Speaker 1: This is the warning sixty years ago. Today, in a
Speaker 1: very different speech on a colder day, standing outside, the
Speaker 1: forty three year old President of the United States, John
Speaker 1: Kennedy said this, so, my fellow Americans, ask not what
Speaker 1: your country can do for you, ask what you can
Speaker 1: do for your country. There are millions of Americans who
Speaker 1: are stunned right now. They are terrified, are broken, angry, saddened.
Speaker 1: And today the forty seventh President of the United States
Speaker 1: uttered the most chilling words that have ever been spoken
Speaker 1: by an American leader. I was saved by God to
Speaker 1: make America great. It is delusional, it is messianic. These
Speaker 1: are the words of a Jim Jones wanna be not
Speaker 1: an American president. This speech was a threat to the
Speaker 1: American way of life, dressed up as a commitment to
Speaker 1: law and order. Donald Trump has promised to use a
Speaker 1: law written in seventeen ninety eight to deploy the American
Speaker 1: military into America's cities to wage war. He talked about
Speaker 1: peace in his speech, but it was a worst speech,
Speaker 1: make no doubt about that. Donald Trump talked about manifest
Speaker 1: destiny deliberately. He talked about an expansionist America. What country
Speaker 1: is it? Donald, that you propose to invade beyond Panama,
Speaker 1: And that was the point of the speech. In the end,
Speaker 1: there were words, of course, and there were promises and commitments,
Speaker 1: none of which will come true. What will be remembered
Speaker 1: from this speech are the faces of the people smiling
Speaker 1: in celebration. The owner of the Washington Post next to
Speaker 1: the Princess Sanchez, Elon Musk, the CEO of Google and
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg, the titans of America's technological power, the leaders
Speaker 1: of the most powerful companies in the history of the world,
Speaker 1: all gathered together not to celebrate democracy, not because they
Speaker 1: share a commitment to justice or to the American people,
Speaker 1: but out of fear and entitlement and opportunity, because they
Speaker 1: realize what is gathered in that room are their fellow takers.
Speaker 1: It is the greatest gathering of takers the American people
Speaker 1: have ever seen, and a season is upon us unlike
Speaker 1: any that has ever been before in the United States.
Speaker 1: The delusional Trump says he comes to office facing challenges
Speaker 1: that are greater than what Lincoln faced, or Washington, or
Speaker 1: John Adams or Franklin Roosevelt. It is absurd. Who will
Speaker 1: be the first American to die to be buried under
Speaker 1: an American flag for Trump's invasion Panama or per usual?
Speaker 1: Is it just bluster or bullshit? It might be a
Speaker 1: good time to reread the book The Guns of August,
Speaker 1: because history teaches us that there is an awful momentum
Speaker 1: to the type of words that Donald Trump spoke today.
Speaker 1: He talked about William McKinley. William McKinley was prodded by
Speaker 1: unethical journalists into waging war in Cuba, manufactured by William
Speaker 1: Randolph Hurst. Back in the day, fake news was called
Speaker 1: yellow journalism. It's alive and well today. It will be
Speaker 1: hard to know what is true and know what is not,
Speaker 1: but that has always been the case. You must use
Speaker 1: your judgment, your eyes, and your ears to appreciate the
Speaker 1: profound disconnect between a man that claims God's grace yet
Speaker 1: who desecrates his faith. What the American people saw today
Speaker 1: was a disaster at the very first instance of its unfolding.
Speaker 1: What Donald Trump is promising, it's not democracy, it's feudalism.
Speaker 1: He is king surrounded by his lords, and all the
Speaker 1: rest of us are to be their serfs. And then
Speaker 1: they will tell us that each of us is a hero.
Speaker 1: In the service of a great cause to a great
Speaker 1: nation that benefits just a few. It's cynical, it won't work,
Speaker 1: it's obvious, and it will fall apart. But it cannot
Speaker 1: fall apart until and unless there is an opposition with
Speaker 1: a conviction and an instinct to celebrate this country and
Speaker 1: argue for better by reaching for our values and communicating
Speaker 1: there's a better way, it will become obvious that this
Speaker 1: is not a golden age descending upon us, but a
Speaker 1: season of unrequited corruption, time of chast mayhem, vanity, and venality.
Speaker 1: Nobody with any common sense will think after hearing this
Speaker 1: anything other than my God, what have we done? But
Speaker 1: we have done it. Trump's mandate is thin. He won
Speaker 1: election with forty nine point nine percent of the vote,
Speaker 1: and even in an inaugural address, his ego is so brittle,
Speaker 1: so thin, he can't stop talking about it, can't stop
Speaker 1: grasping for himself. And so Donald Trump is late a
Speaker 1: trapped in this inaugural speech. The American people don't want
Speaker 1: the interest group politics, and they don't want to live
Speaker 1: in the wuktopia. They have rejected it, and Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has chummed the waters. He has done what he has
Speaker 1: needed to do to make sure that the most extreme
Speaker 1: element of the Democratic Party is the first to the
Speaker 1: line in opposition, h that they are opposing the most
Speaker 1: popular parts of his agenda, while he gets a free
Speaker 1: hand to carry out the most unpopular ones. The game
Speaker 1: never gets old, at least for Trump, who constantly wins
Speaker 1: at this. You can't fix stupid, as they say, and
Speaker 1: I worry about that. This is a moment that will
Speaker 1: require a fierceness in the opposition, requires political leaders in
Speaker 1: this country to go out and to say to the
Speaker 1: Canadian people, to the Danish people, to the Panamanian people,
Speaker 1: to our allies all over the world, we will not
Speaker 1: let American power be turned against you in the name
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump's sick and twisted vision about our expansion.
Speaker 1: The United States of America is not Putin's Russia. We
Speaker 1: will not see conquest. The American people will not tolerate it.
Speaker 1: And that so many stood and cheered under the Capitol
Speaker 1: rotunda that was invaded and desecrated by the mob Trump
Speaker 1: sent there just four short years ago is a sign
Speaker 1: of the national sickness that Trump's inaugural address perfectly represented.
Speaker 1: And yet there is a cure it is the idea
Speaker 1: that we are better than this. We are Soon Donald
Speaker 1: Trump will set about doing the things that he has
Speaker 1: said he will do. He makes it all seem easy
Speaker 1: with his breezy confidences and his assertions, but all of
Speaker 1: them are based on a delusion that when something is dropped,
Speaker 1: it rises as opposed to falling. And what Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is dropping are our values, our history, our legacy. He
Speaker 1: told a story about America today that was mythological. It's
Speaker 1: nice to hear myth sometimes it can even be inspiring.
Speaker 1: But through the myth, it's important to hear the threat,
Speaker 1: and that threat was loud and clear today. Millions of
Speaker 1: Americans won't be cheering for this for very long. Mark
Speaker 1: my words on that. The future, we don't know what
Speaker 1: it will bring, but I'm gonna make a prediction. Four
Speaker 1: years from today, should this speech be played back, people
Speaker 1: will either laugh out loud or cry out loud, and
Speaker 1: that will all depend on how deep the pit is
Speaker 1: that we find ourselves in after the tragedy that's coming
Speaker 1: fully arrives. Let's not forget the lesson. It has been
Speaker 1: a most painful one. On a sad day. This is
Speaker 1: the warning I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning and
Speaker 1: I invite you to join. Subscribe on our substack, on
Speaker 1: our YouTube channel, follow us. Welcome to the community.