Speaker 1: This is the warning. It is Monday, April twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: and we must talk about the fecklessness of the leadership
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party. It is true that MAGA has
Speaker 1: a knife to the throat of the American Republic. But
Speaker 1: it is also true that all of us three one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty two million Americans are Chuck Schumer's hostage.
Speaker 1: It's all well and good to talk about the threat
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. Corey Booker can do it for twenty
Speaker 1: five hours, But unless and until the forty seven Democratic
Speaker 1: Senators will confront reality, they are ineffective as a group
Speaker 1: against Donald Trump. It is a moral abdication and it
Speaker 1: is appalling. This is Chuck Schumer with Dana Bash talking
Speaker 1: about what it is that he's going to do.
Speaker 2: It's going to hurt every American. It's going to hurt
Speaker 2: the kids at the universities who've had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with protesting. But it's also going to hurt the kind
Speaker 2: of medical research and other kinds of great research that
Speaker 2: has done at Harvard and other universities. So we sent
Speaker 2: him a very strong letter just the other day tell
Speaker 2: asking eight very strong questions about why this isn't just
Speaker 2: a pretext well, you'll let us know if you get
Speaker 2: a response to that letter.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was a great letter. I wonder if
Speaker 1: he still thinks he's winning and we will win.
Speaker 2: We will win, We will win, we will win.
Speaker 1: No serious opposition party would maintain this Neville Chamberlain wanna
Speaker 1: Bee as its leader. This is an exigence circumstance in
Speaker 1: an existential moment. There is no duty more important than
Speaker 1: for the forty seven Democratic senators elected directly by Americans
Speaker 1: from their states to sit together in a room and
Speaker 1: demand a change in leadership. I'm begging you, Chris Murphy,
Speaker 1: Ruben Gega, take command of the institution or we will
Speaker 1: lose the Republic. We will lose it to Chuck Schumer's
Speaker 1: fecklessness and all of your weakness. It's great that Chris
Speaker 1: Murphy is traveling the country doing town halls. I mean
Speaker 1: that seriously, but he is a United States Senator, and
Speaker 1: a United States senator first and foremost needs to be
Speaker 1: focused on the effectiveness of the United States Senate, and
Speaker 1: that starts with walking into a room with his colleagues
Speaker 1: and talent. Chuck Schumer, the people of New York have
Speaker 1: entrusted you with responsibility, but the people of our states
Speaker 1: demand you step aside. I want to tell a story
Speaker 1: about Chuck Schumer's incompetence, and it's a story about the
Speaker 1: state of Ohio. Tim Ryan ran an exception campaign. Jd
Speaker 1: Vance was on his back, on the edge of defeat.
Speaker 1: Tim Ryan forced the National Republicans to spend sixty million
Speaker 1: dollars to help elect jd Vance. Tim Ryan lost an
Speaker 1: election by five points. The top of the ticket lost
Speaker 1: the race by twenty six points. That delta between what
Speaker 1: the top of the ticket, the woman running for governor
Speaker 1: lost by, and Tim Ryan's loss is a remarkable testament
Speaker 1: to the popularity of Tim Ryan in a democratic state
Speaker 1: and also the awful abandonment of Tim by Chuck Schumer,
Speaker 1: who refused to spend any money in the state of Ohio.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to tell you why that's so appalling.
Speaker 1: It's appalling because Tim Ryan had jd Vance down and
Speaker 1: defeated in August. Now, in any campaign, you have to
Speaker 1: do three things. If you're the challenger, which Tim Ryan
Speaker 1: was in that race, you have to attack your opponent
Speaker 1: and define them. You have to tell your story, and
Speaker 1: you have to defend yourself from your opponent's attack. When
Speaker 1: Tim Ryan was five points ahead in August, he needed
Speaker 1: about five million dollars to finish jd Vance off early,
Speaker 1: but it didn't happen, and so as the fall went on,
Speaker 1: compromises had to be made. Tim spent more money defending
Speaker 1: himself and less money because there wasn't any attacking jd Vance.
Speaker 1: And the result, well, you saw it in the Oval office.
Speaker 1: The incredible part about it is that Sharon Brown was
Speaker 1: running in the Senate seat in Ohio two years after
Speaker 1: Tim two Senate seats same state, Republican state. Chuck Schumer
Speaker 1: spent one hundred million dollars two years later after spending
Speaker 1: zero strategically did he ever consider that two Senate seats
Speaker 1: in the same state may be linked, that the Tim
Speaker 1: Ryan victory was necessitous for the reelection of Sheren Brown.
Speaker 1: Did it ever occur to him that he didn't need
Speaker 1: to spend one hundred million dollars two years later if
Speaker 1: he had spent oh five two years before. And the
Speaker 1: answer is, of course not. Because he is strategically the
Speaker 1: most incompetent political leader the Democratic parties had in fifty years,
Speaker 1: and he is surrounded by imbeciles at his superpacks at
Speaker 1: his campaign committees. They are losers, and they're losing. Has
Speaker 1: endangered the American Republic. Everywhere there is weakness, There is dishonesty,
Speaker 1: and there is fecklessness delusion about the dangers at hand. Now,
Speaker 1: there are some He's Democrats like Gavin Newsom who say
Speaker 1: now is not the right time to defend one of
Speaker 1: the most American propositions, which is that we don't do
Speaker 1: the knock on the midnight door where you're carted off
Speaker 1: into a white van and shipped to an Al Salvadoran
Speaker 1: concentration camp without due process. Gavin Newsom is another person
Speaker 1: who doesn't understand strategy. Here's a simple question, Gavin, why
Speaker 1: did Robert E. Lee and the Union forces fight at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Answer to the question is because Robert Lee invaded Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: and that's where the fight was. It was not chosen
Speaker 1: by the Union army. It was forced on the Union
Speaker 1: army by the aggressor. And that's the thing about the
Speaker 1: aggressor and their prerogatives. They are always the first mover,
Speaker 1: and so in this moment, what is required is an opposition. Now,
Speaker 1: when you look across the Democratic Party, what is it
Speaker 1: that you see. What I see is leadership from the
Speaker 1: progressive wing. Now that's Bernie Sanders, and that's AOC. This
Speaker 1: is different than me saying I support them in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight because this moment, as AOC correctly points out,
Speaker 1: is not about twenty twenty eight. This is a moment
Speaker 1: where defiance is called for, where a devotion to the
Speaker 1: Constitution is called for. So in my case, I look
Speaker 1: at people who I have serious disagreements with about political philosophy,
Speaker 1: about the nature of things, all manner of different opinions,
Speaker 1: and that's a good thing in America. But I'll tell
Speaker 1: you this, those people I disagree with, I admire them
Speaker 1: for one quality. They're American leaders in an American crisis
Speaker 1: who are telling the American people the truth, which is
Speaker 1: something that they don't hear. Very often. They don't hear
Speaker 1: it because there's not financial incentive to deliver it. This
Speaker 1: is the warning, and I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning.
Speaker 1: I invite you to join this community where I promise
Speaker 1: to be honest, blunt and direct about what is happening
Speaker 1: in this country. America is in crisis. Follow and subscribe
Speaker 1: to this channel and on substack, thank you,