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Speaker 1: He was murdered by Vladimir Putin, and he was murdered

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Speaker 1: within one week of Donald Trump taking to a stage

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Speaker 1: in front of his enthralled maggot crowd and encouraging Vladimir

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Speaker 1: Putin to initiate World War three by attacking NATO countries.

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Speaker 1: It's Friday, February sixteenth, two hundred and sixty three days

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Speaker 1: to go until America elects its next president. This is

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Speaker 1: the warning. Winston Churchill said, Courage is the first virtue,

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Speaker 1: because without courage, none of the others are possible. Alexander

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Speaker 1: Navalni was a man of courage. His was a Titanic life,

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Speaker 1: and it was given to the cause of freedom. Someday

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Speaker 1: he will be remembered as one of Russia's greatest heroes.

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Speaker 1: He was poisoned by Ladimir Putin because he was Vladimir

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Speaker 1: Putin's most potent opponent, his most vociferous critic. Alexander Navalni

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Speaker 1: was living in exile. He chose to return to Russia,

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Speaker 1: knowing that he would be subjected to a kangaroo court

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Speaker 1: trial and face imprisonment. He was sent to one of

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Speaker 1: Russia's hardest and most notorious prisons. He was filmed one

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Speaker 1: day before his murder. Sometimes does the man look like

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Speaker 1: he is about to drop dead? He was murdered by

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Speaker 1: Vladimir put and he was murdered within one week of

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump taking to a stage in front of his

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Speaker 1: enthralled MAGA crowd and encouraging Vladimir Putin to initiate World

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Speaker 1: War IIIE by attacking NATO countries. Donald Trump did that.

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Speaker 1: And do you know what the response of Donald Trump's

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Speaker 1: crowd was at his magarrally? The crowd chanted, over and

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Speaker 1: over again, F you Joe Biden, F you Joe Biden,

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Speaker 1: over and over and over again. During this past week,

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Speaker 1: the House Intelligence Committee chair burned America's intelligence agencies when

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Speaker 1: he leaked in inappropriately, like Edward Snowden, did intelligence that

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Speaker 1: suggested that Russia was seeking to militarize space with nuclear

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Speaker 1: weapons to destroy America's technology advantages by nuking our orbiting

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Speaker 1: saddle like platforms that provide everything from communications to GPS services,

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Speaker 1: all of these things that Russia does not have. This

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Speaker 1: occurs within weeks of Tucker Carlson's propaganda interview with Vladimir Putin,

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Speaker 1: where Putin defenestrates, humiliates, and emasculates Tucker Carlson while asserting

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Speaker 1: that Russia does not regard the borders of Europe as settled.

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Speaker 1: It's a preface to war. What Vladimir Putin, the KGB agent,

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Speaker 1: is doing is probing, is testing, is seeing what the

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Speaker 1: reaction is in the West, in America, in the news media,

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Speaker 1: and in the Congress. When Vladimir Putin says he prefers

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden to Donald Trump, of course it's a headgame.

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Speaker 1: He's watching the currents. What Vladimir Putin has done with

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Speaker 1: the murder of Alexander Nilvanni is to slap his hand

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Speaker 1: on the table and call the hands well. Vladimir Putin

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Speaker 1: is saying, I can do anything with impunity, because though

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Speaker 1: the President of the United States threatened severe consequences against Russia,

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Speaker 1: he's impotent. He can do nothing. What Vladimir Putin is

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Speaker 1: saying at the moment the extremist MAGA Congress has cut

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Speaker 1: off funding for Ukraine when Russia is on the offensive again,

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Speaker 1: is he has upped the stinks with murder of his

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Speaker 1: chief political opponent. And anybody who thinks that there is

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Speaker 1: not a causal relationship between what Donald Trump said and

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Speaker 1: the murder has rocks in their head. Americans have a

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Speaker 1: lack of appreciation that all over the world, politics is

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Speaker 1: a deadly b business. Dissent is a deadly business. Freedom

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Speaker 1: of conscience is a deadly business. We take our freedoms

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Speaker 1: for granted, most Americans who are oblivious to where they

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Speaker 1: came from, how they were achieved, how they've been defended,

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Speaker 1: and the cost of the defense. We are so lucky

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Speaker 1: to live in a free society where a political belief

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Speaker 1: doesn't get you murdered. And yet the leading presidential candidate,

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Speaker 1: the one who would win the election if it were

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Speaker 1: held tomorrow, Donald Trump, the coordinated maga Republican nominee, has

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Speaker 1: said he's running on a platform of attribution and revenge.

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Speaker 1: His advisors and aids talk openly about imprisoning their political opponents.

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Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson said, leadership means killing people. This is second

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Speaker 1: and this sickness is loose in America, and it is

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Speaker 1: decaying our society. It is rotting away our country, It

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Speaker 1: is melting our foundations. Vladimir Putin is testing American resolve.

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Speaker 1: He suspects the result of his murder will be more division,

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Speaker 1: more chaos, more fighting, more American finger pointing, and Vladimir

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Speaker 1: Putin wants the chaos, just as Trump wants the chaos.

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Speaker 1: This move was one of provocation. Vladimir Putin is saying,

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Speaker 1: get ready, ready for what you might ask, if Vladimir

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Speaker 1: Putin has his way, World War three. We live in

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Speaker 1: the most dangerous hours since the Cuban Missile crisis, the

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Speaker 1: most dangerous hours since the Second World War. Why can't

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Speaker 1: anybody see that the world is moving towards a dangerous,

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Speaker 1: dangerous place. It's time to wake up. And that's today's Warning.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to my political commentary. If you

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Speaker 1: like what you heard today, please also consider subscribing to

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Speaker 1: The Warning daily newsletter on substack. Our democracy hangs in

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Speaker 1: the balance. The twenty twenty four presidential election is the

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Speaker 1: most consequential in America's history. It's not hyperbole, it's a fact.

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Speaker 1: That is why the mission of The Warning with Steve

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Speaker 1: Schmidt is to help readers orient to the currents that

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Speaker 1: are shaping our times and the unseen forces driving politics

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Speaker 1: that are very rarely discussed on cable news. Please sign

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Speaker 1: up at Steve Schmidt st e ve E, S C

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Speaker 1: H M I D T dot substack dot com again,

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Speaker 1: Steve Schmidt dot substack dot com, or at the link

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Speaker 1: in the show notes section below. Thank you to each

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Speaker 1: and every one of you for listening and watching