issues that impact you. saturday morning, council on foreign relations senior fellow stephen cook discusses president biden's upcoming visit to saudi arabia and in our spotlight on podcast segment, the institute talk about their podcast, politics and question which examines america's political institutions and ways to improve them. watch washington journal live at 7:00 eastern saturday morning on c-span or on c-span now. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts, and tweets. >> the january 6 committee enters day four of public hearings as they continue disclosing evidence gathered in their investigation. watch the hearing tuesday at 1:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3, c-span now, or anytime online at c-span.org. you can visit our website,

c-span.org/january6, to watch videos related to that day. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> the 1972 watergate break-in happened 50 years ago today and asked dan explains in a recent column, its legacy is still with us. he joins us now via zoom to discuss those legacies. i want to start with an issue that callers often bring up, the idea of trust in government. how do we measure trust in government and how badly did watergate dent americans trust in government? >> there is a long-standing question that pollsters have asked for more than half a century and it is basic -- and it basically says, do you trust -- how often do you trust the government to do the right thing? sometimes, all the time, very

little, not at all? there is a wonderful graphic for those you can go to the pew research center. in "trust in government." there is a wonderful graph that tracks from the late eisenhower period two today with the understanding of government trust is -- host: i will put that graphic on screen for viewers as you talk. guest: great, thank you. what you can see is, in the late 1950's and early 1960's, majority of americans, and he did not matter which party they were affiliated with -- the majority of americans had a great deal of trust in government. we saw that begin to go down during vietnam. obviously, very divisive period in the late 1960's in the united states, and we saw trust in government begin to erode. with the watergate scandal, it

eroded considerably more, so by the time richard nixon left office in august of 1974, trust was way, way down. only a minority of americans trusted -- said they trusted government some or all of the time to do the right thing. i think the interesting thing is not simply what watergate did to push down trust in government or, in a sense, to shatter americans' ' faith in government, but it marked a dividing line between an era of trust and, now, a very long era of distrust. that chart, as people can see, has never really returned to anywhere close to what it was pretty watergate and pre-vietnam -- pre-watergate and pre-vietnam. the have been a couple moments,

9/11 being one of them, where the american people rallied together with their government and had a stronger feeling about trust in government. but that receded again very quickly. pew came out with an updated version of this on the sixth of june, and at this point, i think it showed only 20 percent of americans said they have trust in government to do the right thing. watergate is a dividing line in the history of the relationship between the american people and the government and the american people and their politicians. host: that dividing line and issues of trust what we are talking about with dan balz this morning. if you want to read his deep dive into these issues, you can read on the washington post headline -- website. i'm headline watergate happened 50's ago, its legacy still with

us -- (202) 748-8001 for repoublicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats. you also talk about a dividing line of sorts for the political parties and how watergate impacted the two parties. start with the democratic party. guest: it is a fascinating story. the 1974 elections were a debacle for the republican party. they suffered significant losses. what you had was a gigantic class of new democratic lawmakers coming into the house of representatives. they became known as the watergate babies. a huge class. there were more than 70 new democratic members of the house, starting in january of 1975. they did a lot of things. they came in with a real reformist attitude. as someone said, we felt empowered to try to straighten things out. they instituted and helped answer to a lot of reforms.

we can talk about those later if you would like. but this new group of democratic lawmakers were different than some of the old-timers. they were younger. they were, in general, probably better educated. they were a little bit more liberal, a little bit more professional class in their orientation. host: who is the most famous of those watergate babies? guest: the one who typifies this is very hard, elected to the senate in 1974. he told me he ran for the senate because he was so angry about watergate. he had managed george mcgovern's losing campaign in 1972. he had never thought about running for office. he became a symbol of this new democratic party and what we saw over a number of years and ultimately, in 1984, when he challenged walter mondale for the presidential nomination, you

saw the stock dividing line between the old new deal democratic party and a more technocratic democratic party. we have seen those tensions have played out throughout the half-century since watergate. i was just going to say one of the aspects of this is that, as this new group began to get mass in the democratic coalition, working-class voters began to deflect and go towards the republican party. we saw that first with the reagan democrats in the 1980's and see it more substantially during the trump era. host: that is the question -- what did it mean to be a republican post watergate? guest: one of the questions, when i started out on this article, was how is it that the republican party, which saw its president resigned in disgrace

and suffered a massive loss in 1974 elections and lost the presidency in 1976 -- how did it manage to reconstitute itself relatively quickly, and the country elected ronald reagan and ushered in, really, what was the end of the old liberal new deal consensus and an era of conservative governance? one of the answers to that, ironically, is that because watergate had shattered trust in government, there was more fertile ground for a much more conservative antigovernment ideology to take root. the kinds of things that very goldwater had talked about, when he ran and lost to lyndon johnson in 1964. his conservatism was out of favor in the 1960's. by 1980, it had a majority support in the united states

under ronald reagan. it is a remarkable change. so what you had was the party of richard nixon and, if you will, nelson rockefeller and george romney, the father of senator mitt romney today -- that party which was more eastern in its grounding, more midwestern, gave way to a party that is southern-based and sun belt-based and a much more conservative party. the republicans have always been the more conservative of the two major parties, but by the time ronald reagan was ele >> c-span's washington journal, every day, we take your calls live on the heirs is on the news of the day and we discussed policy issues that impact you. coming saturday morning, a council on foreign relations senior fellow discusses president biden's upcoming visit

to saudi arabia. at our spotlight on podcasts, a talk about the podcast politics and questions, which examines political institutions and ways to improve them. watch washington journal, live on saturday morning at 7:00 am eastern on c-span and join the conversation with your facebook comments, phone calls, texts and tweets. chair: -- >> next, former president donald trump joins republican lawmakers at the faith and freedom conference in nashville. then, president biden speaks to reporters about his trip to saudi arabia. after that, marking the 50th anniversary of the watergate break-in with a panel discussion on the impact and history of the pentacle scandal. >> c-span's or unfiltered view

of government. we are funded by these television companies including charter communications. >> broadband is a forest for empowerment. that is why charter is empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> next, former president donald trump joins republican lawmakers at the faith and freedom conference in nashville. following his remarks, we hear from senators marsha blackburn, tim scott, and rick scott. ♪ >> ladies and