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Speaker 1: Donald Trump is the greatest domestic enemy America has ever produced.

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Speaker 1: And if it goes bad, Trump is president. Welcome back

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Speaker 1: to another session of Ask Me Anything. And the question

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Speaker 1: is from the warning community, what advice would you give

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Speaker 1: President Biden when it comes to debating Trump. The first

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Speaker 1: piece of advice I would give him is that any

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Speaker 1: person around you, anybody who tells you that it's okay

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Speaker 1: for you not to debate Donald Trump, is a fool

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Speaker 1: and they have no business none giving advice during a

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Speaker 1: presidential campaign. These debates will decide the future of the

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Speaker 1: United States of America. These debates are the most significant

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Speaker 1: since the Constitutional debates, because what Donald Trump proposes is

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Speaker 1: to undo the American revel to break the foundations of

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Speaker 1: the republic, and to become dictator, to smash the government.

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Speaker 1: He's a nihilist. There's no candidate ever who's a bigger

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Speaker 1: target for Donald Trump. The fact of the matter is

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Speaker 1: Jakim Jefferies can run circles around him. Can you imagine

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Speaker 1: John Kennedy in a debate with Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan,

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Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. The great worry that so many

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Speaker 1: of us have is that President Biden in this moment

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Speaker 1: is going to have a hard time. The most worrying

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Speaker 1: part of this, because he's going to have a hard time,

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Speaker 1: is this idea that, well, you don't have to do it.

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Speaker 1: You can run for president without the aid Trump, without

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Speaker 1: confronting him. Presidential campaign is the most intense competition that

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Speaker 1: doesn't involve death on Earth period. Think about all the

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Speaker 1: hype around the Super Bowl, coach Big Red, Shanahan, Mahomes,

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Speaker 1: all of it to game. This is real life. This

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Speaker 1: decides the future of the United States, and it requires

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Speaker 1: the president to be tough. He's the president of the

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Speaker 1: United States and Donald Trump is the greatest domestic enemy

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Speaker 1: America has ever produced, at least in Jefferson Davis. He

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Speaker 1: needs to confront him, and he needs to proverbially body

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Speaker 1: slam him on each question through either the floor or

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Speaker 1: the wall. And honestly, if the President cannot do that

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Speaker 1: that he should abandon his quest for the Democratic nomination

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Speaker 1: and take the steps necessary for the Democratic National Committee

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Speaker 1: to open the process to find the mix of candidates

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Speaker 1: that could do that. Because Gretchen Whitmer could do it,

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Speaker 1: Davin Newsom could do it, Wes Moore could do it,

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Speaker 1: and it must be done. There is no chance of

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Speaker 1: winning this election without this contact happening. It's like looking

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Speaker 1: at a football game and having people on the sideline saying, well,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna win the game, but we're not gonna tackle

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Speaker 1: anyone today. There won't be any contact. There'll be no hitting.

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Speaker 1: This isn't real life. Joe Biden has to face this

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Speaker 1: monster down, and he is a monster and he needs

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Speaker 1: to put him down. That's his dude, that's his job.

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Speaker 1: And that is the climax of the presidential election, face

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Speaker 1: to face, and it will happen, and if it goes bad,

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Speaker 1: Trump is president. Question is who does a better job messaging?

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Speaker 1: Democrats are Republicans Beside the scale the dimensions of the

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Speaker 1: right wing propaganda machine in this country is profound. Democrats

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Speaker 1: don't understand it. Joe Biden is extremely successful president who

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Speaker 1: has failed to communicate any level that success. There's no

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Speaker 1: there's no contest here. The Democrats communication strategy seems to

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Speaker 1: be modeled on a version of how you run a

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Speaker 1: nuclear plant from the Chernobyl Handbook. It's awful and we're

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Speaker 1: at risk to losing our democracy, to losing the repub

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Speaker 1: because of it. You have to be able to communicate

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Speaker 1: great ideas, great ideas. Donald Trump's insanity is simplistic, deranged.

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Speaker 1: The media is corrupt, they seek to monetize it. They

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Speaker 1: want the conflict. All of these things are true, but

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Speaker 1: it doesn't mitigate the responsibility of the most powerful person

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Speaker 1: in the country and those around him with the most

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Speaker 1: powerful microphone in the world to use it effectively. Because

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Speaker 1: the president's bully pulpit is the only thing more powerful

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Speaker 1: than this giant propaganda machine. This asked me anything question

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Speaker 1: is what do Democrats need to do to win in November.

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Speaker 1: I'm getting very frustrated. Well you should be. I'm frustrated too,

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Speaker 1: because this question isn't talked about very often. But what

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Speaker 1: does it say about the Democratic Party? What does it

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Speaker 1: say that if the election were tomorrow they would lose

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Speaker 1: the presidency to Maga and Donald Trump. The reality is

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Speaker 1: whoever the election is about will lose, and Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: has made the election about Joe Biden, which is why

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden is presently losing the election. Donald Trump was

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Speaker 1: losing the twenty sixteen election until the very end with

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Speaker 1: James Comy made the election about Hillary Clinton, and very

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Speaker 1: narrowly she lost. Remember, President Biden won across three states

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Speaker 1: by forty five thousand votes. Trump needs to be mocked,

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Speaker 1: laughed at, humiliated, disparaged, and taken seriously. He needs to

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Speaker 1: be confronted on a daily basis. What should the president do?

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Speaker 1: He should walk out behind a podium in a way

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Speaker 1: that doesn't show him shuffling for twenty seconds, and he

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Speaker 1: should hit Trump, take no questions, and do it again

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Speaker 1: at one point thirty, and do it again at five o'clock.

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Speaker 1: The Biden White House has to take control of the

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Speaker 1: media cycle, and it has to take the fight to

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Speaker 1: the extremists. Every woman in America needs to understand that

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Speaker 1: this country is filled with theocrats who want to subjugate them,

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Speaker 1: and one of them is the Speaker of the House.

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Speaker 1: They need to understand the rapist who took away their

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Speaker 1: abortion rights is going to take away their birth control.

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Speaker 1: They need to understand the hostility of the Christian nationalist

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Speaker 1: movement to the idea of modern womanhood, modern motherhood, the

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Speaker 1: idea of women in the workplace. As as generals, as

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Speaker 1: senators and governors and presidents. They need to look at

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Speaker 1: their daughters and understand how much smaller the world gets

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Speaker 1: under the magas son. There's no way for Joe Biden

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Speaker 1: to run a campaign based on what he's already done.

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Speaker 1: This is a delusion and it's not how politics works.

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Speaker 1: What a candidate runs for office, like President Biden did,

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Speaker 1: they make promises. The fact that Joe Biden kept his

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Speaker 1: promises is not a reason to re elect Joe Biden.

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Speaker 1: It was the reason to elect him. It's not a

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Speaker 1: past fail test. What the American people want to know

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Speaker 1: is what are you going to do for me next?

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Speaker 1: Because they don't remember what you did for them lately.

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Speaker 1: Because the American electorate is cole and unfeeling and ungrateful

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Speaker 1: towards their politicians, there is no thank you. Do you

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Speaker 1: know what to thank you is to thank you as

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Speaker 1: Air Force one and Marine one in the White House

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Speaker 1: in Camp David, that's the thank you. So saying that

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Speaker 1: the Chips Act was great is terrific, but not as

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Speaker 1: a political strategy. Fifty years from now, history will make

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Speaker 1: certain that Joe Biden is credited as being an infrastructure

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Speaker 1: president on the scale of both Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower.

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Speaker 1: There's no question about that. But is that what Eisenhower

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Speaker 1: ran on in nineteen fifty six infrastructure. There is a

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Speaker 1: delusion of group thing in a small, cloistered, cliquish Washington

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Speaker 1: DC political community that has helped this orient so much

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Speaker 1: of the political staff in the White House. No one cares.

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Speaker 1: The choice ahead is a choice about the future, and

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Speaker 1: what Donald Trump is promising is order out of chaos.

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Speaker 1: And if you turned on the television and saw the

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Speaker 1: chaos after the Kansas City Chief Super Bowl parade, understand

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Speaker 1: Though it's the extremest Republican position that allows for the

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Speaker 1: easy proliferation of guns everywhere, the chaos that it produces

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Speaker 1: benefits the strong man candidate. So the Biden campaign needs

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Speaker 1: to get it together like six months ago. And part

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Speaker 1: of the reason I've started talking more directly and aggressively

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Speaker 1: about it after biting my tongue for three years through worry,

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Speaker 1: is that there's no more time to waste. Not a debt.

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Speaker 1: The question is is there any point at which the

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Speaker 1: people still funding Republican politicians will believe it is in

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Speaker 1: their self interest to stop. The people who fund Republican

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Speaker 1: politicians of billions of dollars fund those politicians because it

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Speaker 1: is in their self interest. Think of Steve Schwartzman, one

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Speaker 1: of the great hedge fund titans. He is also one

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Speaker 1: of the chief funders of the fascist cause in America,

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Speaker 1: as is Larry Allison. Tens and tens of millions of dollars.

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Speaker 1: What they are doing is buying, buying tax rates, buying

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Speaker 1: preferential treatment. They've created a society a part money has

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Speaker 1: corrupted the American system profoundly. In each restriction, each attempt

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Speaker 1: to take money out of the system has just made

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Speaker 1: it worse. So what does it take to bring an

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Speaker 1: autocratic movement to life. Well, the first thing you need

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Speaker 1: is the autocratic leader, Bingo Trump. Second thing you need

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Speaker 1: around the cultural personality is the cult. Trump has a

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Speaker 1: cult of personality because he has a cult. That's what

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Speaker 1: we talk about when we mentioned the thirteen or fourteen

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Speaker 1: million people or so that are a third of the

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Speaker 1: Republican Party that believe there's a conspiracy to steal the

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Speaker 1: election involving Travis Kelcey and Taylor Swift. Third thing an

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Speaker 1: autocratic movement needs is a propaganda element. Bingo's got that.

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Speaker 1: Fox News, Newsmax, social media, Elon musk Win, The lie

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Speaker 1: and the true stand equally in the public square. Democracy

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Speaker 1: is in grave crisis. It's very sick. But that's not

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Speaker 1: enough to bring an autocratic movement to life. What you

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Speaker 1: need is the cynicism of the elites. The Josh Hollys,

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Speaker 1: the Ted cruz is some of the most highly educated

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Speaker 1: people in America who went to the most elite university's FAVARDT. Stanford.

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Speaker 1: But they'll do anything for power. One of the most

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Speaker 1: important presidents of the twentieth century, John Kennedy, addressed this

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Speaker 1: in his inaugural address. He said, beware the men, the

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Speaker 1: foolish men who seek power by riding the back of

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Speaker 1: the tiger, only to wind up inside. That's what happened

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Speaker 1: to Josh Holly and Little Marco and Ted Cruz, humiliated

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Speaker 1: at the hands of a man who assaulted their dads,

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Speaker 1: their wives, called their spouses ugly, defenestrated them, he masculated them.

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Speaker 1: But despite all that, their cynicism is so powerful, their

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Speaker 1: desire for power so great, they can't keep off the

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Speaker 1: back of the tiger. But that's not enough. All of

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Speaker 1: those things together aren't enough for the autocratic movement to

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Speaker 1: take off into the air. They need money, and the

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Speaker 1: money comes when people make a transaction. And that's why

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Speaker 1: America today is this a soft oligarchy where government agencies

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Speaker 1: clear quotes about Elon Musk with Elon Musk before they

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Speaker 1: talk to a free media. It's outrageous. Adam Kitzinger, the

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Speaker 1: former congressman from Illinois, has talked about this. This country

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Speaker 1: is completely over dependent on people who have become some

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Speaker 1: of the wealthiest in the world on government contracts like Musk,

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Speaker 1: who increasingly coddle, for example, the Russian dictator while controlling,

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Speaker 1: as the Russians once did, our access to space commercially

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Speaker 1: and militarily. So we need to be a lot smarter

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Speaker 1: about this and understand how deep the rod is. And

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Speaker 1: it's just not the MAGA movement. Robert Menendez from New

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Speaker 1: Jersey was found with gold bars, leased in suit jackets

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Speaker 1: and cash, and Chuck Schumer said when it was one

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Speaker 1: of his guys, well, he's a great public servant for

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Speaker 1: this New Jersey? Are you kidding me? Chuck Schumer, who

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Speaker 1: is no genius and anyone who watches the warning knows

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Speaker 1: I feel that way. Does it seem to understand that

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Speaker 1: his citizenism helps who Trump? Because in a world where

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Speaker 1: everybody's viewed as dishonest and the result is of who

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Speaker 1: cares attitude? Who wins the most dishonest guy? Thank you

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

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Speaker 1: you heard today, please also consider subscribing to The Warning

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Speaker 1: daily newsletter on Substack. Our democracy hangs in the balance.

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Speaker 1: The twenty twenty four presidential election is the most consequential

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: at Steve Schmidt S T, E V 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