Reagan's legacy towers over setting of second GOP presidential nomination debate

The race for the Republican presidential nomination once again runs through the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

For the fifth time dating back to the 2008 election cycle, a GOP primary debate will be held at the library, which is located high over Simi Valley, California.

Reagan Presidential Foundation president and chief executive officer David Trulio pointed to the library's 1991 dedication, noting in a Fox News Digital interview that when President Reagan launched it, "he said he wanted it to be a dynamic intellectual forum — those are his actual words — and that he wanted it to be a place where policymakers debate the future."

"So, it’s the perfect place for candidates to debate and to make their case as to why they should attain the highest office in the land," Trulio said.

The site is a repository of records from the Reagan administration, and the museum contains memorabilia and exhibits of Reagan's life and his two-terms in the White House, including an Air Force One pavilion. It's also the burial place of the late president and his wife, the late first lady Nancy Reagan.

Trulio highlighted that the site is "extremely special for everybody. Right off the bat it’s a spectacular physical setting. It’s on a hill, just like the city on a hill that President Reagan would talk about it. It has sweeping views, beautiful gardens. Crucially, it has the final resting place of the President and Mrs. Reagan."

"This is place that is all about President Reagan’s values. So it’s a place where people can come to learn and go deeper on his core cherished beliefs which are timeless. What are they – individual liberty, economic opportunity, limited government, freedom and democracy, peace through strength, and national pride," he said. 

"Those are timeless, those are relevant today, and also President Reagan was unquestionably successful two-term president and the lessons from his time in office deeply applicable to today," Trulio, a former high ranking official in the administrations of then-Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump who later served as a top executive at Fox News Digital, emphasized.