how the court shakes out, i do think there is still a chance that we could expand the courts going forward in a way that would be more diverse. one of my arguments for court reform is not like, we need to elect justices who are democrats. i can envision a world where we split the justices between the parties. given the close divisions of the senate, i think it is going to be even more tough than i thought it was going to be before the election. host: you can read this commentary, his writing at announcer: on january 6, rioters caused extensive damage to the u.s. capitol for the first time since british troops burned the building in 1814.

tonight, we visit c-span's original production of "the capital" for the story of the history and architecture of this iconic home to congress since 1800. printed special access in 2006 to green spaces and private rooms, watch "the capitol" tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. ♪ announcer: on wednesday, joe biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the u.s. in our nation's capital. in light of the attack on the capital, the traditional inauguration ceremony has been modified. follow our live coverage as the day unfolds, starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern, watch the arrival of the capital, the swearing in, and the inaugural address. the inauguration of joe biden, beginning at 7:00 a.m. eastern

on wednesday, live coverage on c-span and c-span.org. or listen on the c-span radio app. host: we welcome the senior editor for the national review joining us to talk about the legacy of the trump administration, looking ahead to the biden administration. morning. host: let's start with the republican party president trump leaves office. what do you think the state of the republican party today is? guest: well, you know, when president trump won the nomination in 2016, and a lot of people predicted that it would cause complete political disaster. center lindsey graham, who had been one of his rivals for the nomination, famously said that. i think you would have to say that didn't happen.

president trump defied expectations and won in 2016 and republicans are in reasonably good electoral shape by recent historical standards right now. they are at a near majority in the house and senate, even if they don't have either one of them right now. they have got most of the governorships in the country. on the other hand, they are deeply divided right now. that, i think, creates a question as to their future viability. can they find a leader who can bridge that divide and set a new direction that is maybe a little bit less defined by his personality and the arguments about them. host: there is an assessment that the division was not really there, the contesting of the 2020 election and certainly, the

electoral college count and finally, the events of 12 days ago, the attack on the capital that have driven those divisions in the party. guest: i say this after the election, there was kind of a sigh of relief on the part of a lot of elected officials. they thought they were going to hold the senate, they were gratified and surprised by how well they had done in house elections. they became much larger than people had thought they would. they had thought they were going to lose seats, and they didn't. it seemed to a lot of republicans that the path forward was trumpism without tru mp that the electorate had rejected him personally but had not rejected the republican party. of course, that left open the question of what trumpism actually is and whether he would get a party without trump and whether you are going to continue for stay, but i think

that the last two months have been a pretty jarring experience, obviously not just for republicans because trump really sort of set this course madness and a lot of the party followed him and other parts of the party pretended to agree with him. host: a piece published by bloomberg opinions, trump should be impeached, convicted, and disqualified. you think is important that the senate moves forward with the impeachment trial? guest: i do. i think congresswoman liz cheney was correct when she said there has not been a greater betrayal of the oath of office then the one president trump engaged in. he tried to overturn an election, he had a campaign of

lies and conspiracy theories for two months that i think would've been impeachable even if they had not led, as they did, to the violence on capitol hill. host: review surprised by all of this, have ascended? -- how this ended? guest: nobody thought that trump was going to save the day after the election, well, i li lsot -- i lost fair and square. that is not a surprise. the extent that have actually played out, i think, has still been pretty horrifying to witness. the example that when the electors voted, that might put some of this to bed, but it didn't. and you had very few republicans were willing to stand up and say that the president was saying was untrue.

that in fact, or the president was saying was frequently lying. at the same time, you have republicans to, when it counted, were not willing to enable the president. we have intelligent has been appointed registered -- judges and election officials who did the right thing, but particularly with the leadership in washington, leadership was pretty hard to come by. host: our gas talking about the legacy of the trump administration, or of the republican party. we welcome your calls and comments. free democrats, the line is (202) 748-8000. independent, (202) 748-8001. for all other, (202) 748-8002. i want to place in comments over the weekend from fox news sunday. he was asked about what he thought the feature of the republican party looked like. here is a look. >> first of all, the gop had a

very successful election. yes, we did not win the presidency, but every other level, we had success. conservatism and republican party is alive and well. right now, we are fractured as a result of president trump and how he has handled it, the post-election results and challenging electoral college. that has had some division. but our party will come back together. we are going to have a tough six months or more coming up. we are going to have a lot of soul-searching that is going to be done, and is going to be a fair debate as to the direction of the already, both in terms of trump's influence over it, but it is also going to be about policy and trade in foreign policy and bidens agenda. i welcome that policy debate and i think we ought to get back to the conservative principles that

have made our party and hopefully, it will move away from that personality-driven that has led us to where we are right now under president trump. host: the arkansas governor talking about soul-searching in his comments on fox news. guest: yes. you know, i think that a lot of what he said makes sense. i would, even though he was saying the same thing i was saying earlier, i would just add that is true that the republican party has been weak at the presidential level since the cold war. there has only been one time a republican party candidate has won a majority or even a plurality of national popular vote and it has been when it has won electoral majorities, it has done so very narrowly. of course, 2000, extremely

narrow. 2004, pretty narrowly as well. i would say it is not as if everything was smooth sailing. in terms of soul-searching, absolutely. the republican party should do some. i don't know whether that is actually going to happen, but i think that republicans need to ask themselves the question about how they ended up in this situation where, again, you've got a leader of the party, the leader of the country spreading unhinged conspiracy theories that lead to violence. host: let me ask you about practical effects for republicans govern on a national level a closer minority for the republicans in the house, they gained seats in the house versus the democrats. as we know now, they will be up 50-50 u.s. senate with kamala

harris breaking the tae bo in the senate. guest: right. one of the reasons republicans were pretty confident right after the election was they remembered that their party did quite well during the clinton administration and during the obama administration, that there was a pretty rapid bounce back in the 1994 and 2010 elections, the first midterm elections. that could happen again. the problem from my point of view, one lesson republicans drew from that experience if they don't need to have their own agenda. in the short term, that kind of

decision can make sense. in the long run, it sets you up for failure in a think we saw that when republicans had unified control of the government in 2017. all of a sudden, they had legislate of health care and they were not able to do it. and they spent months flailing because they never had put a network in opposition to come up with a consensus position that was politically sustainable. and i think they're going to be really tempted to follow that same course. host: in the 117 congress and the house, what potential problems may be had after the attack? you pointed out liz cheney and her stance on the election, her stance on the attack and her calls -- the cause for her to step down after the conference chair. guest: i think it is going to be an enormous challenge and kevin mccarthy, by coming out in favor of cheney staying set himself up for a test.

whether the more right-wing or pro-trump elements of the party are going to listen to him is an open question. i don't think his allies are going to be helping mccarthy on that front, but i think he is right to think there are some real risks in moving entirely in the pro-conspiracy, pro- insurrection wing of the republican party. host: we have calls waiting for our guest. the senior editor with the national review. delaware, good morning. caller: ok, thank you. i'm calling about a legacy of any president. they all work under article 16 of our constitution. and they are not any of them

honest, really. whatever source is put on and called injustice. they are out of your promoting injustice rather than justice. article 16 is the roosevelt, wilson, jackson power which leads the rest of us powerless. because when you start taxing money our capitol, taking it away from us and deciding who to give it to, and we get very little of it, and we have to strive to make more and more as our taxes go up and up and other people get more and more benefits -- they are living a better life now and we have to work 24/7.

host: thank you, caller. ramesh? guest: i can certainly sympathize with the unhappiness, especially around april, but i am not sure that we can have a government capable of doing what almost everyone in the country would want the government to do without having an income tax. i do not think there is a radical alternative to income taxation. although i do think we could have a better tax code. host: here is dee in washington, d.c. caller: i was thinking about donald trump's legacy and i

have a friend who says -- always talks about how terrible he is. i would always say he is bad but bush is worse. he started the war, millions of people died, our service members were wounded, but what happened on the 6th, i had to go to my son and say, i think trump passed bush. just fermenting this for his own political gain, i think maybe his supporters will still hold them in high regard, but i think his legacy is pretty bad. that is all i really wanted to say. anyway, thank you for c-span. host: what do you think from the trump presidency my get lost? achievements that my get overshadowed by what happened on january 6.

guest: i do not know if it is going to be overshadowed. it has maybe been over the last few weeks, but i think that the changes in the federal judiciary, particularly the supreme court, have been pretty momentous and are going to be long-lasting. it is something that may be putting a little too much faith in. ultimately if you do not have majority of the country, if you lose elections, that having a conservative judiciary is not going to allow you have the conservative policy victories you want. but it is a big deal. i think we have already seen some of the impact of having a more conservative judiciary. some of the other triumphs or policy achievements of the trump

administration, i think, are more likely to be wiped away more quickly. for example, trump's deregulation were good, were economically helpful, but i do not know if that was built to last. i think the biden administration will be able to undo a lot of that over the next few years. host: what about in terms of political legacy for future candidates who run like donald trump? both on the national and state level. guest: that is an open question. does the trump style, let's call it, translate to other candidates? can they adopt it and succeed? i don't think we know the answer to that question. i suspect what we are going to see in republican presidential politics over the next few years are people who try to keep a sort of pre-trump republican

agenda, but tried to be more combative and aggressive and trumplike. i think you will see people try to be more in favor of a trump agenda but tried to tone down the combativeness and try to run as trumpism without trump. i think we just don't know. we will have to have a market test to figure out which of these formulas works best with republican voters. host: we had a caller yesterday who suggested trump should for his own party. he has enough support he can separate from the republican party and form a trump party, a separate thing from the gop. is that feasible? guest: if you remember back to the 2016 presidential race, one of the ways trump was able to neuter criticism was to threaten.

that he would take supporters with him and he would run as a third-party candidate or not support the republican ticket. that threat i think is something that weighs on republican minds. i think a lot of officials understand that trump is not particularly committed to the party and would be perfectly happy to leave it a flaming wreck if he thought it was in his interest or felt like doing that. i think that is one of the reasons why republicans have been so unwilling to criticize him for all of the provocations he made. host: let's go to statin island, new york. stan on the democrats line. caller: i'm a big fan. i remember william buckley and i would be curious to get the

guest's opinion about what would william buckley be thinking right now and how would he have approached the trump presidency? guest: thank you for that question. i was a great admirer of bill buckley as well. i do sometimes ask myself that question, but the answer is really unknowable. he was such an independent thinker and he could be very unpredictable. we do know that when he wrote about trump in, i believe it was 2000, he was extremely hostile. he viewed trump as guilt all the way down. but on the other hand he came around to being very hostile to

the iraq war and maybe that would have made him more sympathetic to the challenge trump posed to the republican party in 2015 and 2016. it is just impossible to know. host: william buckley -- guest: let me just -- host: was the founder of your magazine. go ahead. guest: of course. one of bill's greatest achievement was to expel conspiracy theorists from the ranks at the cost of himself in the magazine politically. kicking out the john birch society at a time when leadership was saying things like, dwight eisenhower was a secret communist. i think that was really important for the health of conservatism in the country. unfortunately, that kind of intellectual pathology has crept back into the republican party

and this white house. host: let's go to ardelle calling from louisiana. caller: happy new year, c-span. host: thank you. caller: trump has broken every chain commandment there is and when he was running for office the republicans talked about him so bad and nobody supported him. but they all now support him considerably. but i don't think that joe biden and kamala harris are going to make it through their terms. some way the followers of trump are going to assassinate both of them and i hope this is not true. but i truly believe that it is. thank you. guest: i think that call

reflects a fevered political atmosphere that we have right now and we all have to hope and do what we can to keep that in check. host: here is robert in of rural, indiana on the republican line. caller: yes. i have never seen such a mess in my life. these guys you have got on there today -- talk about racism. didn't kamala harris call joe biden a racist? yet, she is vice president and everybody in congress, all the blacks of their talk about racism. host: ramesh, i want to ask you about the $1.9 trillion proposed for covid relief.

here are the comments the president elect from last thursday on that and why he thinks americans need additional aid. [video clip] >> the very health of our nation is at stake. the rescue plan includes immediate relief to americans hardest hit and most in need. we will finish the job of getting the total of $2000 in cash relief to people who needed the most. the $600 already appropriated is not enough. we just have to choose between paying rent and putting food on the table. even for those who kept their jobs these checks are important. if you are an american worker making $40,000 a year with less than $400 in savings, maybe you have lost hours or doing fewer shifts, driving the truck or caring for the kids were elderly, you are out there putting your life on the line to work during this pandemic, and

worried every week that you get sick, lose your job, or worse. $2000 is going to go a long way to ease that pain. we will also provide more peace of mind for struggling families by extending unemployment insurance beyond the end of march for millions of workers. that means 18 million americans currently on unemployment benefits while they look for work can count on these checks continuing to be there. plus, there will be a $400 per week supplement so people can make ends meet. this gets money into the pockets of millions of americans who will spend it on food and rent and other basic needs. as economists tell us, that helps the whole economy grow. host: ramesh, what are your

thoughts? guest: i think it makes sense for it to be his political priority. i think a lot of it is going to be popular and that is going to help. first of all, the policy rationale is pretty lacking and with congress as divided as it is a lot of it is going to be hard. for example, the $15 minimum wage that is part of the covid relief package i think would be a big mistake. it would be devastating in a lot of states with a low cost structure. i don't know how that is going to get past congress. i am not sure they are going to be able to have the votes for that. it does not mean that is not a good political issue. the $2000 checks, or really $1400 checks on top of the $600 already approved, i think that

is a pretty popular move. it will help some people, but the idea it is going to stimulate the economy, that is unlikely. basically what it will do is make the federal government's balance sheet worse and household balance sheets better, but not have a huge net positive effect or much of any positive effect on the economy overall. then there is a grab bag of other things, some of which i like and some of which i don't like. but i don't think this is a package overall that is narrowly targeted to the challenges of the covid economy. host: you pointed out the provision on the minimum wage. why is it we see this in both democratic and republican congress is, administrations as well, that in these large packages policy issues and pet projects are put into these large bills making them even

larger than they may have been if they did not just address the problem at hand? guest: you can go pretty far back and find legislation that becomes -- legislators sometimes call it a christmas tree -- where everybody puts something on or put something under the tree, because they know it is going to pass or they have a good shot at passing. i think it has gotten a little bit worse in recent years because congress has fallen out of the habit of routine legislation. you only pass big legislation in emergency circumstances. you've got to raise the debt ceiling or you're not going to be able to pay the federal debt. or you have some crisis like the coronavirus shutting down the economy. so people have more incentive to try and pack that legislation

because otherwise the prospects are pretty grim. host: let's hear from tony: from pennsylvania on the independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have enjoyed this conversation. i know there has been a lot of talk about how horrible trump has been for the country and the lies that were told. i think i would want to revisit the era of dick cheney and george bush and really think about the iraq war, the lies, how he misled the american people into that war. at the time when those lies were more harmful, i think we have killed half a million iraqis in the process, destabilized the middle east, and have ushered in a lot of pain here because we have taken the trillions of dollars for that war and spent

it over there and we do not spend it here to help people with health care, raising income so people can have better lives. as i listen to our guest i see someone with a lot of privilege that does not see the pain of the american people. that does not see or understand the pain of -- 30% of trump voters are living on the margins on the margins are vulnerable to his lies. i see someone who is out of touch like most of our corporate media. he is not trying to. i do not think his bosses want him printing narratives like the one i'm am talking about. i do not hear him complaining about the trillions that obama gave away to the large banks to bail them out. i don't hear him talking about the bailout we gave that gave, i think it was $0.94 to the

american people. now we have joe biden, oh, i want to bailout the american people. no you don't. there is a way in which trump does lie. i am not a fan of trump by any means. i do see that he is a threat, but i want to say there were times when i really liked what he had to say. occasionally he told the truth. there was a murder of journalist in turkey were trump came back and said, look, the saudis buy arms from us and money owns the narrative. money owns what is right in this country and abroad and there was something very ugly happening in the world. i will take my answer off air, but thank you. host: we will hear from our guest. guest: tony has looked deep into

my soul and motivations, which is pretty impressive. i guess i apologize for talking about the things i was asked about and nothing's wished i talked about. host: bruce in alabama, republican . caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i think trump's legacy is pretty much over. i think the democrats -- all he went through for four years, i do not see him ever being able to run. we need nikki haley to step up. we need her to run. i really believe she would be a good first woman president, legitimate president, and we need her. nikki haley, if you are listening, your country needs you. you need to run for president. thank you. host: potential candidate? ramesh?

guest: i think nikki haley agrees strongly and gives every sign of wanting to run for the 2024 nomination. we are just going to have to see whether she can pull that off. there are a number of challenges ahead of her. she is very widely liked among republicans. however, like everybody else, she's going to have to navigate the trump versus anti-trump divisions in the party. i think a lot of strongly pro-trump republicans are going to dredge up things she said against trump in 2015 and 2016 and hold that against her. then there is the question of, you know, what is her agenda? does she speak to some of the economic concerns that we

associate with working-class trump supporters? or does she follow a more pre-trump conservative economic agenda? i think she has given some conflicting signals that. host: let me ask you about 2024. not me, if you are in seattle, dave, would you guess to be surprised if trump would run ivanka in 2024? i think he is referring to florida? guest: the republican primary against review -- host: i see. guest: there is some chatter. no. nothing could be surprising anymore. i think she does have political ambition which is kind of interesting because rubio and ivanka trump have worked more closely together than any other republican senator and ivanka.

the issues they have tended to concentrate on have overlapped. they worked together on family leave, they worked together on the child tax credit. but policy can be an unsentimental business. i would not be surprised if there were a clash. host: george in greenville, mississippi, democrats line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i just wanted to speak to the trump legacy. i believe in everyman having a second chance. i believe god forgives us all for the things we do. but trump has told a lot of lies. he parted men who broke the law and i think we ought to uphold the law and trump parted a lot of criminals that lied to the

fbi. i don't think god is pleased with it. i don't think america is pleased with it. one of the things i found out about conservatives and democrats is the conservatives will leave things like they are. they never want to change. they never want people to have a better life at the democrats sometimes, it gets too much. we have got to do what is right. we need to look at the bible and sit with the bible is saying and god is saying and then we follow those lines. you never had a president say he could go out in new york city and shoot somebody and still be the president. you never have a president who says, go to the capitol and use force. we never had that in the history of this country. host: george in mississippi. ramesh, do you think -- donald trump talked about establishing

a separate media network. do you still think that is a viable option for him? guest: well, i wonder whether he would really start one or just take an existing one. you know, he would have a lot of hurdles to overcome and i think one of the things we have seen over the last months -- you look at the most pro-trump networks have had to make embarrassing settlements because of lies they spread ever called on legally. you have got to wonder what kind of legal liabilities you would be opening up if you were a trump network broadcasting that same kind of thing. host: we hear from joan next in alabama, republican line. caller: good morning. host: morning. caller: i would like to say that you can talk until the cows come

home, so to speak, but sand is the bottom line for everyone in this nation. we are all sinful and jesus christ is the answer. we need to get back to the bible and the truth. i thank you and that is all have got to say. host: joan in alabama. let's talk about the incoming biden administration with the inauguration two days away. ramesh ponnuru, the first couple of days we see executive actions overturning things that happened in the trump administration. what are you looking forward to or expecting? guest: the administration has told us a lot of the things it is planning to do. the incoming white house chief of staff put out a memo on saturday where they outlined

priorities and a lot of it is going to be stuff that includes reversing a lot of the republicans' executive orders. we have moved toward a ping-pong style governments where there is a lot of first day, first week in any administration after a change of party. the republicans tighten up taxpayer funding for organizations that promote abortion overseas and the democrats loosened that again. we are going to see a lot of that this time. some of the things the trump administration put in are going to take longer to undo because the administration, the new biden administration, is going to have to follow procedures act in undoing some of those things. a lot of that is going to get tied up in court. but i think we have had a tendency toward executive

government over the last few decades and that seems to be accelerating. host: next is matt calling from westwood, new jersey. caller: thank you. i would like to state some facts about the president's legacy which your past two guests have either ignored -- i am disappointed that c-span should have a more equal time to president trump's supporters. fact, president trump's legacy veterans twice allowed veterans to get doctor care when they need to instead of waiting in line and dying as they had in the past administration's. s. fact, president trump getting these vaccines with his warp speed which no one thought would take place. fact, president trump bringing back jobs to americans because

he felt the pain of americans who were fired, laid off. factories shipped overseas courtesy of people like hillary clinton and mr. biden and the democrats, as well as some republicans in name only, such as your guest, who is a trump aide or. host: we will get a response. [laughter] guest: i actually agree with some of that. i think the better thing was building on an obama era piece of legislation, but i thought both administration's moves on that were positive. i think neither got a handle on the admin straight of problems with veteran's health care and there is quite a bit of work left to be done. i think operation warp speed was successful and was, as the caller said, more successful

than people thought it was going to be. i think that is outweighed by some other problems, including those with distribution which we are seeing right now. i just think both parties have vastly exaggerated the effect presidents have on the economy. the first three years of trump were very good economic years. they were not great changes in the existing trend. you had a positive in the late obama years that continued under trump until the coronavirus crisis hit. i would not give trump all of the credit for those first three years. nor would i say the crisis following that was entirely his responsibility either. i think that would've happened under any president. but both of those things would've happened