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 1960s, the 1950s. 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 crossexamination 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 dont know very many people who dont 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 dont 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 havent 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 cant 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 president ial 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 doesnt 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 pences 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 pretrump republican party, from reagan onward, while also being a little bit of an ambassador to trumps innovations on the gop. Where trump was more working class friendly, more populist, were critical of freetrade, 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 dont 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 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. Text us to 202 7488003. 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 didnt have the authority and left it at that. I dont 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 theres 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 wont 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 runnerup from 2016. Republicans have a lot of history of nominating the previous runnerup in the next competitive primaries. If former President Trump doesnt 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 dont 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 shes 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 wellpositioned for this cycle. Shes 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 dont think you should be the next president. He ran one term and hes 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 shouldnt 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 dont 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, shes 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 didnt 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 shes 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 trumps term as a trump critic for most of trumps term. She didnt turn sharply against him until the aftermath of january 6. Still, the perception that shes 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 doesnt position her very well for the election. It is a small state. Shes 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 dont favorite. And shes pulling in the high 20s, low 30s. Her opponent is winning the majority in most of these polls. It doesnt 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 dont 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 doms decision might also help some liberals the Dobbs Decision might also help some liberals, but i dont think there will be much moves this time. Even if you try to put trump on the ballot hes 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 president ial 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 president ial 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 president ial 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 thats 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 twentyyear 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 a