go to our website, c-span.org. we highlight the key moments. hit the video player and you will see a gold star at the bottom. that gives you a look to go through the more than two hours of testimony last night. happening in washington, d.c. today, our coverage on c-span. 1:00 p.m. eastern time includes dr. rochelle walensky, director of the centers for disease control. she will talk to the washington post about the latest surgeon covid-19 cases and probably being asked about the president's positive test yesterday. on saturday, 10:45 a.m. eastern time, january 6 committee member jamie and former federal judge michael luddig discussed the u.s. capitol. we will have live coverage at 10:45 a.m. eastern time on c-span, connor video app c-span

now, and you can watch anytime online at c-span.org. david in denver, colorado. democratic caller. what did you think of last night hearing? caller: hi. i have watched the hearings. i thought the biggest thing i did not know or the biggest thing i learned was that the hawley revelation and you played that. i want to make one more comment in the first hour, the first hour you had a caller from florida who talked about how 2% rejection rate. that the rejection rate was too low. i think his take was to me people voted. he talked about the ballots that went out, about the people that voted, then he talked about the low rejection rate. if you translate that, what i heard was too many people voted

and i think there is a number of republican legislatures that embarked on the project with the goal of trying to reduce the number of people voting in the next presidential election. host: we will take a break. we will be joined by washington examiner editor james antle to talk about the political fallout of these january 6 hearings. we will talk about president biden's approval ratings and his political and physical health with the new covid diagnosis. ♪ >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span2, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. 11:00 a.m. eastern we are

marking the 70th anniversary of the cia. several programs looking at the central intelligence agency's counting after harry truman signed the national security act of 1947 into law. we will feature lectures in history about the cia and national intelligence agencies during the kennedy administration. former president george h dubya bush bidding farewell -- george h.w. bush bidding farewell after his presidency. bob reel with his book, "quest for the presidency," stories a very president of campaign from george washington to donald trump. exploring the american story. watch american history tv, saturdays on c-span2. find a full schedule on your program guide, or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> c-span brings you an

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>> washington journal continues. host: we are back with james antle, politics added at washington examiner to talk about the january 6 hearings. they concluded the summer series. they will continue investigating and are coming back in september. have they broken through? what do you think has been the impact of the hearings so far? guest: i think in a lot of cases the basic facts are known. i think it is smaller details that have been the larger revelations. what the committee is trying to do is weave all the facts into a narrative. they have been criticized but also praised for the high production quality of the hearings. they have really done things with congressional hearings in terms of the television presentation that they have not done before. congressional hearings still

mostly look like they did in the 1960's, the 1950's. they have brought it into the 21st century. there is an advantage to the fact that it is a bipartisan committee but the two republicans on the committee are essentially in lock step in terms of how they view the events of january 6 with all the democratic members. it does not have the cross-examination element most of these investigations have. so, that hurts some of its credibility. it also helps it in terms of being able to present a cohesive narrative. there is no he said she said. every member kind of is committed to a certain framing of the events of january 6. they are able to spell that out without any interruption or contradiction. all that happens after the fact. people critiquing it when the hearings are over. they have been able to present things in a very cohesive and

coherent way. i don't know very many people who don't already agree with the basic argument the committee is making or watching. i think some are. you have seen some slippage for former president trump in polling among republicans since the hearings have begun. even if people don't agree with how the committee is presenting the facts or what their basic argument about president trump, there is a possibility republicans are going to say to themselves is this what we even want to be talking about in 2024. that could work to the detriment of the former president. host: why haven't republicans like jim jordan or matt gaetz or kevin mccarthy held their own briefings either when the hearing concludes the same day or if they need more time to refute what they have heard the next day? guest: there was talk of doing that.

it did not ultimately happen that way. there was supposed to be a republican counter investigation. i think you can't really compete with the main event in that way. i think you can reaffirm what your supporters already think and give them some food for thought. it is sort of like when they do those presidential debates. you have a mainstage of the people considered the contenders, then the kids table debate afterwards or beforehand with the lesser candidates, the lower polling candidates. that second card event doesn't have the same impact. i think that would be the problem that any republican counter messaging would have. they have mostly tried to go after it on social media in real time, then in interviews on cable news stations afterwards. there has not really been any effective counter programming. guest: what do you think of former vice president mike pence's actions lately?

tonight is dueling rallies in arizona because the former president and former vice president. what do you make of the steps he has taken? what is behind it? guest: number one, he has no choice. he broke with the president on january 6, which i think a lot of people think and i think the constitution required him to do. that obviously created a rift between him and the former president. a certain subset of the former president's supporters. on one hand he has no choice, but to then distinguish himself from former president trump. i think he does feel very differently about the 2020 election and the events of january 6. i think he wants to defend his role in decision to certify the election results, especially someone who clearly would like

to potentially be the 20 2020 four -- 2024 republican nominee. i think there is an argument he knows he will have to make. i think to some degree pence has been trying to walk this line between representing the pre-trump republican party, from reagan onward, while also being a little bit of an ambassador to trump's innovations on the gop. where trump was more working class friendly, more populist, were critical of free-trade, open immigration, foreign interventions abroad. pence try to be a bridge between the reagan and trump wing of the partys -- wings of the party. host: does he make the run of former president trump also runs? guest: i think he is positioning himself to run regardless of what trump does. i think it is going to be difficult if trump runs because

he will be forced to pretty much talk about the events of the last election, which i think could be damaging to trump but also could be damaging depends. not -- damaging to pence. it creates an opening for someone like ron desantis who can channel the issues that matter the trump voters without really being invested in every thing that happened on january 6 and in november of 2020. i think pence is one of the republicans who seems likely to run regardless of what the former president does. host: what are the issues that ron desantis talks about the supporters of the former president care about? guest: some of it is just an attitude. being very combative in terms of how you deal with the media. not necessarily accepting of the media narratives about you. being assertive and willing to fight back when you feel you were being unfairly criticized or targeted. others are sort of willing to

pick culture war fights that republicans have been seen, at least among their own base, as to afraid to engage in, to shy away from, or maybe willing to engage when they are safe and a monger from the audience. but when you start to face criticism some of these republicans will. ron desantis and donald trump, republicans don't perceive them as backing down that way. a willingness to confront big business when big business does things that are antithetical to conservative values. that has previously been something republicans were reluctant to do. host: i want to invite viewers to join us. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. text us to (202) 748-8003. we will dig deeper into the pool

you referenced about slippage when it comes to president trump. guest: one of the biggest polls is the new york times poll. only 49% of republicans would support former president trump in -- if the election was held today. it would not be a national primary. those kind of poll numbers can be good indicator of where people stand this far out in terms of their appeal to republican voters. i say only. trump is still far ahead of anybody else running, including ron desantis, according to the poll. we saw similar numbers for people like bob dole and george w. bush this far out. they were able to win the nomination with some competition but in the end with relative ease. i think the perception is because trump is a virtual

incumbent on the republican side that his numbers should be even better. the fact there is a theoretical majority that would vote for the candidates shows there is some vulnerability to him. there have been other numbers that showed the january 6 hearings have made some small subset of republicans shift in terms of whether they think the former president behaved appropriately on that date, whether his claims about the election were warranted. people who would like to see a fresh face, a different candidate. not as high on the republican side, but still high enough i think for trump supporters to take notice. host: george w. bush or george h.w. bush? guest: george w. bush, when they first started including him in the -- george h.w. bush, when

they first started including him in the national polls, people thought at that time maybe -- there were polls that showed half of voters thought he was his father, but it did turn out to be a good predictor of the fact that he was a heavy front runner in 2000. host: bruce in alabama, republican, you are up with jim antal. go ahead. caller: i want to talk about january 6. i am here. host: go ahead. caller: i think -- i think trump said he called in the national guard and told pelosi about it but she turns around and claimed she didn't have the authority

and left it at that. i don't believe trump will be able to take it in 2024. it will be ron desantis running. host: would you vote for that ticket, bruce? caller: i love both of them, nikki haley, i mean, i think she needs to run for president. or ron desantis to run for president and her as vice president. guest: there's certainly a lot of republicans who are talking that way and we saw images, even in 2016, of nikki haley with tim scott and marco rubio. she was a rubio supporter in that primary. nikki haley is clearly positioning herself to run for president. she said she won't run if the

former president runs while ron desantis has made no such commitment and is positioning himself to run no matter what happens. we will see if nikki haley revisits that but she is one of the names a lot of people are looking at very seriously. desantis obviously, former vice president pence, former secretary of state pompeo, and maybe others will get in. current senator ted cruz, texas senator, clearly would like to run again, thinks he has some standing as a runner-up from 2016. republicans have a lot of history of nominating the previous runner-up in the next competitive primaries. if former president trump doesn't run, there could be a big field, and we saw 16, 17 candidates in 2016. we could see something comparable. i think trump will winnow the field somewhat if he runs again, but i don't think everyone will take a pass.

he will have competition and some of it will be serious. host: how is nikki haley positioning herself? guest: she's speaking out a lot of conservative events, endorsing candidates in the midterm elections, which is one of the ways candidates prepare themselves. you want to get people who get elected somewhat indebted to you so they are more likely to endorse you. you want to be able to take some credit for the successes republicans have in the midterm elections. they are well-positioned for this cycle. she's definitely going out there, making an argument, defending a view of foreign policy and american exceptionalism that i think will be central to her appeal, and obviously that puts her in some competition with some of the america first, populist sort of critics of bush era, george w. bush era, foreign policy on the

right. i think nikki haley is trying to frame that kind of foreign policy as america first and we will have to see if that argument wins out. host: we will go to crowley, louisiana. eric, democratic caller, good morning to you. caller: good morning. i am calling because of january 6. i have been watching it since it began. and here is my opinion. donald trump should not run again for president or anything to do with the government in washington, d.c. because, in my mind, the man is a crook, and i don't think you should be the next president. he ran one term and he's going to run again? no. that is not right. host: jim antle? guest: that is the overall argument the january 6 committee is trying to make, so even if

they cannot make some kind of legal case the justice department would pursue to render the president ineligible from running again, they are trying to make the argument he shouldn't be anywhere near the levers of power again and that the system barely held on january 6. they would be too risky and dangerous to put him in the position to be making these decisions again. republican primary voters by and large don't seem to agree with that argument and they are going to get the first chance to decide whether trump is in a position to run again. we will have to see if the broader electorate shares that sentiment. host: they also will get to decide the future of liz cheney. what is it? guest: if you look at the polling at the state level and congressional district level, which is not always great, but it overall shows she will go down to a pretty steep defeat. she faces two problems i think.

number one, she's positioned herself very much against former president trump, who is popular in wyoming, who won wyoming overwhelmingly. this puts her on the opposite side of the choice of republican voters in wyoming. secondly, though, i think her larger problem is she was sorta viewed as somebody who spent most of her life outside of wyoming, even though her father had a pretty extensive political history in the state, came to wyoming in order, initially, to try to primary a sitting republican senator. that didn't work out very well. the house seat came open. she was able to run for it and win it. a lot of this has brought back some of those bad feelings that maybe she's a creature of northern virginia and not of conservative wyoming politics. her overall voting record is still reflective of a lot of what wyoming republicans want. host: is a true liz cheney and

adam kinzinger voted with republicans 90% plus of the time? guest: it is true. i think adam kinzinger is more of a moderate republican than liz cheney, but certainly. and liz cheney did not position herself as a trim critic for most of trump's term -- as a trump critic for most of trump's term. she didn't turn sharply against him until the aftermath of january 6. still, the perception that she's sort of a political outsider to wyoming has been reinforced by her signing with the democrats on this issue and being on essentially a democratic committee as one of two republicans on an issue that is sort of a hatfield and mccoy family feud. it doesn't position her very well for the election. it is a small state. she's had experience turning people out so you cannot discount the possibility she

will win but the polls do not look good and republicans vastly out number democrats. even if you could get democrats to vote in the primary for liz cheney, it is hard to see how that would work. the numbers just don't favorite. and she's pulling in the high 20's, low 30's. her opponent is winning the majority in most of these polls. it doesn't look good for her. host: maureen, an independent in new jersey, thanks for joining us. go ahead. caller: i was not really surprised by the hearings, but people keep talking about it being a trial. now i know in the past gerald ford had pardoned nixon, so that had created any type of trial -- had prevented any type of trial or any prosecution against the president, so i know that that has created problems.

and even going back further in history to what has led up to now is the structure that was set up by the founders and all of the past politicians against the people of the united states, so that has led to political divides. people have run as socialists in the early 20th century. talking about it being strictly partisan. kevin mccarthy, even prior to that, they had the option of giving five democrats, five republicans, so they had to do this one. obviously the mccarthy one would have had jim jordan and others. they would not have that so they took them all out, making this committee look a little more partisan and against trump, but

they are just showing the facts. the doj, we all know, but going back to the nixon thing. people are so divided.we all want the same things but these wedge issues that have been in the past creating personal ideologies and their morals and such, you know, that creates such a problem, but when it comes down to it, the pocketbook issues, are going farther in this campaign. host: i will jump in. jim antle, what do you hear their? guest: i think inflation and pocketbook issues will be the dominant issues in this campaign. while there will be some concerted effort to make the election about trump and that might limit the extent of any red wave, i don't think it will necessarily prevent one, especially in the house. i think the underlying issues

are going to be very difficult for democrats. i think a lot of people are going to vote on the economy. i think that a lot of the people who are going to vote on trump were already going to vote democratic. now, i do think -- host: against? guest: they will vote for democratic candidates. people who were upset about trump, animated not in a positive way but a negative way, will vote down ballot democratic. it might motivate more liberal voters to turn out so it could help in that way. i think the dom's decision might also help some liberals -- the dobbs decision might also help some liberals, but i don't think there will be much moves this time. even if you try to put trump on the ballot -- he's not really on the ballot -- if you look at recent history, republican midterm election

gains do not really indicate what will happen in the next presidential election. we are not in a parliamentary system. republicans winning the house will not necessarily do anything to put trump in the white house, and may position democrats to put themselves back in the game for the presidential race. host: in new york, democratic caller, good morning. caller: good morning. an educated electorate is an intrinsically important aspect of any voting process. when you have 51 senior officials from the central intelligence agency saying the biden laptop was not real, the new york post article was taken down, so a lot of information with regard to the candidates in the presidential election was skewed. even steven scully, who was supposed to moderate the debate, had colluded with a former trump insider to almost weigh against or put their fingers on the

scale, so you juxtapose that to all else that's going on with the russia, russia, russia thing, the jussie smollett scandal, where he pretended he was attacked -- i mean, you have seen so many tricks played. how are we to have confidence in this commission? i mean, liz cheney, her father lied us into a twenty-year invasion, a war, inflicting heinous violence against a society with 20 years of sanctions, and i hold this to be dubious at best because of what the cia did. who are they working for? do they work for us? do you understand what i am getting at? host: i will clarify. there was no collusion. there was a message sent to a former trump administration official who had come out, who

was not in support of the former president, but there was no collusion. jim antle, what he's getting at, though, is the sentiment that you cannot trust the media, you cannot trust any institutions, so what do we do? guest: it has become a real challenge and we saw this again when they briefly entertained this government disinformation board. and the problem is people who want to be the gatekeepers for what is good and true and accurate information, the public doesn't have confidence in them to do the gatekeeping, and, you know, some of that is because the gatekeepers were too limited in what information they were going to allow people to consider. they considered a lot of questions that were really open to be closed. i think the hunter biden laptop is the example the caller made. i think some of the covid-19 origins is another example that's frequently cited

of things that were called disinformation that we now know are at least arguably true. they may not be definitively true, although in some cases some of these things are, but they are at least within the realm of intelligent debate and people were saying they shouldn't be within the realm of debate, and that is very challenging. you know, the problem that occurs as a result of that is that, because there is a lack of credibility among major institutions, some people then will retreat into a fantasy world of their own creation. so if you cannot trust or do not trust things that are being presented to you by major media outlets, maybe then you just listen to things that confirm your biases and the things you already believe to be true, in which case you are not being very well-informed either. host: in texas, tony, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning.

i have two comments before i asked jim a question. the first one is somebody said trump lost the election. he only lost by 43,000 votes based on the electoral college. number two, greta, if you google bias on political fact, you will find out they are left -- on politifact, they are left-leaning, so they -- so if you use that, you are not giving us the full story. your competition has an article today, john solomon, and it says that trump gave the dod basically permission to use the troops, and there's a link in this article to the department of defense inspector general's report, 152 pages. greta, could you pull it up? all you have to do is read page

16 and 17. it is from the government and it says trump said do the right thing, protect the american people. it also has in there about mayor bowser, ok, where she didn't want the troops there, especially with arms, and she didn't want none of them to -- how would i say? -- russell up the protesters, search them, etc., etc. at the bottom of this chronological two pages there, the last thing, and you can google it, fbi in virginia, ok, for january 6, where they said they had chatter that there was going to be violence and everything and they let the people know, ok, that there was going to be violence and nothing was done. guest: i do think there are a

lot of legitimate questions about whether they were prepared enough or what happened on january 6 and how long it took to respond with the appropriate level of force. i think there have been a lot of events that there's been chatter about -- that there had been chatter about that turned out to mainly be some proud boy or -- some proud boy and an antifa member punching each other in the face and there was an expectation that january 6 would have been an event more on that level and clearly that wasn't the case. once there was an adequate capitol police presence, it was actually -- they were actually able to quell it quickly, but that took a very long time, and that took a lot of injuries and deaths before that happened. host: you mean with the national guard? guest: once they really had the number of people to push

everybody back instead of the relatively light capitol police presence that they did when the capitol was breached, they were able to get control of things, but there were hours before that happened. and during that delay, a lot of bad things happened, so i think there are two questions and i think they are separate questions. one is, you know, who ripped the crowd -- who whipped the crowd into a frenzy and enabled this event to happen in terms of what motivated people to do this. that is one thing at i think that's the question that the january 6 committee is focused on, and they are saying it was president trump and supporters of president trump responsible for that. obviously, the rioters are responsible for their rioting, but in terms of whether there was enough preparation for things to get out of control, there's a lot of blame to go around, and that has not so much been the focus of the

committee, and probably we would have heard more about that if there were republicans on the committee. host: according to the fact checkers we read earlier on this question of the national guard, the president would have to authorize it, and there would be a formal authorization. there would be evidence that he tried to do it before or did it during. there was not any. guest: yes, and that was a focus of last night's hearing, but the national guard was not the only today responsible for defending the capitol. the national guard coming in is something that happens once everything is already out of control. the question would have been -- yes, the president needed to authorize the national guard. one question once they were authorized was was trump even in the loop, the operational loop, or was vice president pence making these calls?

in terms of whether you had appropriate force from the beginning, there are legitimate questions. host: john in halifax, virginia, a republican. caller: i watched for the first time a little bit of a meeting last night and it felt like people said what trump ought to do as opposed to what he was legally required to do. so it is to me another russian collusion situation. the biggest problem with our media and i appreciate the previous caller for bringing it up is the media cannot admit they were wrong in a lot of ways. the only thing i want to say about the commission is we have on record joe biden saying antifa is an idea. emotionally, the word rioters or insurgents is more damaging. financially, antifa has been more damaging to our country. if we were to say that those january 6 rioters were incited

by the president to act when a candidate who now becomes president calls a terror organization like antifa, and the media and even c-span doesn't do enough job calling them what they are, doesn't joe biden have some culpability to that as well? thank you for taking my call. guest: that is a big response a lot of republicans have to the whole january 6 question, is that they feel that a lot of protests that turned violent in other cities, on other topics, on other issues, were sort of whitewashed, not given adequate attention, were not considered, you know, mainstream political actors supporting those causes were not considered responsible for what happened. on january 6, it becomes a different matter. now, obviously, attacking the capitol is sort of different

from breaking the window at a starbucks to a lot of people. i mean, the capitol signifies things that starbucks doesn't, but obviously a lot of people were upset by those protests and the fact that a lot of downtowns in major cities were boarded up because people were afraid of violence and they don't feel all political violence is treated equally. host: we will go to north carolina, david, democratic caller. what is the name of your town? caller: good morning, greta. host: morning. caller: i just want to say it is supposed to be a peaceful demonstration. why would you need the national guard or anybody to participate or be out there? it is supposed to be a peaceful march. you are bringing out the national guard carrying weapons

-- bringing out the national guard carrying weapons probably would have been a prelude to something bigger than what you saw. have a nice day. host: jim antle? guest: that is the question. i think a lot of people were concerned it was not going to be peaceful because there were a lot of emotions and a lot of angry people, and clearly it did not end up being peaceful in the end, at least the main event didn't end up being peaceful. so -- but that's a judgment call that is made in a lot of these cases. and washington, d.c., there are a lot of protests. they don't all spiral out of control in that way. or, as we saw with alexandria locascio cortez in the supreme court protests the other day, somebody blocks a street, they are moved by the police, that is the full extent, that is the worst thing that happens in the protest. this clearly escalated a great deal beyond that. host: phil in brooklyn park,

minnesota, independent. caller: good morning. all my adult life, i have always trained myself to only look for the facts. you know, i am a very black-and-white type of person. by listening to the gentleman here, it just seems to me that -- if that's the case, i think that's the same thing joseph goebbels said and the same thing molotov said, you know? and i just think americans are pretty good at propaganda too. i thought it was kind of funny -- as a matter of fact, i laughed. have a nice day. thank you. host: let's hear from jack in wisconsin, a republican caller. caller: there's a few things

that have happened recently. there's a really in-depth report and i encourage you to look at it. it shows both sides and it is quite good. the other thing is the question about who is responsible for security. ok, by law, and it changes from speaker of the house to the senate, to the majority leader of the senate, who is responsible for the capitol, and the law reads something to the effect of who is the administrator of the capitol, and it changes from election to election every four years. so nancy pelosi is clearly in charge of the security. she's in charge of everything that happens at the capitol and she would have been involved in the security for this because you have the full house and senate in session and there are known protests going to happen so why wasn't more -- in the

first part, i heard they had 85 capitol guards on duty that day, and they probably have more on duty when they have towards walking around -- have tours walking around, so i really question why there was a lack of security. also, a lot of the violence that started while president trump was still speaking. he didn't get done until 1:30 and they had people lining up at the capitol at 9:30 in the morning. looking at what they were wearing, i have been to a couple trump rallies, and i have never seen anybody wearing helmets and carrying crowbars. it isn't heard of. so that's a thing i question. host: any thoughts? guest: clearly what was done at the beginning of the riot wasn't enough. host: james in waynesburg,

pennsylvania, democratic caller. caller: i have been watching the hearings and stuff and anybody else inside -- and if anybody else incited a riot where people were injured or killed, they would have ended up in jail. it took him an hour to come up with a three minute speech that would try to get the people to go back home and calm things down and he wouldn't do it. i just cannot understand -- i mean, if i would do this or my wife would do this and would not bring people to where they were hurt or killed or injured, we would be sitting in prison and i don't know why he isn't. host: i think that's a core argument of the committee and -- guest: i think that's a core argument of the committee and the focal point of last night's hearing, what did he do when things were getting out of control? the answer is he was pretty slow

to react, that he wasn't as forceful in his reaction as even many of his supporters, including his own son, wanted to see him be in that moment. and, you know, i think that that is always going to be a pretty major indictment of trump's activities on that day. host: jim antle, politics editor for washington examiner, you can go to washingtonexaminer.com or follow them on twitter. thank you. guest: thank you. host: and thank you for watching today. that does it for us. we will be back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. eastern. enjoy your weekend. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] ♪

>> here is what is ahead today on c-span. the cdc director joins washington post live for a conversation about the new coronavirus variants and recent monkeypox outbreak. watch live beginning at 1 p.m. eastern. at 3:00 eastern, the white house provides an update on president biden's health after he tested positive for covid-19. we will hear from white house press secretary -- we will hear from the white house press secretary and covid coordinator for the white house, dr. as you should -- and the covid coordinator for the white house. watch online at c-span.org. >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what's happening in washington live and on-demand. keep up with the day's biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings from the u.s. congress,