Hey y'all, you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR.

I'm Sam Sanders.

It has been over a year since the January 6th insurrection on the Capitol.

Almost a year since former President Donald Trump left office.

A lot has clearly changed, but some things have not.

Lunatic leftists are taking over our schools and radical socialists are taking over a country

and we're not going to let that happen. We're not going to let that happen.

Hillary conceited. I never conceited.

Donald Trump is still holding rallies. He is still making endorsements.

He's like part kingmaker, part king and exile. I'll put it this way.

I think that the Republican Party is shaped more by Donald Trump, putting out statements and

making endorsements for Mar-a-Lago, then pretty much anything that's happening in the Republican

National Committee headquarters in Washington. That's McCay Coppins. He's a staff writer for the

Atlantic. I called him up to talk about where the GOP and Trump stand now.

And I also brought on one of McCays colleagues, Van R. Newkirk, the second. He's a senior editor

for the Atlantic and he's also been covering this stuff for a while.

I had so many questions for both of them about the state of the GOP,

but my first question was, why does Donald Trump have so much stain power?

I was looking back at January 6th and it felt like there was this very brief moment in the wake of

Trump's defeat when the party could have decisively broken with him. You had like-

And they almost did for a day or two, right? Like Mitch McConnell was like this bad.

Exactly. It seemed like- I mean, it wasn't like a full repudiation of Trump and his presidency,

...