Speaker 1: You are one of the people that's going to be
Speaker 1: a really important future leader of the Democratic Party. Right,
Speaker 1: and so at some point for people that are watching this,
Speaker 1: you're gonna become a person who is much better known
Speaker 1: in the country. It's much better better known to them,
Speaker 1: more widely seen on television. I hope Leader Jeffries, for example,
Speaker 1: is more visible than than he's been in laying out
Speaker 1: that that alternative vision. Where do you think things sit
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 2: How how do.
Speaker 1: You observe them? Donald Trump has one. It's not a landslide,
Speaker 1: but it is a sweep. Uh. It's a plurality victory,
Speaker 1: not a majority mandate. But it is a significant repudiation
Speaker 1: of the Democrat parties case on a decade basis that
Speaker 1: Trump is an existential threat to all of these things
Speaker 1: that we Democrats stand in favor of that are of
Speaker 1: the utmost importance. It was just it was just rejected
Speaker 1: wholesale by the country, I think for a bunch for
Speaker 1: a bunch of different reasons. When you observe this moment
Speaker 1: process it thirty four days out from Donald Trump raising
Speaker 1: his hand taking the oath the military aids with the
Speaker 1: nuclear football sliding away from Biden towards Donald Trump, all
Speaker 1: the powers of state back into Donald Trump's hand, with
Speaker 1: a control of his party of the Senate, narrowly in
Speaker 1: the House, the courts, and nominating some of the most
Speaker 1: unqualified people emotionally, temperamentally, character wise that we've that we've
Speaker 1: that we've ever seen nominated for office. Where are we
Speaker 1: and how did we get here?
Speaker 2: That's a big question, Stevid. I'd be curious on your thoughts.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you where I think people are at. You know,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of places in America, a lot
Speaker 2: of communities in America that have seen stagnancy decline, just
Speaker 2: a sense this country hasn't been working for them for
Speaker 2: forty fifty years. I mean politicians selling jobs off store
Speaker 2: for the cheapest wages and highest profits. You drive through
Speaker 2: America and you go from town to town, and I
Speaker 2: know you've probably done this, and if there's a town
Speaker 2: that doesn't have a prison or a hospital, a lot
Speaker 2: of times it's just economically devastated. And then the most
Speaker 2: heartbreaking to me is when they say, oh, there used
Speaker 2: to be a manufacturing plant here, but now there's a prison,
Speaker 2: and that's where the economy is coming for a local
Speaker 2: community people sensing the costs have gone up. You know,
Speaker 2: they look at the district like mine twelve trillion dollars
Speaker 2: in the coast and Silicon Valley, and they say, how
Speaker 2: can you have a country that's producing all this wealth
Speaker 2: and we're not participating and we're stagnant, and America just
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be working. Hey. You know, I think
Speaker 2: the core of Trump's message was very simple. I'm going
Speaker 2: to get America to win again. I'm going to get
Speaker 2: you to win again. I'm going to get you to
Speaker 2: move again. And of course there's in my view, not
Speaker 2: much substance there. I don't think he's going to revitalize Johnstown, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: or Gelsburg, Illinois, or bring new industry or bring the
Speaker 2: new modern economy to people who have been struggling.
Speaker 1: But I think the way to.
Speaker 2: Counter him is one to show the hollowness of the
Speaker 2: actual vision that it's not getting America to move, and
Speaker 2: then to convey for us that we're actually the party
Speaker 2: that can bring together this country business leaders, venture capitalist,
Speaker 2: labor leaders, community leaders, faith leaders, and give it a
Speaker 2: purpose of getting this country to move and win. And
Speaker 2: I really think it's about conveying to people that we
Speaker 2: get it, that there's this kind of stagnancy there and
Speaker 2: that we have the vision to get them moving again,
Speaker 2: give their kids a shot again. And I think we're
Speaker 2: going to get that opportunity in twenty twenty six and
Speaker 2: then again in twenty eight. And I believe we've got
Speaker 2: a great bench of talent for the House, Senate then
Speaker 2: presidency that's going to be succeeding in doing that.
Speaker 1: We live at a time where, uh yeah, I chok
Speaker 1: around about this right, where even the adults need trigger
Speaker 1: warnings now, right. So you know, any time I write
Speaker 1: anything that is oppositional, say to the party line, you know,
Speaker 1: and I look back over my last two years, you know,
Speaker 1: when I said, for example, that Biden's candidacy is a
Speaker 1: real threat with regard to electing Donald Trump, and just
Speaker 1: the idea expressed, right, there's a lot of shouting down
Speaker 1: right that goes on in the Democratic Party that that
Speaker 1: I observe as something that's new that didn't used to
Speaker 1: be there in the fabric of the party. And the
Speaker 1: sooner it goes away, uh, where there can be honest
Speaker 1: discussions that are reality based, I think the better the party,
Speaker 1: the party will be. But for the people that are
Speaker 1: watching this that have taken away from the election result
Speaker 1: that the racists have won and Trump seventy seven million
Speaker 1: voters are unfixable, broken, unrepentant, bad people, racist all. What
Speaker 1: is it that you want to that you want to
Speaker 1: say to them as part of the party and a
Speaker 1: leader in its future, right about about why they lost
Speaker 1: and why Donald Trump is about to be sitting in
Speaker 1: the White House with a Republican House and a Republican Senate.
Speaker 1: You listen to some of the voices out of the campaign,
Speaker 1: you know, they I think they're very sincere when they say,
Speaker 1: you know, they've assessed it, they've taken stock of it,
Speaker 1: and they ran a flawless campaign pretty much. And so
Speaker 1: what would you say right beyond just a blanket indictment
Speaker 1: of the of the people who voted for Trump. Democrats
Speaker 1: lost because why and something that has to change that
Speaker 1: specific that the party does is what?
Speaker 2: So I only see that this is still a very
Speaker 2: decent country, open country, and the most open political system
Speaker 2: in the world. And I guess that's based on my experience.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm the son of immigrants. My grandfather spent
Speaker 2: four years in jail alongside Gandhi for India's independence. My
Speaker 2: father came here to Michigan to study there in engineering.
Speaker 2: I was born in Philadelphia in nineteen seventy six, our
Speaker 2: bi centenary. I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, at
Speaker 2: a time where Bucks County was probably ninety eight percent white,
Speaker 2: as an Indian American of Hindu fay. And you know,
Speaker 2: the coach said, I played Little League even though I
Speaker 2: couldn't hit. And I had teachers who said, go publish
Speaker 2: a local Bucks County current Times. And we celebrated Christmas,
Speaker 2: and we also on my street celebrated the valley because
Speaker 2: the neighbors were curious. And I had people who said,
Speaker 2: you can do anything in America. And at the age
Speaker 2: of forty, this country elected me, a first generation Indian American,
Speaker 2: to represent arguably the most innovative, economically powerful place in
Speaker 2: the world, if not in human history, in terms of producing. Well,
Speaker 2: that is an American story. And by the way, I
Speaker 2: went back to Bucks County with a journalist and met
Speaker 2: my favorite tenth grade social studies teacher who I really
Speaker 2: was inspired by. And guess what it turns out. Halfway
Speaker 2: through the interview, he tells the journalists that he's going
Speaker 2: to be voting for Donald Trump. And the journalist I said, well,
Speaker 2: what if it was Trump versus Kana? And you could
Speaker 2: tell he's so pained. He's like, well, I respect Rocanna.
Speaker 2: I really like Rocanna. You know, it'd be a tough decision.
Speaker 2: And the journalists like, he's voting for Trump. And my
Speaker 2: point is more people need to actually go figure out
Speaker 2: why and talk to people who voting for Trump. You
Speaker 2: can be George Wallace being a racist. You don't become
Speaker 2: president of the United States if there are not a
Speaker 2: lot of people voting for you. And I think the
Speaker 2: fundamental thing that Trump did was tamp in to an
Speaker 2: anger with people feeling left out of modern economic prosperity,
Speaker 2: feeling that the political system was not working for them,
Speaker 2: the economic system is not working for them, and we
Speaker 2: have to come in and say we've got a better,
Speaker 2: more compelling vision. And by the way, it's not going
Speaker 2: to be politician driven. It's going to be assembling a
Speaker 2: team of business leaders, of labor leaders, of local community leaders.
Speaker 2: And this is we've talked about this before.
Speaker 1: That's what FDR did.
Speaker 2: FDR he wasn't great in and of himself. Maybe he
Speaker 2: was temperamentally, but he said, I'm going to bring the
Speaker 2: best of American talent and we're going to solve this
Speaker 2: issue of the Great Depression. We're going to win the
Speaker 2: World War. Guess what. The Democratic Party has the opportunity
Speaker 2: to be that convening force. We can be the unifiers.
Speaker 2: We can put everyone on the field and talenty to
Speaker 2: help revitalize this country. But we need to realize it
Speaker 2: needs revitalization. It's not just about the defense of the
Speaker 2: current status fun institutions, because they're not working for a
Speaker 2: lot of people.
Speaker 1: I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning and I invite
Speaker 1: you to join. Subscribe on our sub stack on our
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