going to be. so if this is a party that, you know, is that kicks out kicks liz cheney out of leadership, it s not a conservative party. it stands for no principles, as donny said. it doesn t stand for law and order, if it doesn t even want to bother to investigate the capitol insurrection. it s plainly and simply a cult. and that s the way it s going to be for the foreseeable future. i don t see what s going to change that, but i certainly don t think that the switch is going to be flipped, because donald trump says something crazy. because guess what, donald trump says something you know, how many millions of crazy things has drrp donald trump said that causes us all to shake our heads and say, this will be it. this won t be it. we ll see. the biden administration is ramping up its response to cyber
years. it s not returning in five months. there s no evidence of that. look at who gets attention to this day. it s tucker, it s ben shapiro, mike pence, it s donald trump. none of those figures have are getting the money, are getting the recognition, are getting the following. and those things are essential ingredients if you want to win in national politics. the party does not care fundamentally about deficits. i don t even know that the vast majority of what you would call the base of the party right now cares that much about ideology. it s much more an identity statement. a culture statement, that i would say has been more solidified post-election, more solidified. and almost no one saw that coming. everyone assumed january 6th was this watershed moment. should have been. it s insane. insane! historically insane what happened. and yet almost instantly, at a
about doing something to review the events of that day? i have a hunch you know the answer to that, willie. and even though the conversation i know you re not surprised with what mike pence is doing. but even when we express any kind of surprise, it s a little off-base, right? because the republican party has spoken. like, they want to be like trump. they want to please trump. i think if anything, like, yes, trump is struggling mightily to be heard and he had to shut down his blog and no one is paying attention to him. but the people that do pay attention to him are anybody that wants to be elected. and talk to any republican or even increasingly democrats, they assume republicans could win back the house or will win back the house in 2022. trump is going to claim credit. it s going to be a lot of trumpian candidates. and now it s going to be institutionalized. every single person who s running, wants to run, could run, could win in the republican party is going to be a lot like do
the right. it is all tribal. it is all tribal. but this is dangerous. and it s happening yes. of course it s dangerous. do you think i think this is like saturday night at the drive-in. of course it s dangerous. i think the big picture we were saying, this is happening at the state legislature level too. so while jim was talking about all of these republicans in congress who are following this cult of personality of donald trump, republican state legislature are passing these bills that are very trumpian in places like pennsylvania, florida, georgia. and it s not just with more restrictive voting rights. it s across the board with school curriculum, as we re seeing among other things. the party is passing these trumpian laws, even though these folks aren t in congress. up and down, which actually, at the end of the day, and we ve seen this. it s not that it matters jim vandehei, but we ve seen this in the past, i don t know what year it was, maybe in 2010, new hampshire
commission. it s all about donald trump s hold on the republican party. we know that we re going to hear from him this weekend as he returns to the rally stage. and he s been telling people there s a chance he could be restored to office this summer. a few republicans who do not support the president have said to me optimistically that they think if trump starts saying things like that, that joe biden will be removed from office and he ll come back in. that that could be a moment that could finally lead some others republicans to walk away from him. that would be the bridge too far. what do you think? how many bridges too far have we crossed? right! how many in the last five or six years have we crossed? no. that s not going to end donald trump s hold on the republican party. the republican party is a cult right now. it is a cult of trump. and that s where the base is and as long as the base is there, that s where the officials are