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Speaker 1: It's great to have back on the program today. Steve Schmidt,

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Speaker 1: renowned American political strategist, commentator, founder of The Warning, a

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Speaker 1: popular newsletter, podcast and YouTube channel. Well, Steve, I don't

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Speaker 1: know where to start. I mean, I think one place

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Speaker 1: is one of the reactions I'm now seeing from some

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Speaker 1: on the Trump supporting right is to say that a

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Speaker 1: lot of our worst fears are kind of hyperbolic. And

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Speaker 1: often they will say, you know, the first term didn't

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Speaker 1: actually see all of the things we worried would happen,

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Speaker 1: and therefore this term won't either. You put out videos

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Speaker 1: before the election, including Steve Schmidt explains why Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: will become the next Hitler if he wins, Trump will

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Speaker 1: be the end of America. Talk to us. Is there

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Speaker 1: a hyperbolic or sensational element to that or are those

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Speaker 1: your literal beliefs.

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Speaker 2: What I said in the immediate aftermath of the election

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Speaker 2: is that I stay and boy, everything that I have

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Speaker 2: said about Donald Trump over nine years, I am right

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Speaker 2: about who he is. Donald Trump campaigned as a fascist,

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Speaker 2: and campaign was repugnant, race bating, dishonorable, and here's reality,

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Speaker 2: seventy four million of us voted against it. We said no,

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Speaker 2: we have representation in this country. We have rights in

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Speaker 2: this country, including the right to oppose, the right to

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Speaker 2: assert conscience, to dissent, and to say no. Couple more

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Speaker 2: million people voted for Donald Trump, and we can talk

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Speaker 2: about that now. What I did say is I'm going

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Speaker 2: to be very clear and precise with regard to my

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Speaker 2: use of language. Until he governed as a fascist, I

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Speaker 2: will not say that Donald Trump is governing as a fascist.

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Speaker 2: Campaigning as a fascist is different than governing as a fascist, right,

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Speaker 2: But there are no people that I'm aware of that

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Speaker 2: have campaigned as a fascist who have not governed as

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Speaker 2: a fascist. And when I look at the insanity and

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Speaker 2: the desecrative nature of his early nominations, they suggest to

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Speaker 2: me tremendous extremism aimed at annihilation of these agencies is

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Speaker 2: functional for the purposes of creating chaos in order to

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Speaker 2: assert the need for more power to end the chaos.

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Speaker 2: He has said that he will deploy the military as

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Speaker 2: part of his mass deportation operation, of which we have

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Speaker 2: no details except for that some of the parameters call

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Speaker 2: for the construction of quote massive detention facilities. So what

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Speaker 2: words are we to use to call those what euphemism

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Speaker 2: are we going to settle on? So, yes, this is

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Speaker 2: a dangerous time. And I don't think that you compare

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump to Adolph Hitler loosely, And I absolutely don't

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Speaker 2: think if you do it, you go sit down and

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Speaker 2: have tea with him at Burchase guarden Ecmi Mara a Lago.

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Speaker 1: As far as what now happens both to anti Trump

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Speaker 1: Republicans but also what I call the demoralized and despondent left,

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Speaker 1: many of whom I'm hearing from regularly, who say, I

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Speaker 1: start gagging when you tell me about let's look at

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. It's just I just can't now go.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna get them, and let's start figuring out and

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Speaker 1: let's talk about who'll run in twenty eight. It's just

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Speaker 1: a huge swath of my audience is like, no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: this was so devastating. I'm out for a while. What

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Speaker 1: now for those groups of people you.

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Speaker 2: Can't get out? Okay, you don't have to charge. You

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Speaker 2: can just sit and do less and read and comprehend

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Speaker 2: and orient towards what's happening and get ready to oppose it. Right,

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Speaker 2: And what I would ask is if any one of

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Speaker 2: your great many listeners are fans of politicians. Let that go, right,

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Speaker 2: don't trust any of them, be skeptical of power. Understand

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Speaker 2: who your allies are, and hold them to account. Now,

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Speaker 2: a's some bad news about twenty twenty six, right, Chuck

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Speaker 2: Schumer is a disaster, the communications disaster. John Stewart making

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Speaker 2: fun of him the Last Night brutal. He's a strategic

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Speaker 2: disaster and a tech tactical disaster. Because Democrats have no

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Speaker 2: shot really to pick up any seats in twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: six in the Senate. Right, so there's no chance. A

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Speaker 2: less society crators, and there's a turnout that's so violatile

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Speaker 2: that it changes the composition of the electorate in red

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Speaker 2: states profoundly and historically so absent that the only races

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Speaker 2: of consequence of matter. In a federal election of the House,

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Speaker 2: Democrats have to get the power of the perspect They

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Speaker 2: have to take back the House. And the good news

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Speaker 2: is there are only three elections in the last one

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Speaker 2: hundred and twenty four years where the incumbent president's party

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Speaker 2: has picked up seats in the first mid term election,

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Speaker 2: and the bottom line is Trump won by three million

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Speaker 2: voters and a lot of people aren't going to like

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Speaker 2: a lot of the things that he is going to do.

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Speaker 2: We are nothing if not a fickle people. So to

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Speaker 2: all the despondent folks out there, George W. Bush's approval

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Speaker 2: level was a solid seventy seven percent on the day

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Speaker 2: of the Iraq War began. Give it six months now.

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Speaker 2: You have a right to be angry about being lied

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Speaker 2: to by a small circle of staffers around Biden about

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Speaker 2: his competency and capacity. You got a right to be

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Speaker 2: angry about corporate media and Joe Scarborough and the constant

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Speaker 2: bullshitary and the access media. And you got a right

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Speaker 2: to be mad as hell about the democratic politicians who

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Speaker 2: won't fight, who can't see it coming, who will accommodate

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Speaker 2: what needs confrontation, and who will normalize what is deeply,

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Speaker 2: deeply wrong. And so there will be leaders who emerge.

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Speaker 2: When they emerge, get behind them and understand it. We

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Speaker 2: need to build a broad coalition of the americanism that

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Speaker 2: tolerates dissent, that accommodates everybody that believes an opportunity for

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Speaker 2: everybody that rejects these dogmas of collective guilt, that rejects extremism.

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Speaker 2: It makes clear that the purpose of politics is to

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Speaker 2: make the lives of ordinary people better. So I've had

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Speaker 2: a reading assignment. I'd say go read five or six

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Speaker 2: John Kennedy campaign speeches, pick them at your leisure, and

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Speaker 2: go read FDRs nineteen forty inaugural. There's going to be

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Speaker 2: a moment soon where people are gonna need to be

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Speaker 2: on the streets protesting. I've never marched in a protest

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Speaker 2: in my life. I suspect we'll be in my first one.

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Speaker 2: Because when the military deploys and Trump rolls through the

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Speaker 2: US Senate and acts with impunity and immunity, we will

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Speaker 2: be in deep crisis. And Americans have an absolute right,

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Speaker 2: a god given one in fact, to stand, to oppose,

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Speaker 2: to defy, and to say no, rest up, it's coming.

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Speaker 2: I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning, and I invite

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Speaker 2: you to join. Subscribe on our substack, on our YouTube channel,

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Speaker 2: follow us. Welcome to the community.