WEBVTT - Bonus: The Lincoln Project founders on the future of the GOP 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:09.000 Hi, everyone, it's me Katie Couric. I'm back, but just 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.680 for this bonus episode. The third season of Next Question 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:16.400 will actually be launching on February and we've got some 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.759 really exciting people lined up for you. But in the meantime, 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:24.079 I wanted to share a very important and fascinating conversation 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:26.840 I had this week. Great to see you all. I'm 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.120 so happy to be here with my friends from the 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.960 Street Why. I'm coming to you tonight from Los Angeles. 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.839 The Street Why invited me to moderate a talk with 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.159 the founding members of the Lincoln Project. You might have 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:44.520 heard of them this election season. They're a super pac 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:49.120 started by former Republicans who wanted to defeat Donald Trump 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:53.000 and in fact hold accountable all those who violate their 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:58.520 oath to the Constitution, regardless of party. I was joined remotely, 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:03.280 of course, by a pool plitical powerhouse trio Jennifer Horne, 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:10.000 Reed Gallen and Steve Schmidt. Our conversation was recorded on Tuesday, January. 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:13.400 We're sharing it with you here with just some light editing, 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:21.959 so enjoy. Given what has happened in recent weeks and months, 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.600 do you all feel that our democracy is in fact 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.600 in jeopardy. Um, Steve, since you're the least opinionated, I'll 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:34.000 start with you. What happened on January six was was 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:39.640 the following incited to violence, ay election of white supremacist, 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:49.000 white nationalists, conspiracy theory theorist Baptist, Proud Boys, extremist militias 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.920 attact the United States capital um and the capital fell 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:58.639 to them. The American flag was ripped down, Maga flag 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.000 was was raised in its place, American flag was used 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:07.200 to bludge in a Capitol police officer. Why were they there? 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.840 Why were they there on January six? Well, they were 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:17.680 there because there was a constitutionally mandated process. That's a 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:23.960 moment of majesty, right, that involves the peaceful transition of power. 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:28.520 It's been uninterrupted in this country since. So when you 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:30.560 think about all of the great things that have been 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:36.760 invented in America, airplanes, television, spaceships that could land and 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:41.000 return from the moon, the Internet, right, the list goes on, 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.639 the greatest invention in all the history of the country 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:47.960 is the peaceful transition of power. George the third asked 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:52.560 what would Washington do? And he was told that Washington 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.280 would go home. And he said, if he does that 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.280 will be the greatest man of this or any age. 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.639 Literally the first human being in two thousand years who 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.160 could have been an emperor to walk away from the power. 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:10.600 John Adams, the first president, defeated, as Reid points out, 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.160 an election decided in the House of Representatives. He leaves 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:19.400 the process of the transfer of power was not stopped, 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:25.480 but it wasn't peaceful, with blood soaked and with blood sooked, 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:31.120 because that mob was incited by the president to desertify 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:38.920 certified state elections and to different franchise millions of black votes. 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.320 We'll talk more about that in a in a second. 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.640 But why were they there. They were there because they 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:52.279 were incited by lying. We should understand something about national socialism, Nazism, 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:57.960 and the fascist movement. Anti Semitism was a feature, not 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:05.720 the foundation. Foundation of it was the lie, so alies 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.320 they were incited, and the why they were excited about 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:12.280 was that the freest a fair selection in American history 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.559 was in fact stolen, stolen by who, by those people, 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:23.360 those people in the inner cities, Black Americans. So they 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:31.200 were incited. Democracy is fueled sustained by faith and belief 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.760 in the legitimacy of the system. It's of all the 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:42.320 terrible things that Trump did over his four catastrophic years, 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:47.800 including his simplicity through his lying in incompetence and malfeasance, 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.920 the depths of hundreds of thousands of people that didn't 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:54.880 have to die because of COVID, including that, including the 0:04:54.960 --> 0:05:01.320 cajun An orphaning of children, including that. The worst thing 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:05.200 he did was what he did at the end, when 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:10.400 he poisoned faith and belief in American democracy. Incited by 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:16.480 a president, the capital falls, and then one forty seven 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:22.440 members of Congress rise for the purpose of busin enfranchising 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.120 millions of black Americans with the vote, for the purpose 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.640 of installing into the presidency for a second term the 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.840 person who lost as opposed to a person who won, 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:37.599 which would have led to the fall of the American 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:41.240 Republicans two forty fourth year if that action would have 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:46.200 been successful. So we have the propagandists, we have the financers, 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:50.120 we have the cynical elites like Josh Hally, We have 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:55.640 all of the ecosystem around the charismatic cult of personality. 0:05:55.920 --> 0:06:00.120 This is an autocratic movement at of the country we 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.000 would vote for if the election were tomorrow as a floor. 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:08.000 This is this is a serious threat to American democracy 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:12.359 for certain. In fact, read you know, I was shocked 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:17.280 when I read these statistics last night of Americans still 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:21.080 insist that Joe Biden was not the legitimate winner of 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:28.200 the election, and one of Americans say they either strongly 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:33.600 support or somewhat somewhat support the stormy of the capital 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:38.000 Read I mean this is still today, and Jennifer, I 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:39.960 want you to weigh on this, to weigh in on 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.599 this as well. But how could that be? How could 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.040 you know? How did we get here? And how could 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:51.040 those those people still respond that way? Well, how we 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:53.640 got here, I think is a longer story that needs 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.040 to be told in its own right. Um. But I 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.320 think that if you look at this, you know, through 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:02.440 even going back to the fall, Uh, when candidate Trump 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.919 was running, remember that he started to delegitimize the the outcome. 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:07.280 Then when he thought he was going to lose to 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.840 Hillary Clinton. Um, he always made himself, you know, a 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.920 victim of the press, a victim of his opponents. Uh. 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.000 And then as we saw last last year, he started 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.080 the same thing to delegitimize the process again, whether or 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:25.160 not that was absentee balloting, mail in balloting, early voting, um, 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.360 you know, whatever it was, because again, in case he 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.000 could lose or would lose, uh, he needed to have 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.600 an excuse. In fact, Mary Trump, the President's niece, who 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.040 we spoke with many times throughout the course of this campaign, 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.920 said this is what was going to happen. She said 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.360 that something like this was going to happen. And we 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:43.440 talked to her, I think in mayor June of last year, 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.120 and we started saying we had we had been saying 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.200 to folks, supporters and others, you know, the campaign's over 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.520 when we defeat Donald Trump. We changed that. We said 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.080 this campaign isn't over until Joe Biden takes the oath 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.120 of office on January. Because we understood, and I think 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.840 Mary was hugely helpful to our understanding of this, is 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.080 that so long as Donald Trump feels personally literally physically 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.960 safe in whatever it is he does, he does not 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.120 care about the outside world. And so he gives that speech. 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:13.240 He watches these people marching, He's sitting in the residents 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:15.360 of White House, He's in a fortress, surrounded by men 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:19.000 and women who are dedicated and you know, promised to 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.080 give their lives on his behalf if necessary. He feels 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.520 no compunction, no compunction whatsoever about what he's seeing. What 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:27.640 is he most upset about that they're not as well 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:29.600 dressed as he'd like them to be. So where do 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.160 we get to this place? Um, first and foremost, it 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.839 starts with the leader. As you know, Steve has a 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.680 lineup of seven pieces of Trump is M that will 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.240 be making more public here as we go forward. But 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:44.680 the point is is that he systematically convinced somewhere between 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.600 a quarter and a third of the country that everything 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.000 he said was correct. You had a bunch of otherwise 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:53.160 probably normal Republicans, as Jennifer can attest to, who just 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.320 decided this the way it was going to go. And 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:57.760 then I think lastly, Um, you know we something we 0:08:57.760 --> 0:08:59.840 were talking about right before we joined the crowd, which 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:03.440 you know you cannot underestimate the effect that Fox oh 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:08.240 in in uh News, Max, Twitter, Facebook especially, I think 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:11.640 Facebook is a is an open sewer pipe into American society. 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.319 All of these places where these folks gathered, where they 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.040 got themselves spun up, where this information, whether or not 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:19.120 was Q and on or whatever it was, went back 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.040 and forth, and ultimately what you saw was a bunch 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.280 of people frankly, and you know, in sort of tech parlance, 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.120 jumped the air gap. They went from social media to 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.480 the real world. And what we saw was January six, 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.640 Will you, Jennifer speak on behalf of the normal Republicans 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:39.000 that read referred to people who might have supported President 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:44.520 Trump because of policy reasons, who weren't necessarily buying into 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:49.120 every aspect of the cult of personality. But we're on 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:53.439 the same page in terms of tax cuts and deregulation 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.000 and stimulating the economy and some of the other positions 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.040 he held. I mean, what percentage of those seventy a 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:04.840 million people constitute people who who felt more aligned policy 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:08.880 wise with this with this former president. Um, I would 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.040 like to believe it was the majority of them, that 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.120 it was a large number of them. Um. I think 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.520 when you know, first of all, I'm no longer a Republican. 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:18.840 You know, a couple of weeks ago, I left the 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:23.080 party and registered as an independent. And the reason was 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.520 it was before January six, But it was what was 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.600 leading up to it that pushed me to make that move. Finally, 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.480 I believe that the majority of the Republicans who voted 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:35.360 for Donald Trump fully reject what happened on January six 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.040 that that is not their headspace, that is not what 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.800 they were looking for. But I think it's really important 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.520 as we, you know, to Read's point, the story of 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.800 how we got here is a long story, and that 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.439 could be a conversation all by itself. But how did 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:50.000 we get to you know, how did we get to 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.640 this moment? How did we have such a rapid deterioration 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.640 over the last four years. It wasn't because of Donald Trump. 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.960 It was because of the Republican Party, the Republican Party 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.760 and the activists and the leaders and the you know, 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.240 the Rona Romney McDaniels of the world, and the state 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.080 party chairs and the state party committees. They gave Donald 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:12.520 Trump a home. They created an arena, a playing field 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.880 for Donald Trump. And they were all in. At any 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:20.600 time at the beginning of Trump's presidency, Mitch McConnell or 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.880 Kevin McCarthy, you know, any group of actual Republican leaders 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.319 could have come together with a show of force, a 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.720 show of political force, and reigned this president in. It's 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.679 the Republican Party that empowered him and that welcomed that 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.480 that you were just talking about. They gave a home 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:43.320 to those people who you know, tore down the American flag, 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.840 who threw um a a a fire extinguisher at a 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:51.760 Capitol police officer, ultimately killing him, who you know went 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.120 in there with the intention. We have to be really 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.720 clear about what happened on the sixth. Their intention, their 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:03.000 vocalized intention, was to will overturn a free, fair, legitimate 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:07.559 American election and kill some of people in the process. 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.920 They hung a noose and went looking for Mike Pence. 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.760 The Republican Party gave those people a home. And what 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.920 we see happening at this moment going forward, even though 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.800 Trump has lost that, you know, that was the party's 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.280 moment to say, Okay, we're going to reset. Instead, they 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:30.440 are fully embracing everything that Trump stood for, and instead 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:32.840 of trying to put it behind them, they are building 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.840 the future of the party on those people who stormed 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.480 the Capitol on January six It seems to me, Steve, 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.480 there was a critical moment that would have allowed more 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:50.040 moderate Republicans to recapture the Republican Party, and that was 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.719 the impeachment vote in the House of Representatives. Now it 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:57.400 was the largest, the most bipartisan impeachment in history, yet 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:03.559 only ten Republicans supported impeachment. M can you help us 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.480 understand and all three of you please weigh in on this. 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:12.480 Some of our elected officials, Republicans who seem so terrified 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:18.120 about speaking out still against Donald Trump. Is it because 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.960 they do not want to alienate his base, They do 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:25.480 not want to be primaried, They want to hold onto power. 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.960 But you know, it's it's it's still shocking to a 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:39.800 lot of people that morality has not um eclipsed political ambition. Well, 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.720 we live in an age of cowardice. Political cowardice in 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:49.440 the extreme, the likes of which, despite politics always being 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:53.200 a business that the American people held in somewhat low 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:57.120 with scheme right, I mean, character of politicians in a 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.960 free republic has always been fair game. And American people 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.960 have always been hard on on their politicians, and that 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.679 in that regard, what we what we have now are 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.880 people that are faithless to the idea and ideals of 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.320 the country and and to their oaths. They live in 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:18.920 terror of being tweeted at by Donald Trump, and so 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.560 they sacrifice over the last four years every principle that 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:24.680 they help. I just want to say something. You just 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.480 go around very quickly the flywheeling. The elements that are 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:32.360 necessary for an autocratic movement to take root. The first 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.160 is the leader, right, Donald Trump is clearly the leader. 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:41.560 Second of the propagandist, the people that rely right and 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:47.520 sustained the leaders lies and turn those lies into lies 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.240 of authority, where what's true is what the leader says, 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:55.640 despite what evidence reputes it, whether that's evidence before your 0:14:55.640 --> 0:15:00.560 eyes or intellectual evidence about the elections, straight lie from 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:05.320 trun Spicer's first lie, inaugural lie to the stolen election line. 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:10.440 Lies of authority that require the suspension of disbelief. Right. 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:14.800 But that's not enough. It's not enough to have the propagandists. 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:18.360 Not enough to have the followers. You need the cynicism 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:22.200 of the elite. You need the Josh Holly's, you need 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:26.000 the Kevin McCarthy's. You need the Ted Cruz, the people 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.960 who are arrogant enough to believe that they can ride 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:34.320 the tiger. Josh Barley has contempted like I can't describe. 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:40.520 For those people that sit outside rest in Viking horns invests, 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:44.880 it's contempt for them. There an ends to a means right. 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.000 But that's not enough. You need to shoot. I have 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:52.000 to go along get along people who accommodate this because 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.680 it's easier. I don't want the Trump people calling me 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.600 right if you can, as Republican members said, well, I'm 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:04.680 getting death threats, then if you can't districtorge your duties, 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:10.320 resigned from your job because you took an oath to 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.960 the Constitution of the United States. But when you when 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:18.320 you look at that fly week, right, the cynicism of 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:22.480 the elites like Holly combined with the sheep gets you 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:24.040 to where we are. And so when you look at 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:28.359 the House now, right, the determinative vote is the January 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:32.000 sixth vote. We're a hundred forty House members voted to 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:37.680 throw out the election. There are reasons that I profoundly 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.600 disagree with them, where people of good faith could differ 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.400 about the question of impeachment in the final weeks of 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:49.240 a president's term, not on the vote on the January sets. 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.440 And so what you have in the House is Liz 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:57.960 Cheney is the leader of the House Conservatives, Kevin McCarthy 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:01.840 as the leader of the House Autocrats. Liz Cheney is 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:05.760 the leader of the Republican Democracy Caucus, which is smaller 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:13.159 than the House Autocracy Caucus. And so this conflict that 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:18.880 Kevin McCarthy seems to be brewing because he's weak in corners, 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:23.320 because Corporate America is walking away from financing any of 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:27.720 these people involved. On that January six vote, right, the 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:33.240 party will get more extreme right in twenty two right, 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:35.520 the Q and On wing of the Republican Party is 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.639 going to roll over the establishment wing like the RMACH 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:42.880 did the Belgian Army in n There are fourth day 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:49.000 parties right growing not shrinking, that are held and controlled 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:54.080 by Q and On people. The Oregon Party, the California Party, 0:17:54.119 --> 0:18:00.239 the Texas Party, the Arizona Party. Like these of the 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.240 Texas Party has Q and On mottos as its motors. 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:08.240 So so so Trump holds the party build the levers 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.800 of power in the party. The state parties are increasingly 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.960 controlled by the conspiracy theorists and the grand roots energy 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.760 of the party. And the people who tend to vote 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.960 in the primaries are the people who believe the election 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:26.840 was stolen. As the next presidential campaign begins, the first 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.119 article of faith used to be you had to go 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:33.520 to Iowa or New Hampshire and establish your conservative bona fighters. 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.480 Now the third requirement of being a serious candidate will 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.440 be to embrace the big line that the election was stolen, 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.680 that Trump was betrayed, He was betrayed by these apostate 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:50.040 Republicans like the Secretary of State and Georgia, the governor 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.240 of Georgia, or the list of their villains betrayed. The 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:55.640 stab in the back theory is always part of this, 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.359 and that's where all of this is going. Buck. Here's 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.040 the good news. It please. There is the good news, 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.840 though that is terrible for the Republican Party. As that 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:11.159 fire consumes the Republican Party. We want it to burn. 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:16.320 Let it burn hot, because the hotter it burns, the 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:20.080 smaller the chances of these people winning a national election 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.480 because they will shrink as part of a national footprint. 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.359 And hopefully over the next six to eight years, this 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:33.720 movement will disappear or be put back underground because it 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:38.280 is brought to electoral submission. We can never lose a 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:43.600 national election to this coalition of people ever again, because 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.760 if we do, it may be the last election we have. 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.160 They don't like them, Okay, Steve hold On free So 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:53.640 Steve is saying it's going to take six to eight 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:58.359 years for this whole movement to burn out, so that means, 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.240 I mean, what is going to happen. A lot of 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.960 people are commenting, Okay, we get it, but what can 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.080 be done about this? If anything, Steve, you made it 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.399 sound like a fat to complete that this this you know, 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:14.280 part of the party is going to continue to rise 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.960 and continue to have more power. Read do you agree? 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.960 And what about the prospect of Donald Trump starting his 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:25.320 own party, the Patriot Party? What impact will that have 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:29.600 on the cohesion within the Republican Party? Could have burned 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:33.600 out faster and could moderates kind of rise up in 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.800 in opposition? Well, I mean, I think I do agree, 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.879 you know, with with what Steve has said. I think look, um, 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:46.920 Rob Portman, senator from Ohio, long long considered a moderate Republican, 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.159 announced that he's not running for reelection. Um. He's not 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:52.480 running for re election for a couple of reasons. Probably 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:54.040 one is because he just doesn't want to hang out 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:56.160 with these people anymore, and who could blame him, And too, 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:58.280 because he probably saw what I think we had seen 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:00.359 for a while, which is he wasn't to win a 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:04.600 primary in Ohio next year. Whoever Trump's chosen candidate was 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:06.920 was going to get all of Trump's support. They would 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:10.520 they would roll over Portman, who is not equipped to 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:14.000 handle a fight like that. And and they're saying Jim Jordan, right, 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:18.040 Jim Jordan's might might he might? But I mean, so 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:20.639 here's some Here's a little bit of good news. Is 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.119 that if if we get truly like q and on 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.400 Maga people running for the U. S. Senate next year 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:28.960 in primaries, and they win, you could have another two 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:30.720 thousand and ten like we saw with the with the 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:33.920 Tea Party, in which these Republicans are so far outside 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:37.119 the mainstream that even regular human beings such as that 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:39.600 we have left won't have anything to do with them. 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:41.600 So I think that that goes to Steve's point about 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:44.119 them burning out. Look, I think the good news here 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:47.119 is I think we should look back to this past election, UM, 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:49.959 at least on Joe Biden's election, which was you know, 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:54.680 eighty million, one million Americans chose Joe Biden. Now there's 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:56.879 a whole bunch of discussion about why these other seventy 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:58.560 four million made the choice they did. But let's stick 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.440 with this. Biden built, you know, one of the largest 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:05.879 broadest and deepest coalitions in American presidential history. UM. I 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:09.760 think what you're seeing is an awakening by many many 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.760 Americans who may not be Republicans or Democrats, are partisans 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:15.439 of any kind, even if they're registered, that we have 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:18.720 taken this for granted for too long. Um that we 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.600 sat back on our heels, We didn't care. We don't 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:23.879 like our politicians, we don't think it matters anyway, my 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.640 vote doesn't matter. Well, it does matter, and I think 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:28.399 you're starting to see that. I think you're starting to 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:32.199 see people of all stripes again, from states and cities 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:35.119 across the country who are now waking up and understanding 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:38.480 that we must take control. I thought it was fascinating 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:41.680 that Josh Holly, who might be the whiniest want to 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:44.359 be dictator that ever lived, second only to Donald Trump, 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:48.040 said that he did not believe that it was American 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:52.719 citizens rights to criticize him as an elected official for 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:54.919 his actions. I mean, if I mean, this guy's a 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:57.760 constitutional attorney. He he clerked for John Roberts at the 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.719 Supreme Court. He is not a stupid guy. He just 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:03.040 as a sensitive guy, and he understood that people started 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:05.719 standing up against him. I think what you've seen with 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:08.679 corporate America running for the hills from these people is 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:13.040 a sign that when Americans can individually and then collectively 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:16.119 stand up. But they can and will take the people 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:18.600 to account that need it. But again, the thing is 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:21.440 we cannot allow is we cannot allow a that these 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:24.800 people to go uh you know, um, they must be 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:28.240 held accountable, uh and be We must keep folks focused 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:30.520 on what it is we're doing, which is we must 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:33.600 must must win in two and we must win in 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:36.760 twenty four, Steve said. He noted Ronald Reagan once said 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:39.840 we're only one generation or generation away from losing democracy. 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:42.760 Were now one election of it. And so is it possible? 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:45.000 It is? Is the fight going to be easy? It's not, 0:23:45.160 --> 0:23:46.919 and it's not going to be sure. Six to eight 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:49.680 years is the short run. Twenty years is the long run. 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:53.479 I mean what we saw here is, um, you know, 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:56.520 Trump let we invited Trump the vampire into the house, 0:23:56.720 --> 0:23:59.320 and he let all the other vampires into the house too. Alright, 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:01.119 we're gonna have to put him all back out again. 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:03.760 And it's going to be race by race, state by state, 0:24:03.880 --> 0:24:06.520 legislature by legislature, and it's going to take all of 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:08.359 us who really believe that none of the rest of 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:11.000 this is possible um, you know when when I mean 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:14.480 America and bending the arc of justice, the ark of 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:17.360 history towards justice and a freer and fairer and more 0:24:17.400 --> 0:24:21.320 equitable America or more prosperous America. If you want those things, 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:23.280 that democracy is the only way, because, as we know, 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:29.960 authoritarianism never leads to that. More with the founders of 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:43.840 the Lincoln Project. Right after this, let's return to my 0:24:43.920 --> 0:24:49.199 conversation with the founders of the Lincoln Project. Jennifer, do 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:52.119 you think I want to ask you about the prospect 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:55.920 of of Donald Trump forming his own party and how 0:24:55.960 --> 0:25:00.919 that changes the equation at all? And secondarily, demographics are 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:04.960 changing significantly in this country. By there's going to be 0:25:05.000 --> 0:25:10.000 a majority minority population. Many of these Trump supporters, uh, 0:25:10.080 --> 0:25:15.000 you know, are older, mostly white. Can you address both 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:18.000 those things, Jennifer. When I was chairman in New Hampshire, 0:25:18.080 --> 0:25:19.240 I used to One of the things I used to 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:21.760 say to, you know, county committees when I was driving 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:23.720