lincoln when the party was first founded in 1856. the republican is for the individual. the campaign slogan in 1956 was freemen, free soil, free money. that is pretty much the sentiment today is that all men and women, the individuals, they are free. it is the only way to move forward and for the party to survive. host: a bacon biographer and longtime friend joining us from virginia. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back chief

correspondent and columnist for the washington post. thank you for being with us. guest: always a pleasure. host: let's talk about the news regarding infrastructure and that statement from the white house. where do things stand right now? guest: it is a little confusing because the president said one thing on thursday, that she would not sign the infrastructure bill, but that was the only bill that came to him. he is wanting to make the democratic pass it -- package working its way through, and that set off alarm bells with republicans, especially with the negotiating team. there was a lot of blowback that they heard in the subsequent 48 hours or next several hours and the republicans wanted in some

way or the other for the president to walk back some of what he said on thursday. that is what we saw on saturday afternoon. he said what he had said on thursday and his words had upset republicans, and he wanted to make clear that he was not issuing a veto threat on the infrastructure bill and that he would do everything in his power to try to advance that bill to get past with the other package that is in the works. host: you are scrambling, trying to update your piece in the washington post. let me share two points from your column and further elaborate. willingness to seek a cross party agreement, just to get a

deal, it's as much about him and his presidency. he pledged to restore some unity and bipartisanship and now had delivered, or had he? guest: we could see from the effort that he put into this that he was serious about trying to do a bipartisan compromise on infrastructure. infrastructure is one of those issues that has enjoyed support across party lines for many years. but it ultimately means is a lot of money going into a lot of congressional districts and states. lawmakers are happy to have money coming into their constituencies. he set off with the idea of trying to do this because nobody has been able to do it in recent years. he negotiated principally with a

republican from west virginia and before he left for his long trip to europe, he basically pulled the plug on those because they were too far apart in the amount of new money that she was prepared to put into an infrastructure package. what happened was that this group of senators picked up the challenge. this is the same group that had negotiated and put forward the $900 billion package that was approved by congress before president trump left office. they decided to try on this, but there were a lot of democrats who have been getting quite nervous about the extended nature of negotiations. they wanted president biden to say no, we are never going to

get there. the republicans will hold out and eventually we will run out of time to get everything done that we need to do. they were basically urging him not to wait, to forge ahead with the democratic program, but the president stuck with it and the negotiators stuck with it. there were difficulties and the bipartisan agreement has some question marks around it, questioning what it will really be like, but they were able to reach an agreement. they announced -- the president met with them on thursday and signed off on it. it was an indication that he was serious about what he wanted to do to prove that it was possible in this very divided country to still do something across party lines. that is where we were on

thursday when he came out with negotiators to announce that they had a deal. host: it is unusual for the president to come to that venue, but he did so, including in the photograph in your piece. the head line, a bipartisan deal, angry reaction and the long road ahead for the biden agenda. you also write about how to pay for all of this. among the most difficult issues, was how to pay for the package. for democrats, the red lines included no new taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 a year. they ruled out any increase in the gasoline tax and no fees or taxes on electric vehicles. there was one big red line which

original proposals would have gone after. they are drawing considerable scrutiny. how do you pay for it? guest: that will still be the big question, whether there is a way that everyone can agree to pay for it. they will spend $40 billion to improve irs efforts to recoup money that the irs is owed. they believe that will net them $100 billion. i think people are already questioning whether that will produce the revenue that they need. as they have to fill in the details -- right now this is a framework and over the next few weeks, they will be turning this into legislative language.

there will be a lot more negotiating ahead to get it into the language that is acceptable for legislation and to persuade people to support it. to get this package through the senate will require 10 republicans under the assumption that all 50 democrats support eight. they have to climb that hill and in the house, one big question is whether the liberals in the house will stick with this and agree to do this, particularly if they are not 100% sure that the bigger package that will be passed in the senate under terms of reconciliation, rage can do it with only 50 votes and the vice president breaking the tie -- the liberals in the house have some skepticism about this. there is a big balancing act that will have to go on.

speaker pelosi was very outspoken and she said there is not going to be any infrastructure without the other bill. she has got issues on her side because she does not have much of a majority to work with. it is always balking on a tight rope. host: for republicans call guest: -- call guest: -- i expect both to go to the house, where i will work with speaker pelosi on the path forward after senate action. i am confident that congress

will get both to my desk so i can's -- i can sign each bill promptly. this is what was said after his meeting with the president. christ one of the big surprises i had come to washington -- we get along really well. my colleagues in the senate -- we work together and it has been years and years. people have been talking about the infrastructure needs of our country. this group came together and actually got a job done. we have the president behind us and this group year, but we are going to keep working together. america works. this and it works and we can work together. host: you could hear the president yesterday and senator romney. what is your overall assessment? guest: senator romney was one of those who was quite upset over

what the president said after they had all been there together. it was a couple hours later that the president made the comment that he would not sign the infrastructure must he the reconciliation bill as well. the republican senators on the negotiating team were quite upset and pressing the white house for some action. one of the people they talked to was the senator, releasing the statement that it was written in a carefully vague language. it was a first effort but not an incredibly successful effort to dissuade -- persuade republicans

that the senator was still on board. her view was that there was not a big problem. she said, we still have work to do and this is a negotiation that takes compromise, and i think we will get there. i got the impression that the problem was much bigger. there was still pressure being applied to the white house. it arrived sometime after 4:00 yesterday afternoon. that has settled things down among negotiators, but we will have to see how this goes down more broadly, particularly with other democrats, who continue to

have skepticism about negotiations with republicans. caller: good morning. how are you doing this beautiful sunday morning? host: we are great. caller: i want to say something. i want to thank c-span for being honest, open, and showing the wonderful valley in the state of ohio for donald trump. thank you from the bottom of my heart. the first comment is on joe biden backtracking on this infrastructure do you. i was totally shocked. he comes out and does the dance in front of the biased media, comes out and says, we have a deal and two hours later, i'm going to veto it. how can anyone take this person

who occupies deceit at the white house cac? guest: what we saw was that there was an action, a reaction and a reaction from the white house. he realized that what he had done, whether deliberately or accidentally in the use of language, they recognized that the bipartisan deal was in jeopardy and after a day of back and forth, they released a statement. it is unusual to see this kind of thing happen. most white houses unwilling to acknowledge that they made any kind of mistake or that they mishandled a negotiation, but this is obviously very important

for the president to say, i worked to get this bipartisan agreement and i will do everything that i can to get it passed, but what we are dealing with are the delicacy of negotiations going on within the democratic party, that the president is the head of. he has to try to manage all of that. frankly, this has a long road ahead. there will be a lot of work that has to be done on the fine print of things. we do not have the fine print of the bipartisan agreement, nor do we have anything approaching fine print of what this consented -- reconciliation package will look like. senator bernie sanders is the chair of the committee. he is talking about a package in

the neighborhood of $6 trillion. it is unlikely that senator joe manchin or some others in the democratic caucus in the senate will go for something that is that large. there is work to be done on the democratic side and work to be done to make sure that they have the necessary votes to get the bipartisan bill through in the senate. what we have seen is a president who very much wanted this agreement. when it looked like it was in jeopardy, he was prepared to say, i made a mistake or i did not mean to say it the way it might have sounded. host: more information on what the administration is calling on the the biden administration and its approach to infrastructure.

our next caller is from topeka, kansas. caller: i really do respect you. you are a longtime reporter. i think she would address this. do you really think the republican party might split? given the fact -- if there was an election tomorrow, president -- trump would get about 50 million votes. senator marshall -- my question is, like lincoln said, a house divided cannot stand. i wonder about the republican and democratic parties. there might be a number of

democrats who might vote for a moderate republican. i wanted to get your take on this. guest: it is a very good question. i would be interested to hear frank's view on this as well. the party is in a fragile situation right now, particularly the republican party. what we have seen, since president trump left office is that there is this tension within the coalition. many traditional republicans, symbolized by liz cheney at this point -- they want the president to basically disappear. they do not want the former president to have a future in the role of the republican party party because she thinks he is a destructive force. as we saw last night, there are a lot of people who are still devoted to the former president and many republican leaders, lawmakers recognize that, at least in the near future, in

2022 and 2024, it is unlikely that republicans can be successful unless they have both parts of the party pulling together. they need the trump voters, and they need the people who are unhappy with trump and wish he would go away. i do not think the party at this point is going to split, in part because neither part of that party would have critical mass. taking your point about the romney party, if we call it that , would be able to attract a lot of democratic votes, i think that is questionable at this point. that depends in part on what happens with the democratic party and whether democrats are perceived as more of a far-left and therefore driving some moderates and conservatives out of the democratic party. you could argue we now have four

parties. we have two parties within the republican party. we have in some ways two parties in the democratic party, although because of president biden i think the democrats are more united. he is more able to unite the democrats then -- than -- and the republicans' divisions are more serious. we are in a volatile period politically because of the divisions and the differences within each party's coalition. host: from staten island, new york, stan is next. caller: i want to acknowledge dan balz as one of the excellent reporters. he is open, honest, and gives a fair, objective analysis.

i appreciate it. where is the republican party going to be going in the next few years? i really am curious about that. i am getting frustrated. in the last 30 years, can we identify a true leader in this country? again, thank you so much. open, honest, and very objective, and you provide a wealth of information. you and c-span are blessings. guest: thank you. that is kind of you. at this point, republicans are totally focused on 2022 and winning back control of the house and if possible to win control of the senate. as a result of that, they are trying to put to the side the questions of the future of donald trump, what role he will

play in the future, and can they prosper if he is front and center within the party. that is a debate they would like not to have in 2022 and one of the reasons that liz cheney was driven out of the number three position in the house republican conference, because she was continuing to talk about donald trump and with the house leaders want to talk about is joe biden and democratic positions and everything but donald trump. they want to rally as much of the republican party as they can. this is a debate deferred in some ways until 2024. a lot of this depends on what the former president decides to do, whether he decides to run again in 2024. i think it is premature for anybody to really know, including him, no matter what his thinking and intentions are at this point.

there is a lot of time and a lot of things that can happen between now and the thing -- time he would have to make a decision about running. presidential nominating battles are where parties defined themselves and where candidates help redefine a political party. we will have to wait until after the midterms to see what the status of the republican party is at that point and then to see what the field of potential candidates begins to look like. will everybody stand back and wait for president trump to decide what he is going to do? will some people begin to do active campaigning that needs to be done to be prepared to run? that will obviously be a fascinating period and a significant period in the future of the republican party. for now, republicans are going

to try to do everything they can to win in 2022 and then assess what they think of themselves as a party, what they think of their strengths and weaknesses. host: we appreciate the viewer's comment, which is why we always enjoy having you on our program. (202) 748-8001 for republicans and (202) 748-8000 for democrats. i want to go back to something that was posted overnight on the washington post website must the caller talking about the state of the republican party. here are some key republican leaders, including kevin mccarthy in the house and mitch mcconnell in the senate. [video clip] >> former president trump's actions proceeded the riot -- proceeding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty. >> if the president was the party's nominee, would you support him? >> absolutely.

>> the president bears responsibility for wednesday? attack -- for wednesday's attack on congress. >> you know why we won that? president trump worked on all these races. >> the president's language and rhetoric often goes too far. yesterday, his lingwood and rhetoric crossed a line. it was reckless. >> the millions of people who went to battle, fighting alongside president trump, and they are terrified, and they want him to go away. let me tell you this now. donald j. trump and going anywhere. >> what the president did on january 6 to me was inexcusable. he should not have done it. >> do you want him to continue to be the public leader and face of the republican party? >> i think he will be because he has a high approval among republicans and we as a party have to focus on the policies and ideals that in the 2020

election do quite well. >> what it comes to accountability, the president needs to understand his actions were the problem, not the solution. i am not worried about the next election. i am worried about getting through the next 14 days. to the republican party, if you want to win and stop a socialist agenda, we need to work with president trump. we cannot do it without him. host: that courtesy of the washington post. guest: what we have seen is the reality that republican leaders, no matter what they thought or what president trump did on january 6 at that rally and beforehand in continuing to claim falsely that this was a stone election, they were appalled by that. many of them were appalled by that, but those comments came at a moment when congress was

moving in the direction or beginning to take up or had taken up the second impeachment of president trump. senators like senator mcconnell, who voted to acquit the president, wanted to stake out some distance with the president over what he had done on january 6 and before. those words were spoken at a particular moment in our history and the context has to be considered. what those second set of comments indicates is recognition that, as senator portman indicated, that president trump continues to have a stronghold on the republican party base. when senator mcconnell says if he is the nominee i will vote for him, that is what the senate republican leader is always going to say.

he is not going to say i would not support the nominee of our party. if voters and republican primaries decide they want donald trump as the republican nominee again, very few of these elected officials will say i am not going to support him. there may be a few like senator romney who did not support him in 2016 but they are in the minority. we talked about this earlier. there is a tension now and a recognition on the part of leaders like senator mcconnell that come up while president trump can be a destructive force in the country at large, the support he enjoys within the republican party has to be respected by them and recognized by them. they have to maneuver through that and around that. that is not going to be easy. host: which leads to the house select committee on the events of january 6 after the deal

between democrats and republicans collapsed. here is a speaker nancy pelosi, addressing that issue last week. [video clip] >> it is imperative we seek the truth of what happened. we believe a bipartisan commission would be the west -- best way to proceed, to establish an independent, 9/11 commission. unfortunately, despite the expressed support of seven gop senators, mitch mcconnell asked republican senators to do him a personal favor and vote against the commission. the republican senators did him a personal favor rather than honoring their patriotic duty to protect and defend. for the past four weeks, there's been attempts from outside groups, from leaders across the country, to persuade the senate to pass the commission.

tomorrow will be four weeks since the commission failed in the senate. i asked leading up to today, is there a chance for it to pass? we gave it so much time. not soon. not likely. maybe someday. in the meantime, i'm hopeful that could still happen at some point. this morning with great solemnity and sadness i am announcing the house will be establishing a select committee on the january 6 insurrection. again, january 6 was one of the darkest days in our nation's history. it is imperative that we establish the truth of that day and ensure that an attack of that kind cannot happen and that we root out the causes of it all.

host: that from house speaker nancy pelosi. were there missteps on both sides? initially, speaker pelosi wanted a majority of democrats before acquiescing to a bipartisan committee of an equal number of democrats and republicans and bill negotiations fell through. guest: i would say there were missteps. i thought the ultimate agreement they came to was a formation of an independent commission made a reasonable amount of sense. i had a conversation with the two chairs of the 9/11 commission on the day of the impeachment votes in the senate and they were at that point -- this is lee hamilton and tom kane. they believed in independent commission was vital to get to the truth of this and a

commission that would have two leaders who were in essence above reproach in terms of partisanship, that they have a staff that was equally chosen to represent democrats and republicans but to have members who were not going to approach this in a partisan way. they felt they needed subpoena power to be able to really do their work. their argument was you need as much time as you need. you should not set time limits. the agreement ultimately was defeated in the senate and did have a time limit. that was one difference. mr. hamilton and mr. kaine were insistent that an independent commission was the best and only way you could get to the truth. when that failed, speaker pelosi

decided to take this other route. we will see whether -- what kind of cooperation there is on this, what kind of leadership it will have, what the membership looks like. it would begin with grave doubts among republicans and hostility among republicans because republicans, as we saw in the senate, see this primarily as something that will be used as a weapon by democrats in 2022 against them. they do not want the 2022 election to have anything to do with what happened during donald trump's presidency. the idea that we are going to have a select committee in many ways guarantees that issue gets front and center. having said that, i think there is still a lot to be learned about what happened on january 6. there is a lot to be learned about the role of the president and the people around him.

just many questions that have not been answered. an independent commission would have been best situated. i do not know we will ever get to that point. the speaker held out hope that someday there might be an independent commission. the 9/11 commission was not appointed until 2002, so we are in a shorter timeframe here. everything is so much more partisan that getting to that independent commission, even some time out in the future, is not likely. host: we are talking with dan balz, chief correspondent at his column available at washingtonpost.com. bernie is joining us from kentucky. caller: i was just curious. i watched the video you just

showed from the washington post showing rob portman, lindsey graham, and the people who were against what the president did, president trump did on january 6. i was watching that that morning on january 6 with pedro. it all kind of started with mo brooks. he was getting the crowd juiced up and then rudy came out at the president. they said they were against what he did and should have done some thing different, but later on, 14 days later or however many weeks, they came out and said the opposite. i am wondering about polls. do these people in congress send out polls to constituents to find out what they think so they can decide what they think now?

again, you all are the professionals. in all my political knowledge -- all my political knowledge probably comes from watching the west wing. host: thank you for the call. guest: they do do polling. i do not know that they needed to in that period we are talking about because i think it has been clear through the trump presidency that he enjoys overwhelming support among rank republicans. that has been consistent through all polling from the time he was elected until the time he left office. in that period, they recognized the hold he had on the republican party. that was one of the reasons they did not go ahead the senate and you only had a handful of republicans who voted to convict him in the second impeachment trial. they know where the republican base stands and what the republican base thinks about president trump.

as i said earlier, they were expressing personal disgust at what they saw in the president's actions and speeches and behavior on january 6 and before and terms of challenging the election results. they were on the one hand expressing a kind of personal disgust and on the other they were acknowledging lyrical reality. one thing we know about most lawmakers is they are risk-averse. whenever they go after somebody as powerful as the president of the united states and give comments like that you can be pretty sure they are going to timber it at some point to make sure they are not permanently on the bad side of the president and particularly his supporters. host: john from plymouth, ohio,

you are next. please go caller: ahead, john. i just -- first of all, i was surprised the capital was so easy to get into that day. i was surprised that happened. i thought was defended better than it was. one of the reasons people storm the capital -- storm the capitol was because they thought the election was stolen. they felt things were not done correct, and they were not. how badly we do not know, but that is one reason. the other reason is people in america think the republican party -- they are too much alike. there are some republicans on tv talking a good show of defend

the united states, but there are so many of them that backdoor deals that are just not taking care of america first. there is no reason why we can't take care of our own country first and we still have plenty of resources to help the rest of the world, it seems. host: let me go back to his first point because we have had -- have not had a chance to talk to since january 6. you have been a longtime observer of politics in washington history. as you saw the events unfold, what was going through your mind? guest: i think my reactions were no different than most people, which was it was a horrifying thing to watch. we have never seen anything like this. we have never seen the capitol of the united states storms by a mob, an angry mob.

with flagpoles and bear spray and all kinds of weaponry to break into the capitol of the united states to register their anger over the state of the election and in an effort to block what was the last step in certifying the results of the 2020 election. i watched it as everybody else did. i was not at the capitol at the time. i watched it on television. i watched parts of the president's speech and what happened in the capitol. it was one of those terrible moments, as everybody has said. democrats and republicans alike have described it as one of the darkest days in the history of the country, and i think i wrote that on that day, that it would

be remembered as one of the dark days in the history of the republic. watching that, i think everybody had a reaction. when the caller says these are people who were angry over the result of the election or their belief that in some way or another there were irregularities in the election, we have a process in this country for allowing people to vote, getting as many people as possible to vote, for tallying those votes, for examining votes if there are questions about them, for certifying those votes . and for presidential electors to cast their votes and for those votes than to be certified and alternately ratified in the united states congress. that was the process that was underway on january 6.

the answer to people having questions about an election is not to resort to violence and try to take over the capitol and stop the process. that is not what happens in a democracy. i think that is why that day continues to be remembered as such a terrible day the history of the country. it is notable that once the capitol was secured that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were insistent that they come back and finish the process of concluding the election count , that they did not want anything to have happened that day that would delay this indefinitely, so they came back in the middle the night and finished up. that was a testament to the commitment to the dip -- democratic process as opposed to what we saw happen in the capitol earlier that day. host: we would go -- will go to

robert in north carolina. good morning. >> i enjoy your speaker this morning. i think he is very informative. i have two questions. one came up since we have gone into the riots at the capitol. do you think the lawmakers that were hiding under their desk crying, scared for their lives, will they think about that the next time they want to go to war with another country? could you explain the difference between having to have 60 votes for the current negotiations on infrastructure and then they can pass the other part just with 50 votes? have a good morning. host: robert, thank you.

guest: i do not know how many of them were crying under their desks, frankly. i think people were fearful, as i think most human beings would be in a situation like that, where a mob has stormed the capitol and there is limited security. the capitol did a terrific job, reinforced by law enforcement. the capitol police are not informed -- repaired in and of themselves to defend against what we saw on that day. i think it is understandable that many people were fearful about what might happen to them. they were not armed. they were not trained soldiers. whether that would affect the decision about whether to send people to war, i do not know. i do not know the answer to that. as to your second point, the rules of the senate allow for filibusters.

a filibuster can basically stop action on a piece of legislation unless there is a vote to shut off the filibuster. it used to take, many years ago, 67 votes, to shut it off. sometime ago, that was changed so that 60 votes -- with 60 votes a filibuster could be ended and you would move than to consider the piece of legislation. most legislation comes to the floor under those rules. there is a specific set of rules that allow certain spending measures to come to the floor under this process known as reconciliation. not everything qualifies to be considered under reconciliation. you may recall that, in the

discussion about the stimulus package passed at the beginning of the biden administration, there was a proposal and that originally for a $15 an hour minimum wage. the senate parliamentarian ruled that could not be considered under the terms of reconciliation, so that was taken out of the package. when you get approval from the parliamentarian on a package of items under terms of reconciliation, then it can pass with a simple majority. you cannot do this all the time. you cannot do this multiple times generally in a session. the parliamentarian has a considerable amount of power to determine what can and cannot be in that. i think that will be part of the negotiations that we will be seeing over the next few months as we await what the budget --

budgeteers come up with an terms of this democratic package. host: our last call is from california, kathryn. the morning. catherine? caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. appreciate your opportunity for all of us to come out and speak. i have been listening to you, so very knowledgeable and have expertise in so many areas. i am sitting here in southern california, which we are a democratic state. we do not even have the opportunity to vote for the other side anymore. i have been to the capitol with my children. i was shocked it was not more secure. however, president donald trump did not incite it. he used words of peacefulness and of just showing our role of

what we felt. i do not believe at all that he incited it. the word insurrection did not come about. i believe there have been many investigations on that day with our government. there have been a lot of people that have been researched and brought to trial, ongoing. i do not know why we have to spend our tax dollars with pelosi when i believe her role -- they were warned at the beginning that there may be, in the internet, different things. fbi, cia. there may be some people that would riot. however, it was not instituted by our president because of the way his words and demeanor and everything. the other thing i was going to share that i would hope you can bring up and respond to is the

days of all the american people having access to accurate information with facebook, twitter, and google and cnn, msnbc, and hatred for president trump to the point where they are censoring him. now he's is going to be censored until 2024 on facebook. many people are not getting the fact that his accomplishments are astounding for all the people of all walks of life and of all callers. host: we will leave it there. a lot on the table in our remaining minute. guest: what i would say is there's obviously a different view of the president's role on that day and in the days before. i do not think you can take that speech in isolation. you can look at different aspects of that speech and come

to the conclusion you want about whether he did or did not incite what happened come about the rally was set for january 6, which was not an accident. the days and weeks heading into that included constant statements by the president and efforts on his part to get states to change the vote. his call to the secretary of state in georgia basically asking him to find enough votes to overturn biden's victory in that state. there were a lot of things that went into that. in terms of the information flow , we are a fractured society at this point. there is a range -- there are a range of places to get information, some more reliable than others. there is a tremendous amount of disinformation that goes out.

a lot of is on social media. i think that has made it much more difficult for this country to have any sense of common purpose or common view. it is unfortunate that we have gotten to this point and i do not see an easy way out of this. president biden said in his inaugural speech he would like to try to unify the country. that is obviously proving difficult. we will see whether he is able to be successful in his term as president. the issue of information is people tend to be selective about where they get it and tends to try to get information from sources where they already know they agree. that is not healthy for our democracy. host: i wanted to get your reaction to the passing of former senator mike ravel.

back in the 1970's am a he read about 4100 pages of the pentagon papers. more recently, running for the democratic presidential nomination in 2008, losing to barack obama. your thoughts about his passing? guest: it is a sad moment. he had heard he was in decline. i guess the news of this is not a total surprise. he was a maverick politician and senator and demonstrated that in the congress and later on in terms of his campaign for president. my sin but these are with his family. -- sympathies are with his family. host: mike gravel passing away at the age of 91. dan balz of the washington