Speaker 1: Thirty three days until Donald Trump raises his hand and
Speaker 1: in an instant is transformed from citizen to caesar, the
Speaker 1: president with immunity above the law. The man who said
Speaker 1: he will be a dictator on day one will have
Speaker 1: an opportunity.
Speaker 2: To be one.
Speaker 1: This is the warning Donald Trump, forty seventh president of
Speaker 1: the United States, and he has picked a cabinet of weirdos,
Speaker 1: of criminals, of nair dwells strangeness that defies description in
Speaker 1: every direction, emanating from the most powerful seat of government
Speaker 1: in all of the world. The person Robert Kennedy that
Speaker 1: he has picked to run the public health agencies is
Speaker 1: a vaccine denier. So when we think about making America
Speaker 1: great again and making America healthy again at the Christmas season,
Speaker 1: what better way to start by taking a visit back
Speaker 1: to the old polio award lot.
Speaker 2: Joy and Bloods. We'll always find sun Sun schoolways, most
Speaker 2: line and tried Sony.
Speaker 1: Yes, making America great again, bringing back mumps and rebella
Speaker 1: and all of the cured diseases. When Donald Trump appeared
Speaker 1: at his news conference, wasn't it like he was trying
Speaker 1: to tell the whole con that not only does he
Speaker 1: know who Jonas salk Is, but he can spell it.
Speaker 1: It was quite a moment. Thanks as a Trump.
Speaker 2: What about the polio vaccine? Well, I'm a big believer
Speaker 2: in it, and I think everything should be looked at.
Speaker 2: But I'm a big believer in the polio vaccines vaccine.
Speaker 2: Do you think schools should mandate vaccines?
Speaker 3: Do you think schools should mandate vaccines?
Speaker 2: I don't like mandates. I'm not a big mandate person.
Speaker 1: At any rate. The carnival of unfitness continues rolling along unabated,
Speaker 1: as Trump fills the government with the most galactically unfit
Speaker 1: specimens ever forwarded by anybody into positions of responsibility. It
Speaker 1: will be amazing to watch unfold on the edge of
Speaker 1: catastrophe as we journey into that abyss which is surely
Speaker 1: to come during these days, It's important to remember, though
Speaker 1: it may not seem like it, the nose of Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's proverbial rocket ship is already tipping down. He is
Speaker 1: at his epigy. It seems like the whole world is
Speaker 1: bending in his direction. He says something and people rush
Speaker 1: to make it so he cannot be stopped. He points
Speaker 1: his finger, and news organization after news organization prostrates itself.
Speaker 1: There's a great example at hand about how not to
Speaker 1: face Trump, about how not to roll over, about how
Speaker 1: not to operate through a political lens. Let's look north
Speaker 1: of the border. If there is a more ludicrous figure
Speaker 1: than Justin Trudeau, it's hard to find one, and Trump
Speaker 1: is having fun with him. He is like a cat
Speaker 1: playing with a mouse. Now let's go through Justin Trudeau's
Speaker 1: humiliation and the fall of the Canadian government, which is
Speaker 1: upon us and will likely happen this week or into
Speaker 1: early next week. Everything that has happened in Canada is
Speaker 1: as a direct result of how Trudeau appeased Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Step one, there was the threat. Step two, there was panic,
Speaker 1: Step three, there was a race to get tomorrow Alago,
Speaker 1: to kiss the ring, and then well, humiliation, Just like
Speaker 1: Joe Scarborough. Step one, there was the threat, step two,
Speaker 1: there was the panic, Step three, there was the capitulation.
Speaker 4: Over the past week, Joe and I have heard from
Speaker 4: so many people, from political leaders to regular citizens, deeply
Speaker 4: dismayed by several of President elect Trump's cabinet selections, and
Speaker 4: they are scared. Last Thursday, we expressed our own concerns
Speaker 4: on this broadcast and even said we would appreciate the
Speaker 4: opportunity to speak with the President elect himself. On Friday,
Speaker 4: we were given the opportunity to do just that. Joe
Speaker 4: and I went to mar A Lago to meet personally
Speaker 4: with President Elect Trump.
Speaker 5: And that's going to come as no surprise to anybody
Speaker 5: who watches this show, has watched it over the past
Speaker 5: year or over the past decade, that we didn't see
Speaker 5: eye to eye on a lot of issues, and we
Speaker 5: told him so.
Speaker 4: Joe and I realized it's time to do something different,
Speaker 4: and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: but also talking with.
Speaker 1: Him and then the humiliation.
Speaker 5: All of us are going to do the best we
Speaker 5: can do, and we're all working towards a better America.
Speaker 5: Take it day by day, day by day by day,
Speaker 5: and again you can and you can. You can predict
Speaker 5: the future by shaping the future.
Speaker 1: Or we can look at ABC News. Step one, there
Speaker 1: is the threat. Step two, there is the promise to
Speaker 1: stand firm.
Speaker 3: Trump sumed me because I used the word rate, even
Speaker 3: though a judge said, that's in fact what did happen,
Speaker 3: and in fact, we filed the motion to dismiss last week. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: it now comes with the territory. But I'm not going
Speaker 3: to be cowed out of doing my job because of
Speaker 3: the threat.
Speaker 1: About step three, Well, there is the bending of the knee,
Speaker 1: the laying down. And so Donald Trump is cutting through
Speaker 1: the American media like a man with a sickle swinging
Speaker 1: it at blades of grass, cutting them down one by
Speaker 1: one by one. And what this will mean in every
Speaker 1: American newsroom is a chilly atmosphere, and every thirty thirty
Speaker 1: five forty year old reporter making two hundred fifty fty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year will be told indirectly with a look,
Speaker 1: don't be the shit for brains that costs the company
Speaker 1: fifteen million dollars by not being nice to Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: There is going to be a fire hose and assault
Speaker 1: of information that sprays out over the American people, and
Speaker 1: the reaction to it will have been planned. It will
Speaker 1: have been predicted, and what Donald Trump and all of
Speaker 1: his people will want is the panic and the outrage,
Speaker 1: because there will be too much to focus on any
Speaker 1: one action. For example, Donald Trump is going to party
Speaker 1: in all of the January sixth protesters, with a few exceptions,
Speaker 1: But the next thing he's going to do is potentially
Speaker 1: deploy the US military, and the news environment will not
Speaker 1: accommodate the outrage on all fifty things that he plans
Speaker 1: to do. The question at hand is when, what day,
Speaker 1: what hour, what subject will be the one where Donald
Speaker 1: Trump fatally overreaches? Where will it occur or will the
Speaker 1: failure be brought to him? Will an event occur not
Speaker 1: precipitated by him that he fails to react to properly.
Speaker 1: It could happen on day three, or it could happen
Speaker 1: on day three hundred and thirty three. Who knows. The
Speaker 1: Trump presidency will not be a smooth ride, though a
Speaker 1: lot of the reporting makes it seem like Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has somehow become wise omnipotent and he just points a finger,
Speaker 1: says something and it happens. And that's not the way
Speaker 1: it's going to work. There's a new District Attorney in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and unlike the last one, he can speak,
Speaker 1: and he understands the law and has, let's say, a
Speaker 1: level of sophistication about its application. The point that he's
Speaker 1: made when it comes to Trump's mass roundup is that
Speaker 1: under California law, a lot of what Trump is planning
Speaker 1: is illegal. So there's no legal authority for California law
Speaker 1: enforcement to aid the Feds in their round up. The
Speaker 1: argument that he's making is a complex one, a serious one,
Speaker 1: and a lawful one. The type of argument he's making
Speaker 1: is the type of argument that tangles up Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: The meetings that should be taking place in Washington, DC
Speaker 1: right now by Democrats should be focused, and they should
Speaker 1: be singular, and they should be about obstructing Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: ability to do the damage that he planned to do.
Speaker 1: On January twentieth, two thousand and nine, very famously, Mitch
Speaker 1: McConnell and the group of Republicans gathered together on the
Speaker 1: night of Barack Obama's inauguration. Their plan their meeting was
Speaker 1: to make sure he failed as president. They didn't care
Speaker 1: about the country succeeding. They just wanted him to fail.
Speaker 1: Democrats shouldn't want the country to fail, and they should
Speaker 1: prevented from doing so by obstructing Donald Trump at every
Speaker 1: conceivable opportunity. The application of political power is going to
Speaker 1: flow from the House of Representatives, where Republicans have maybe
Speaker 1: a two seat majority. That means, because every appropriation bill,
Speaker 1: all of the money flows out of the House, Democrats
Speaker 1: will have the ability over the next few months to
Speaker 1: do things that slow down the damage, that stop catastrophe. Now,
Speaker 1: there are some people who say Donald Trump won the election,
Speaker 1: and of course those people are correct. There are some
Speaker 1: people who say, because he won the election, Democrats should
Speaker 1: see politics to him completely and let him do as
Speaker 1: much damage as he can so voters will turn against
Speaker 1: him as quickly as possible, so Democrats will be in
Speaker 1: the position of maximum strength for the next election. Being
Speaker 1: a co conspirator to Arson is not a political strategy.
Speaker 1: What the Democrats need to do is model conviction, common sense,
Speaker 1: and toughness. Who will be the person and who will
Speaker 1: be the team of people that do not step back
Speaker 1: from Trump, that do not lay down in front of Trump,
Speaker 1: that tell Donald Trump and tell his lawyers and say
Speaker 1: to his threats, Hey, mister President, go fuck yourself. Because
Speaker 1: those people need to start moving to the front of
Speaker 1: the line. Because the power of the word know is
Speaker 1: about to be tested. And right now all we're seeing
Speaker 1: is examples of people looking to advance your self interest,
Speaker 1: to get out of trouble, off the naughty list. They
Speaker 1: want that permanent mark removed from their record because they're
Speaker 1: scared of Hitler or Trump. The thing about fear is
Speaker 1: it's contagious, and the contagion that it spreads is an
Speaker 1: ugly one. It's panic. Panic causes people to debase themselves,
Speaker 1: and in that debasement, they lose dignity. And as they
Speaker 1: lose dignity in the face of a genuinely awful opponent,
Speaker 1: that opponent Trump takes advantage of it, and a politics
Speaker 1: of dehumanization is what follows. And so watching what plays
Speaker 1: out in Canada is a lesson. It is a lesson
Speaker 1: about what weakness in dealing with Donald Trump brings to you.
Speaker 1: The same thing happened in the Republican Party. It's destroyed
Speaker 1: justin Trudeau's government. It's taken out two Democratic presidential candidates,
Speaker 1: it's wrecked the American news media. But somewhere out there,
Speaker 1: someday the line will hold. And when it does, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump will start stepping backwards. And when he does, it
Speaker 1: will be a very good day, indeed, a good day
Speaker 1: for America. This is the warning. I'm Steve Schmidt. This
Speaker 1: is the warning, and I invite you to join. Subscribe
Speaker 1: on our substack, on our YouTube channel, follow us. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the community.