate your opinions on that, but john, i've got a bone to pick for just a second. i saw you photobombing at the capital in the rotunda. about a year and a half ago. i'd be careful who i photobomb behind. have a wonderful day. please p2 the difference of the we people and the people. the we people have been saying that the union is a socialist organization. preamble isd in the

the word "union." host: mr. olson. i don't want to put myself inside a taxonomy the gentleman just presented without thinking about -- i don't want to use the terms he used because that is not the terms i think in. -- the american republic it is based on continued to bait about the meanings of the prince of the deck relation of independence and the constitution. is essential that we remain committed to those ideals and work on their interpretation, not their overthrow. the extremists on the left who want a socialist america are people who do not interpret those ideals. for the people on the right to -- isome sort of purified am not sure what term to use --

racially pure america, they too are not people who are genuinely ls.erpreting the idea we need to treat one another as people engaged in a dialogue and debate. debate can be fierce and emotional, that is what political debate is. at the end of the day, we have to see it as people. people with equal dignity, even if we have different opinions, we have to maintain the idea of loyal opposition. if we do that, there can be no we the people versus the we people, to use his terms. host: karl from twitter wrightson, many in both parties have been complicit in blocking third-party candidates and independents, trump may not have happened. guest: we have an odd system.

it is unique in that we have mass voter primaries. other countries have primaries, but they are limited to members of the party. the fact that we have mass primaries means that people who in other countries who would be third parties instead become factions within the two parties. there are barriers and difficulties to forming third parties, but it is more cost efficient for people who disagree with the consensus to try and seize control of one of the parties through the primary process than to form a third party. that is why we don't have third parties in the united states. not conspiracies or ballot access, it is because the people themselves who in other countries form third parties and sets -- instead try to take a dominant position in one of the parties using primaries.

it should be an open question whether it is healthy for us to do that, or whether it would be healthier for us to have restrictions on who can fight for a party's nomination command thereby forced disagreement within party elites. a couple more calls. this is drawn out of new york. caller: good morning. my two cents put in. they weretrump, when negotiating to run, trump called his wife ugly, stupid, called his father a killer. now today, he is fighting for him? he is a two faced person. they should get rid of him immediately.

host: back to ted cruz. guest: senator cruz has a well-deserved reputation for somebody who is too clever by half in pursuit of his own political advancement. his election after to the senate dividing republicans against republicans, which is why the republican establishment and not rally behind him against donald trump. they have been attacked for 3.5 years. they didn't really think they could trust that man. attempthat again in his to jump on the bandwagon with objectwley's decision to to the electoral college votes with this, i am for commission with has legal standing -- it was an attempt to trying to lay

different ways and the senator is reaping what he sewed and will receive his just desserts in the not-too-distant future. host: somewhat lost in the events of last week, the results of the runoff in georgia. what lessons to republican states to take from the results of the runoff? the results in georgia, which were a free and non-corrupt election, show what has been clear for many years. the future of the republican as a party that unites conservatives and moderates in a common bond of citizenship and nationalism -- genuine nationalism, not racial or religious, but the idea of a nationalism that is committed to a government that works on behalf of its people, whether it means getting out of the way, or

building their guardrails that make opportunity possible for many. donald trump show the republican party that it could expand amongst people in the working class and minorities. 201020 -- 2020 received higher shares of black and minority votes than any republican in decades. away educated suburbanites who could have been united with an open, tolerant division the president was unable to provide. becomeshat and georgia a republican state again. a 55%, 65ou build percent republican majority throughout the country that would place the republican party and dominant position of american life. host: margaret in delray beach, florida. caller: there has been so many

statements since my original idea to call. i had tamika quick comment. mr. olson, after hearing you have a column in the washington post, you went down a few points. the fact that you used toxicity when referring to donald trump, which we all know he has a mouth , i find the washington post is maybe only second to the new york times for spreading toxic misinformation and bias. democrat, than i was republican, now i'm independent. it is redundant what i am saying, but it is disappointing and convenient that we have a new word called whatabout is him. should notnient that be used in a conversation because i watched my country all summer long, as things were quantified, and everything was

excused. i am from new york originally, you pile on what happened all summer with the riots and looting, and it reminded me of the naked gun were leslie nielsen was standing in front of a fireworks factory saying, nothing to see here. it was shoved down american throats that it was just a few people. the fact that they were fighting for equal rights for minorities -- i watched a woman beaten almost to death in front of her husband. i watched a man received brain injuries and was kicked in the middle of the street. the people who follow donald trump were told you get rid you deserved, and this is your fault. they were held to be complicit. donald trump was simply a result. donald trump is one of those people who says what a lot of people are thinking. rip up a nancy pelosi document, get donald trump is a

man of toxicity? there is so much toxicity in government. host: we want to give henry olson a chance. myst: do not hold association with the post against me. i was calling out democrats or their toxicity for years. that doesn't excuse what donald trump does. donald trump was artful and terribly divisive, all at the same time. what happened over the summer was shameful. it was mob rule. it was violence. andas not uniformly forcefully condemned by the people in the other party to the degree it should have been. what happened in the summertime was not the equal of what happened on january 6, for the simple reason that destroying a city is not the same as trying to seize lawmakers in the heart of the capital. but, mob rule, violence and opposition to trying to achieve by force would you could not

achieve by votes, as lincoln said, bullets not ballots, is wrong. it must be condemned forcefully. by all responsible members. the failure to do that in the summertime is a black stain on the people who refuse to recognize the threat to mob rule. host: you can check out henry olson's columns at washingtonpost.com. his other works at eppc addressw

york. cuomo: good morning to all. please welcome the tenant governor -- the lieutenant governor who is with us today. the senate minority leader in the