This week in politics: The 'civil war' inside the state and national GOP

Unity is the theme of the week - at least, that's the way the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, put it at the inauguration.

He urged Americans to turn down the temperature and work together to solve the country's problems.

And with that in mind, it was jarring to hear the chairman of the King County Republicans, former Bothell Mayor Joshua Freed, call on mainstream Republicans in our state to disband or remove the word "Republican" from their name.

So, what's going on with the Washington State Republican Party?

"They are already having trouble capturing statewide offices, with (Washington Secretary of State) Kim Wyman sort of being the lone exception who is also a moderate," says Marcus Harrison Green, Seattle Times columnist and founder of The South Seattle Emerald.

"You'd think with our state growing more diverse in the coming decade that you would want to expand your party, not contract," he says. "But that's all that closing ranks around those who hold more extreme ideologies are doing."

He joined KUOW's Angela King and Joni Balter, host of Civic Cocktail on the Seattle Channel, to talk about the week in politics.