Speaker 1: Welcome to this conversation here on the Warning with Katie Couric,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to turn it over to you right
Speaker 1: away and started Katie's asking the questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I asked.
Speaker 3: I have a lot of questions always, But see before
Speaker 3: we start, maybe you should. I think it might be
Speaker 3: interesting for people joining us to hear a little bit
Speaker 3: about how we know each other and kind of our
Speaker 3: professional history.
Speaker 4: Well we go back.
Speaker 1: When did we first cross, like in the McCain and
Speaker 1: Bush years.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think especially during the McCain campaign.
Speaker 1: And especially during the McCain campaign, and of course the
Speaker 1: very famous Sarah Palin interview that you did, which you know,
Speaker 1: I tell people all these years later, you know that
Speaker 1: everything that was going.
Speaker 4: On in that campaign on that day when that interview came.
Speaker 1: Out, it was literally the third biggest problem of the day, right,
Speaker 1: it was the global economy was collapsing, you.
Speaker 3: Know, right John McCain was Senator McCain was headed to
Speaker 3: DC and right for that emergency meeting, remember, and it
Speaker 3: kind of didn't help him because he didn't see that
Speaker 3: engaged with economic information.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a moment, it was a moment
Speaker 1: in time. I'm still waiting I was I was thirty,
Speaker 1: I was thirty seven when I when I was when
Speaker 1: I was doing the McCain campaign, and I'm fifty four
Speaker 1: now and I'm still waiting for somebody to tell me
Speaker 1: what the unfair question it is that you asked Katie Cork.
Speaker 1: Excuse me that that Katie Cork asked Sarah Palin, that
Speaker 1: you asked Sarah Palin.
Speaker 4: And you know the.
Speaker 1: One thing that people really missed in that moment in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, you asked this question of Paling,
Speaker 1: which is, so what do you read every day? And
Speaker 1: if you're preparing somebody for any type of national interview
Speaker 1: on a presidential campaign, this is just a very early, early,
Speaker 1: early question that you go through. What do you read?
Speaker 1: Was the last book you read? Childhood? Pets? Basic, basic,
Speaker 1: basic stuff. And when Sarah Palin answered that question, it
Speaker 1: wasn't that she doesn't read.
Speaker 4: It was her way of telling.
Speaker 1: You to go fuck yourself, right, you know from a
Speaker 1: and so you when you live by that creed, right,
Speaker 1: you see what happens. So at any rate, right, it
Speaker 1: was a grievance based answer. And I remember when the
Speaker 1: campaign ended, and Republicans are out of power, and really
Speaker 1: the locus of the Republican Party switches to Sixth Avenue
Speaker 1: in New York, Roger Ales. Fox News is the new
Speaker 1: head of a party, and Fox News has fundamentally staffed
Speaker 1: the government.
Speaker 4: You these many years later, but you have all these people.
Speaker 1: Who were supposedly serious journalists, independent voices that you know,
Speaker 1: were conservative in their strengths, sitting there.
Speaker 4: In the in the months after the McCain.
Speaker 1: Campaign ends, talking about Sarah Palin is a serious.
Speaker 4: Future presidential candidate.
Speaker 1: They engaged in the pretend with it, and all of
Speaker 1: it takes off from there. Mitt Romney going to get
Speaker 1: Trump's endorsement in twenty twelve.
Speaker 4: Trump is a buffoon. You lived in New York, I
Speaker 4: grew up in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: No one wanted Trump's endorsement for any serious purpose. What
Speaker 1: what Trump did was tapping into this racist current in
Speaker 1: the party on the Birther strain. And John McCain was
Speaker 1: appalled by it and condemned it, and Romney tried to
Speaker 1: exploit it. And so everybody made their accommodations one step
Speaker 1: at a time over many, many.
Speaker 4: Many years.
Speaker 1: And I literally you could unpack, you could unpack sixteen
Speaker 1: years of comments of mine without contradiction right from the
Speaker 1: first instance, going back to and my attitude on this
Speaker 1: was always she failed at a performance level, at a
Speaker 1: character level, was a terrible pick. But there was no
Speaker 1: unfairness against hers, no conspiracy against her. There was a
Speaker 1: conspiracy of stupidity that erupted after the fact in defense
Speaker 1: of her. And so we have journeyed many miles down
Speaker 1: the proverbial river over this last two decades to this
Speaker 1: to this moment where we are now. But you know,
Speaker 1: will always be bound up by this. In all you did,
Speaker 1: you were the third major anchor right to interview her,
Speaker 1: but you are the one who asked questions that revealed
Speaker 1: an aspect of her character that people are still talking
Speaker 1: about twenty years later, basically. And and the last thing
Speaker 1: I'll say about it is, there's so few of those
Speaker 1: types of interviews that are so necessary for the American
Speaker 1: people to see that take.
Speaker 4: Place at all. I mean, I think I could count.
Speaker 1: On the I can count on my hand right the
Speaker 1: number of interviews that that Trump has had that have
Speaker 1: had deeply been deeply revealing interview.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting, Steve, because I was thinking about
Speaker 3: Bill Crystal the other day and he was well I
Speaker 3: think about him a lot because I read the Bulwark
Speaker 3: and what they're doing, and he was one of Sarah
Speaker 3: Kalen's early supporters. I remember reading that he was really
Speaker 3: taken by her. And I wonder how you think the
Speaker 3: Tea Party movement led to the MAGA movement, because I
Speaker 3: think there is a pretty direct line, is there not
Speaker 3: from what was happening in that two thousand and eight
Speaker 3: campaign and Donald Trump sort of taking the mantle of
Speaker 3: this disenfranchised, grievance written party, you know, portion section of
Speaker 3: the party.
Speaker 1: So let's take a let's take a leap forward from
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight to two thousand and sixteen. And
Speaker 1: the craziest answer did anybody give to a.
Speaker 4: Question is Jeb Bush?
Speaker 1: Now, think about this right whole campaign? Donald Trump in it,
Speaker 1: Gold Medal winner. Craziest answer to a question. Jeb Bush
Speaker 1: gets it, keeps it for all time. I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: you what it is. But even before we get there,
Speaker 1: think about how insane it seems like Jeb Bush looked
Speaker 1: into the mirror and came away with the conclusion that
Speaker 1: there's going to be a third member of the Bush
Speaker 1: family that was elected to office of the President of
Speaker 1: the United States, that his father was on a national
Speaker 1: ticket in eighty and eighty four and eighty eight and
Speaker 1: ninety two, and then his brother in two thousand. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, he was going to be on
Speaker 1: a national ticket in twenty sixteen. It's extraordinary, Hubrius. It
Speaker 1: was rejected by the country right at a fundamental level.
Speaker 1: We don't talk about this with regard to Secretary Clinton,
Speaker 1: and that was an aspect of it. Are we really
Speaker 1: going to elect somebody's spouse after they had been president
Speaker 1: for eight years, or somebody's or somebody's brother. But at
Speaker 1: any rate, jet Bush has asked a question, knowing then
Speaker 1: what we know now, would we have invaded Iraq again?
Speaker 1: And jet Bush answers he says, oh, yes, absolutely, the
Speaker 1: world is much safer. And Trump looked at him and
Speaker 1: was basically like, you were nuts, And that's dishonest.
Speaker 4: And so you have.
Speaker 1: Trump on a constant basis finds himself in situations as
Speaker 1: the world's most prolific liar, and I mean that literally
Speaker 1: where in politics he's viewed in these exchanges.
Speaker 4: As the more honest of the candidates.
Speaker 1: So the Key Party movement embraced this noxious birther racist
Speaker 1: lie and has all of these toxic elements. But the
Speaker 1: Democrats have never been able to comprehend, though they're going
Speaker 1: to in this next election, that the key party movement
Speaker 1: at its core was a reaction to the Bush presidency.
Speaker 1: It was a reaction to the spending. It was a
Speaker 1: reaction to the bailouts, it was a reaction to the
Speaker 1: lost Wars. And so what Trump did is burned down
Speaker 1: an institution at the grassroots of the party felt had
Speaker 1: been betrayed by the weakness of its elected leaders. And
Speaker 1: so in two thousand and nine, the Republican Party is
Speaker 1: in the position that Democrats are now. They are in
Speaker 1: the minority in the Senate, in the minority in the House.
Speaker 1: And what happens the locus of the party.
Speaker 4: Moves to a television studio.
Speaker 1: And Roger Als is the most powerful person politically in
Speaker 1: the country. Every single Republican that today is terrified of Trump,
Speaker 1: was terrified of Ales until Trump steamrolled Aales.
Speaker 4: Roger Als made.
Speaker 1: A move on Donald Trump during that campaign in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: after Donald Trump had said Megan Kelly was bleeding out
Speaker 1: of our eyes, and Roger Ales had basically said, well
Speaker 1: that's enough.
Speaker 4: We're not going to tolerate that.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to let one of our stars be
Speaker 1: abused by this guy. He's made a run. So this
Speaker 1: is New York politics, my boss on my boss, so
Speaker 1: to speak. And Roger Ales proverbially wound up like Costelano
Speaker 1: outside of Sparkstate House, with the proverbial Trump sitting in
Speaker 1: the car with Sandy the bullnecks to him. And that's
Speaker 1: and that's what happened, and and so and so you
Speaker 1: have the fusion of the party and the network into
Speaker 1: what I would argue now, I mean, I don't there's
Speaker 1: no real debate about this in my mind anymore. It's
Speaker 1: you know, when I every time we might have talked
Speaker 1: about this once that I've used the word fascist, you know,
Speaker 1: it's always with some trepidation because I want to be precise.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be hyperbolic. I want I want
Speaker 1: to be I want to be precise and pactful in
Speaker 1: my use of language. And he is a fascist, and
Speaker 1: and and I've been right about that, and so we've
Speaker 1: we've gone on a long journey over over seventeen years
Speaker 1: from that moment to this moment. And it's all and
Speaker 1: it's all deeply connected together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you and I had a pretty dark
Speaker 3: conversational election night, and I'm just curious, now, six months later,
Speaker 3: is it worse than you ever believed it would it
Speaker 3: would be, Steve?
Speaker 2: Or did you predict this?
Speaker 1: I predicted it. I predicted the violence before the twenty election.
Speaker 1: I predicted that Trump could be the nominee from the
Speaker 1: moment he came down the escalator. I predicted it spot on.
Speaker 1: But predicting it and knowing it is different than experiencing it.
Speaker 1: And so what you realize when you're experiencing this and
Speaker 1: you're seeing masked federal Gestapo, and that's what it is.
Speaker 1: Purposeful use of these masks would still fear amongst the
Speaker 1: people and the government of the people, by.
Speaker 4: The people, for the people.
Speaker 1: The consequences of what Joe Biden did and a small
Speaker 1: team of people around him have been profound. The people
Speaker 1: who got online to be in support of that delusion
Speaker 1: did a tremendous amount of damage to predicted it at all.
Speaker 4: But you know, there's a saying.
Speaker 1: The years are long, the days are long, but the
Speaker 1: years are short, and so there's a lot of long
Speaker 1: days right now. And what you realize is that we
Speaker 1: grew up certainly during times of momentous events. You were
Speaker 1: on the air during September eleventh, World War two. When
Speaker 1: we've experienced it, we've experienced it at three hour movies,
Speaker 1: and we always know how it's going to end. But
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty nine in London, or in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: or nineteen forty one, the days where the same length
Speaker 1: they are today.
Speaker 4: And I don't know what's going to happen next.
Speaker 1: But I have a lot of faith that, knowing the
Speaker 1: history of the country, that the country is very resilient.
Speaker 1: The American people are slow to anger and slow to rise,
Speaker 1: but are not inclined to tolerate the things that we're
Speaker 1: seeing happen. And I think it'll be massively repudiated in
Speaker 1: the end. I think it's going to be right a
Speaker 1: period of renewal that that follows this, that is that
Speaker 1: is pretty pretty profound, right, pretty pretty important, And if
Speaker 1: there's a big, big fight coming in the country, and
Speaker 1: it's going to be exciting to be part of it.
Speaker 3: Somebody named Deborah Johnson just commented what did Steve say
Speaker 3: about Biden? And it did want me to dig into
Speaker 3: Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's book with You. You know
Speaker 3: it has been and gosh controversial, to say the least.
Speaker 3: I interviewed them. I guess it was last week or
Speaker 3: the week before in Washington, and a lot of people
Speaker 3: were very angry at them for writing this book. I
Speaker 3: know it's been actually I think exploited by right wing
Speaker 3: media in a way that I don't think they intended.
Speaker 2: But what did you think of the book? What do
Speaker 2: you think of.
Speaker 3: Exploring and examining this inner circle and President Biden and
Speaker 3: First Lady Jill Biden and their decision to stay in
Speaker 3: the race.
Speaker 2: And do you think there's room to.
Speaker 3: Legitimately analyze and even criticize their actions?
Speaker 4: Oh? I think that what they did is the is
Speaker 4: somebody just.
Speaker 3: Wrote bad timing. Tapper dumbass. That's the kind of comment.
Speaker 1: What I would say. What I would say, Well, let
Speaker 1: me you had an incapacitated president.
Speaker 2: I think that's been a little hyperbolic. Steve President.
Speaker 1: Advisors quoted in they said President's not ready to function at.
Speaker 4: Two a m.
Speaker 2: Well, that's true. I don't know. Limited Limited.
Speaker 1: Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson alleged conspiracy.
Speaker 4: There was no conspiracy. Right excuse me. They alleged cover up.
Speaker 1: Right there, there was no cover up, because everything happened
Speaker 1: in plain sight and it was patently obvious.
Speaker 4: I thought Dean Phillips saw it, George Clinton.
Speaker 1: The Democratic, the Democratic members of Congress saw it. And
Speaker 1: so what Jake Copper details are the extraordinary.
Speaker 4: Actions of five people.
Speaker 1: Who put themselves in their power and Biden's ambition for more,
Speaker 1: his wife's ambition for more ahead of the country, and
Speaker 1: they created a disastrous situation. Joe Biden promised to be
Speaker 1: a transitional president and implied strongly he would serve one
Speaker 1: term from the Geck. They used Trump as the rationale
Speaker 1: for Biden to break that promise, under the delusion that
Speaker 1: only Biden could be Trump, when in fact Biden was
Speaker 1: probably the only Democrat who could lose to Trump. And
Speaker 1: the people that are responsible for that are Mike Donald
Speaker 1: and Steve Verschetti and Joe Biden and Done and her husband.
Speaker 1: The president was manipulated. He wasn't shown the poll numbers.
Speaker 1: He didn't know what his standing was in the race.
Speaker 4: He didn't know that he was never ahead, not for
Speaker 4: a day.
Speaker 1: Those people lied to the Democratic Party, They lied to
Speaker 1: the American people. And over and over again they said,
Speaker 1: they said that they were ahead, and they were not.
Speaker 1: And so what happened in the election was the most
Speaker 1: prolific liar and the most dangerous man in American history
Speaker 1: was elected narrowly because he was viewed as more honest
Speaker 1: about Biden's health and fitness, about the border, and about
Speaker 1: the economy. And so the Democrats shouted down anybody that
Speaker 1: told the truth about this, me included, and they assassinated
Speaker 1: their characters, and they canceled the New Hampshire primary, all
Speaker 1: of it, all of it and a nakedly blatant partisan
Speaker 1: attempt to put his interests ahead of the countries at
Speaker 1: an existential moment, and the country repudiated it. And any
Speaker 1: person who was materially involved in it who thinks that
Speaker 1: they're going to be on the ticket in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: eight or that, in Chuck Schumer's words, we just moved forward,
Speaker 1: and that there's no accounting for that. Donald Trump, as
Speaker 1: bad as he is doing and the terrible things he's doing,
Speaker 1: is far more popular than the Democratic Party. Why the
Speaker 1: brand of chattered. It's broken because of the gas lighting
Speaker 1: and because of the lie. But the omission in the
Speaker 1: Tapper book is the media role. And so you have
Speaker 1: someone like like jos Barbara, who's on the record saying,
Speaker 1: every single person who comes on my show says one
Speaker 1: thing on camera and something else off camera. What they
Speaker 1: said on camera was this was the best biting ever,
Speaker 1: and what they said off camera is I can't believe
Speaker 1: he's running again. So there was a conversation that took
Speaker 1: place off camera between the most powerful people in the
Speaker 1: country and the media, and another one that took place
Speaker 1: off camera that the American people didn't get to see.
Speaker 3: So that was really I think, I was going to say, Steve,
Speaker 3: I think it was really uncomfortable for a lot of
Speaker 3: journalists too. I'm not I'm not justifying it, but I think,
Speaker 3: you know, people forget journalists are human beings, and I
Speaker 3: think it was very uncomfortable for them to question Joe
Speaker 3: Biden's metal acuity or decline. And I think it's sort
Speaker 3: of like asking your father to give you the car keys, right,
Speaker 3: and then when any suggestion was made, like David apselrod
Speaker 3: right was one of those people who spoke pretty openly
Speaker 3: about this. George Clooney as someone just said they would
Speaker 3: get so pummeled. But I think you're right. I'm not,
Speaker 3: as I said, I'm not justifying it. I think there
Speaker 3: was there should have been more focus. And I asked
Speaker 3: Jake when I interviewed him, do you think the fact
Speaker 3: that Fox News was sort of mocking and belittling and
Speaker 3: kind of very cruelly And one might argue how people
Speaker 3: treat Trump in that way too, but how they were
Speaker 3: cruelly portraying Joe Biden is tripping and losing, you know,
Speaker 3: his way on a stage or falling off of you know,
Speaker 3: you know, tripping on something that it almost something internally
Speaker 3: made you discount it in a way. I thought that
Speaker 3: was sort of interesting because I think sometimes we forget
Speaker 3: about sort of the human emotional impact that sometimes these
Speaker 3: issues have on reporters.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, we have we have in this country a
Speaker 1: total collapse of trust in the media. It's so bad
Speaker 1: that your average person doesn't believe it's possible to know
Speaker 1: what's real by consuming it. Right, So we live in
Speaker 1: a country fundamentally where right there is no reality anymore.
Speaker 1: There's a bit of battle that's gone on in this
Speaker 1: space between the lie and the truth. It's wrestling out there,
Speaker 1: and you know, the lie is prevailing in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways.
Speaker 4: But I just.
Speaker 1: Fox is extreme and dishonest. Scott Jennings works for CNN.
Speaker 1: How did we get here? So Jay Tapper is not
Speaker 1: going to talk about the CNN fight music, before the
Speaker 1: Trump town hall, before the glorification of Trump. Right, the
Speaker 1: entire premise of the New York Times coverage has been
Speaker 1: that Maggie Haberman is an exceptional reporter, uniquely positioned, a
Speaker 1: Trump whisperer. Entire millions of dollars of brand campaigns alone,
Speaker 1: she can interpret. And in the end, I guess they
Speaker 1: missed the lead, which is that he's a pretty dangerous fascist,
Speaker 1: which some of us have.
Speaker 4: Seen coming for a long time.
Speaker 1: And so in the end, everything that I said that
Speaker 1: would happen if Biden ran for a second term happened.
Speaker 1: I said it in twenty one, I said it in
Speaker 1: twenty two, and a lot of people have been brutalized
Speaker 1: by lying, by powerful interest in the party.
Speaker 4: Right there's you know, the media tells the.
Speaker 1: Country that the two parties have nothing in common.
Speaker 4: They have something in common.
Speaker 1: Yet eighty five percent of the country looked at a
Speaker 1: Biden Trump rematch and said we don't want and the
Speaker 1: leadership of the two major parties was well, that's the
Speaker 1: choice you're going.
Speaker 4: To get, and it created disaster.
Speaker 1: And so so what I would say to some people
Speaker 1: that are out there, you know, whether it's Cheryl, you
Speaker 1: are a Republican and I don't know Cheryl, or an
Speaker 1: apology for being a Republican a party that I left
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eighteen on a matter of integrity
Speaker 1: and conviction because the party left me on these on
Speaker 1: these core issues. But two party system, what party is
Speaker 1: it that Trump beat? And why did they beat it?
Speaker 1: Why did so many people who voted for Barack Obama
Speaker 1: suddenly turn raisist and vote for Trump? Right in the
Speaker 1: estimation of so many of the leading experts of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. So we have a situation where we're approaching
Speaker 1: the last chance elections.
Speaker 4: Can we go?
Speaker 2: Before we talk about the future, I just want.
Speaker 3: To ask you one one more question about the whole
Speaker 3: Biden sort of reevaluation. Do you think if Joe Biden had,
Speaker 3: in fact, as he said, I was going to I'm
Speaker 3: going to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders,
Speaker 3: and had made clear maybe halfway through his presidency, granted
Speaker 3: he would have been laying Duck and said I'm not
Speaker 3: going to run, and a primary process could have happened,
Speaker 3: Steve and the American people, even if they didn't know,
Speaker 3: some of these names, could have, through a series of
Speaker 3: debates and public appearances, etc. Been exposed to a new
Speaker 3: slate of candidates. Do you think, and again, this is
Speaker 3: pure speculation that Donald Trump would have been defeated by
Speaker 3: whoever emerged as the strongest candidate in that process.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Donald Trump was a historically weak candidate who beat
Speaker 1: the only Democrat that he could beat, and that was
Speaker 1: and that was Biden. And I think Vice President Harris
Speaker 1: deserves a great deal of credit. I think he performed
Speaker 1: at the highest deceivable level that she's able to perform
Speaker 1: at in a political campaign with.
Speaker 4: A terrible with a terrible hand of cards.
Speaker 1: But every person around Biden saw the diminished capacity, and
Speaker 1: every person who said, hey, he ought to be president
Speaker 1: un till he's eighty six, who was reckless.
Speaker 4: And it has opened the gates.
Speaker 1: To the gravest threat to country faces since the Civil War.
Speaker 1: And so now right the idea that those saying people
Speaker 1: who shouted everybody down get to say, now conversations over,
Speaker 1: We'll tell you who's going to run next time?
Speaker 4: Absolutely not, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: And so there are some great young Democrats who have
Speaker 1: no attachment to this, who are unencumbered, untainted by it,
Speaker 1: did not gasolate the country. And those are the people
Speaker 1: that are the future of the Democratic Party, not the
Speaker 1: people that are part of this.
Speaker 3: Who are some of the people who you're looking at
Speaker 3: in terms of twenty twenty eight. I know that Pete
Speaker 3: Buddhajet's just announced he's not going to run for Senate
Speaker 3: so he can focus on potentially running for president in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty eight?
Speaker 2: Are there other candidates on.
Speaker 3: The horizon that give you real's hope?
Speaker 4: I look at somebody.
Speaker 1: So first off, I could I think we have to
Speaker 1: reject the idea as a first principle that the predicate
Speaker 1: to be elected president requires you to serve in the
Speaker 1: Senator as governor? Is this does not serve the country. Well,
Speaker 1: this graduate school approach that you want to get into.
Speaker 4: Harvard law, well you got to go to Harvard and
Speaker 4: then to you know, the right high school. Nonsense.
Speaker 1: So, in the Biden episode, against the entirety of the
Speaker 1: elected leadership of the Democratic Party, people who showed real
Speaker 1: integrity and real character, start with George Clooney, I start
Speaker 1: with Dean Phillips. Now, when I look at somebody who
Speaker 1: was who was on my program, and I asked him
Speaker 1: a question, I said, if you were president, what would
Speaker 1: you do? Jake Auchincloss, who is a congressman, a Rhodes scholar,
Speaker 1: and a Marine officer, knows exactly what he would want
Speaker 1: to do as president. Aot has a thirty percent national
Speaker 1: approval level, thirty percent. If she gets that up, she
Speaker 1: could be a formidable candidate. She could be a formidable
Speaker 1: candidate in the Democratic primary. But is somebody with a
Speaker 1: thirty percent approval level going to be the person to
Speaker 1: lead the party out of the wilderness?
Speaker 4: Is the party is the country?
Speaker 1: Is trying to say something to Democrats looking for a
Speaker 1: socialist from the bronx.
Speaker 4: So JB.
Speaker 1: Prisker, Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro, the governors. Gavin Newsom put
Speaker 1: himself in the position as being one of the chief
Speaker 1: gas writers for Joe Biden. He Gavin Newsom's position on
Speaker 1: this was, Hey, I was loyal to Biden, and that's
Speaker 1: what matters. You weren't loyal to the country when it mattered, right,
Speaker 1: and you lost your credibility, and so in order to
Speaker 1: beat Trump, it requires the ability to be honest, to
Speaker 1: tell the truth about the orgy of corruption going on.
Speaker 1: When Chuck Schumer comes out and he says, after Menendez
Speaker 1: is arrested with the gold bars in his jacket, that hey,
Speaker 1: Menendez was a great public servant for the people in
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Right, So what we have is a sort
Speaker 1: of tribal warfare between these d people and the RPP.
Speaker 1: And none of the people were with us, by the way,
Speaker 1: or invited in.
Speaker 4: Any of these rooms.
Speaker 1: Right, They're not represented, and so they deserve to be
Speaker 1: told the truth. And when you look at the Jake
Speaker 1: Tapper book, you know, the fundamental mistruth of the Tapper
Speaker 1: book is that Tapper says, well, this is worse than Watergate,
Speaker 1: which I guess makes Tim Bob Woodward, except for there
Speaker 1: was no cover up, because everything that happened happened in
Speaker 1: plain sight. There was a conspiracy of people strong arming
Speaker 1: any descent and cracking down.
Speaker 4: On the statement of obvious.
Speaker 1: So all the Democrats who looked at Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: the Republicans were total disdain And.
Speaker 4: I didn't stay in line. I got out of line.
Speaker 1: So the day that Trump came down the escalator. When
Speaker 1: I denounced them, every single Republican was with me. When
Speaker 1: I look around from every person I ever worked with
Speaker 1: for my entire career, the Republican pray all of them.
Speaker 1: Every thousands of people, there's like four or five left?
Speaker 4: Do you have five left?
Speaker 1: And the Democrats watching that did the same exact thing
Speaker 1: with Biden. They all got online with something they knew
Speaker 1: was ab third and delusional.
Speaker 3: And thank you Winter brightly like Jatie speak, No, I
Speaker 3: catch your point, and I you know, speaking of moving forward, Steve,
Speaker 3: do you think we're hearing rumblings by Republicans about the
Speaker 3: budget bill? You know, Josh Holly and Susan Collins and
Speaker 3: Ran Paul is worried about the deficit. And then there's
Speaker 3: this little known part. I was just talking to Joyce
Speaker 3: Vance about this hidden provision that says that it will
Speaker 3: limit the judiciary's ability to use contempt of court rulings
Speaker 3: to actually force an issue on anyone, including perhaps the
Speaker 3: President of the United States. Do you think that bill
Speaker 3: is going to pass? And do you think any Republicans
Speaker 3: are going to grow a pair? Finally, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but but I would, it's astonishing to
Speaker 1: conceive of of the question.
Speaker 4: And let's use Rand Paul as a as a specific example.
Speaker 1: And so however, Ran Paul has been a long however
Speaker 1: long Ram Paul has been around. Now, right, what's the shick? Right,
Speaker 1: I'm a constitutionalist. The Bill of Rights spending, spending, spending.
Speaker 1: So I'm a moderate Republican, always have been, which means right,
Speaker 1: the moderate Republican, by by path definition, is the most
Speaker 1: fiscally conservative person in the country. So I like the
Speaker 1: spending restraint as an argument. It's why I'm a It's
Speaker 1: why I was a Republican. So here's the difference between
Speaker 1: a million and a billion and a trillion, So you
Speaker 1: understand the five trillion dollar debt that they're talking about
Speaker 1: adding in this bill. If I say to you, Katie,
Speaker 1: let's we'll meet up in a million seconds, that's in
Speaker 1: twelve days. If I say let's meet up in a
Speaker 1: billion seconds, we will see each other in thirty three years.
Speaker 1: If I say we will meet up in a trillion seconds,
Speaker 1: that's a thirty three thousand years.
Speaker 4: That's the difference.
Speaker 2: When did you spend the time figuring that out?
Speaker 1: That's the difference between a billion and a trillion, and
Speaker 1: they're adding five trillion of debt. Never before has so
Speaker 1: much been taken from so many.
Speaker 4: By so few, with so much.
Speaker 1: And if you care about the idea that we shouldn't
Speaker 1: completely bankrupt the country for our kids, if that strikes
Speaker 1: you as a moral chord, right, that like when you
Speaker 1: die at a personal level, right, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: leave my kids a giant mountain of credit card debt
Speaker 1: and the amount of stealing from our kids future with this,
Speaker 1: with this piece of legislation, there's no there's there's never
Speaker 1: been anything like it.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 1: It's the most corrupt, single piece of legend in the
Speaker 1: history of the American Republic in two hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1: Any person who has who has any attachment whatsoever to
Speaker 1: like a conservative trinciple, one thin thread of attachment left
Speaker 1: right to the size of government, right to restraint, to
Speaker 1: fiscal order and management, cannot conceivably.
Speaker 4: Consider voting for this.
Speaker 1: But they will because it's a rubber stamp, and it's
Speaker 1: a pile bureau and it's extraordinary to watch it all unfold.
Speaker 2: And do you think it'll be stopped? Do you think
Speaker 2: it'll be stopped? Steve?
Speaker 4: I think I don't know.
Speaker 1: I honestly, I honestly don't know. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I still don't understand. How you look. Three years ago,
Speaker 1: I said, Marco Rubio is the type of guy in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine in QBA he would have been carrying
Speaker 1: Castro's coat, which is exactly what he turned out doing,
Speaker 1: except Castro's Trump he got ninety nine votes in the
Speaker 1: Democratic Senate and Pete Headseth got confirmed, Pulsy Gabber got confirmed,
Speaker 1: Robert Kennedy got confirmed, and it's astonished. So if those
Speaker 1: people could get confirmed, is it possible that bill could pass?
Speaker 4: It is possible. But what it will do is trigger.
Speaker 1: A level of pain and suffering, collapse of rural health
Speaker 1: services and hospitals, a great taking of public lands.
Speaker 2: Food for kids, food for a hungred kids.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean it's and it's terrible and it's
Speaker 1: going to be real devastating. And the problem politically is
Speaker 1: still right, you have to win an election, and the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party, because it's anchored to this Biden insanity, can't
Speaker 1: move on.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe they will, maybe they can, maybe someone and
Speaker 3: so so.
Speaker 4: So that's so that's the question.
Speaker 1: You have to you have to be able to win,
Speaker 1: you have to have credibility.
Speaker 3: Hay, Steve, before we go, you know, it's interesting. I
Speaker 3: was watching something somewhere. I watch so much and read
Speaker 3: so much I can't I don't even remember. But there's
Speaker 3: this guy named Lawrence Britt, and apparently this poster was
Speaker 3: available at the Holocaust Museum. But it was the early
Speaker 3: warning signs of fascism. I'm sure you've seen this. This
Speaker 3: was written in two thousand and three after this. Lawrence
Speaker 3: Britt wrote it after researching seven fascist regimes Hitler's Nazi
Speaker 3: germanying with Selini's Italy, Franco Spain, Salassar's Portugal, Papadopolis is Greece,
Speaker 3: and Pinochet's Chili Sarto's Indonesia.
Speaker 2: So here are the warning signs.
Speaker 3: And I just want to go down really quickly and
Speaker 3: just give me a yes or no with a short
Speaker 3: statement about each of them. Powerful and continuing nationalism.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, disdain.
Speaker 3: For human rights, identification of enemies as a unifying cause.
Speaker 2: You bet who are the enemies?
Speaker 1: Steve Trump talks about the ubiquitous day all the time.
Speaker 4: There's always a day in the day.
Speaker 1: Is a phantom and amorphous ghost that transit, the corporate space,
Speaker 1: the media space. Any anybody who is opposed to Trump
Speaker 1: is a part of the insidious day and.
Speaker 4: To be targeted.
Speaker 1: And you hear the words that he uses that people
Speaker 1: are scum, or they're sick, or they're deranged, or they're nasty,
Speaker 1: that every criticism results in a full on character attack.
Speaker 1: For example, Scott Pelley, if you tell the truth, you
Speaker 1: are attacked because in the end, right, this is a
Speaker 1: fear based system and truth tellers require fearlessness, and so
Speaker 1: the truth and fearlessness are always married in a way
Speaker 1: that's a threat.
Speaker 4: To the fascists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think the vilification of DEI is another
Speaker 3: way of you know, weaponizing or demonizing, you know, people
Speaker 3: of color, trans people, anyone who and you know, may
Speaker 3: not be a white person in America, a white Christian
Speaker 3: person in America.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 2: Supremacy of the military absolutely.
Speaker 1: Kim Jong Un parade on the June fourteenth, two hundred
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of the US Army, greatest dessecration in the
Speaker 1: history of the US Armed Forces, two hundred and fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the US Army to Trump parade.
Speaker 4: It's just great.
Speaker 3: It's so gross and I can't believe. I guess they
Speaker 3: have no choice.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 2: They have to demander.
Speaker 1: He's the commander, he's the commander in chief, and he
Speaker 1: wants his parade.
Speaker 3: And isn't it going to cost two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: million dollars?
Speaker 4: I'm sure. And by the way, you know, in my
Speaker 4: entire government career.
Speaker 1: Any time that anybody throws out a number of what's
Speaker 1: going to cost, it is never one time ever cost
Speaker 1: less than that amount. It always costs forty percent more
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 3: Rampant sexism, absolutely controlled mass media.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 3: Obsession with national security yep. Religion and government intertwined. What
Speaker 3: we just are seeing in Oklahoma, for example.
Speaker 1: You just thought Pete hegsheth conduct a fundamentalist religious service.
Speaker 2: Wasn't that crazy?
Speaker 1: And it is unconstitutional, It is inappropriate and it is
Speaker 1: no good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead, wait, let me just free They're only
Speaker 2: six more.
Speaker 3: Corporate power protected yep, labor power suppressed yep. Disdain for
Speaker 3: intellectuals and the arts big time. Look at the Kennedy Center.
Speaker 3: Obsession with crime and punishment yep. Rampant cronyism and corruption
Speaker 3: check check fraudulent elections. I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: Yep, perception and reality. I mean, it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be a fraudulent election. But you're listening with the The
Speaker 1: original sin in all of this isn't isn't what the
Speaker 1: people around Biden did. It's it's about the fact that
Speaker 1: you had a guy who lied about.
Speaker 4: The results of a presidential.
Speaker 1: Election and somehow was able to overpower the society's truth
Speaker 1: tellers with the lie and convince half the country that
Speaker 1: an American presidential election that was free and fair and
Speaker 1: nearly pristine was not one of the great tragedies in
Speaker 1: the history of the country.
Speaker 3: So I want to go back to your to your
Speaker 3: earlier thing, just to close things out and to make
Speaker 3: people feel less depressed. You know, you said there is
Speaker 3: going to be what did you say, There's going to
Speaker 3: be a reckoning?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: I think you said that and that this these things
Speaker 3: will not stand in essence. Why are you so confident
Speaker 3: of that, Steve.
Speaker 4: I believe in America. I have faith in the country.
Speaker 1: I have faith in the American people, and I understand
Speaker 1: how it is that Trump won and there's been a
Speaker 1: terrible cost to the politics of self interest and what
Speaker 1: I want to say, you know, to everybody who's making comments.
Speaker 4: I appreciate you so much.
Speaker 1: Getting on taking time out of your taking time out
Speaker 1: of your day, and I want to do everything I
Speaker 1: can try to persuade you of something in the next minute,
Speaker 1: which is that the most powerful people in the world
Speaker 1: are not owed your fandom. They're not owed your fandom.
Speaker 1: Stop stop being a fan, be it, be a citizen.
Speaker 1: And if you read the Jake Tapper book about the
Speaker 1: specifics of what people did, and I've been very critical
Speaker 1: about the book about the omissions about someone like Joe
Speaker 1: Scarborough told his audience after you if you don't believe
Speaker 1: it's the best Biden ever, right, all all of this dishonesty,
Speaker 1: we paid a terrible price for it. In that and
Speaker 1: that and that crisis. Donald is Donald Trump. And the
Speaker 1: idea that there's a good party and an evil maga party,
Speaker 1: it's not true. Uh, there is two dishonest parties. And
Speaker 1: the person who is the demagogue with a preternatural ability
Speaker 1: to lie in the grift is the person in a
Speaker 1: contest of dishonesty that prevailed. And the answer to get
Speaker 1: out of this is to be for better. And so
Speaker 1: there has always been moments of crisis and doubt around
Speaker 1: the fiftieth anniversaries of our independence. It was true at
Speaker 1: the fiftieth anniversary, and it's true at the two hundred
Speaker 1: and fiftieth anniversary. And so the country came within thirty
Speaker 1: seconds of not surviving at Gettysburg.
Speaker 4: And the moment.
Speaker 1: Requires a lot of confrontation right now with some terrible
Speaker 1: ideas from a place of conviction, integrity, and a recognition
Speaker 1: that what Donald Trump is smashing doesn't snap back.
Speaker 4: Into being when it's all over.
Speaker 1: But do we want to live in a country where
Speaker 1: we got guys with masks running around with FBI jackets,
Speaker 1: snatching people off of the streets, spreading fear. And the
Speaker 1: answer to that is absolutely not. And so so what
Speaker 1: do we gotta what do we gotta do we have
Speaker 1: to do is we have to let go of the
Speaker 1: past and specifically fifteen to twenty people who were the
Speaker 1: architects of the political strategy that led to this catastrophe.
Speaker 1: That that's what that's what an opposition has to do.
Speaker 4: And so all.
Speaker 1: Over the country right if you're thinking of running for office,
Speaker 1: run run for Congress, run for the state legislature, I
Speaker 1: think that there's going to be a civic awakening after
Speaker 1: this right, but the idea that you can only see
Speaker 1: the dishonesty when it's committed by the other party and
Speaker 1: not inside your own.
Speaker 4: What Donald Trump has served to power on.
Speaker 1: His hypocrisy, because the one thing Trump is not is
Speaker 1: not a hypocrite. He's utterly transparent. He revels in his thumbbagger.
Speaker 1: He doesn't try to hide it. Trump's never ran as
Speaker 1: a good guy. His run is a tough guy, a
Speaker 1: punisher for the people that ordinary people in this country
Speaker 1: feel so aggrieved at. He is the demagogue that the
Speaker 1: Founders worried about and warned about from the very beginning.
Speaker 4: He came to be.
Speaker 1: If George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were here, right, if
Speaker 1: all the founders were here, and we got ten minutes
Speaker 1: with him, right, and we had to tell him, right
Speaker 1: what happened, how to work out? I mean, we would
Speaker 1: definitely want to show them the flag on the moon, right.
Speaker 1: I would definitely want to show them Barack Obama's picture, right,
Speaker 1: And then I would want to talk to them about
Speaker 1: not the things that they didn't see, but that they
Speaker 1: would understand pretty quickly how they came to be on
Speaker 1: a straight line from the vision and how it expanded.
Speaker 4: I think they'd get that right away. But the thing
Speaker 4: I'd want to talk.
Speaker 1: To them about is that the demagogue that they saw
Speaker 1: in the seventeen eighties Kleon was the Athenian demagogue.
Speaker 4: That's who they were worried about. He's here.
Speaker 1: He rose in over ten years time, beginning with one
Speaker 1: chant that was lock her up. I remember being on
Speaker 1: TV at the time. I said, oh boy, banana republicanism,
Speaker 1: but that's fascism.
Speaker 4: And so how did he get there?
Speaker 1: One step at a time, one day at a time,
Speaker 1: and how are we going to recover out of this
Speaker 1: one step at a time, one day at a time.
Speaker 1: But the American people are going to have to maybe
Speaker 1: a decision, right and they're going to get a vote.
Speaker 1: We get a vote in two years time to either
Speaker 1: say we want a group of people around Trump to
Speaker 1: tell him yes everything.
Speaker 4: He wants to do, or we want.
Speaker 1: To check around this guy. And that's the question. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Six, Steve, I love talking to you, and.
Speaker 4: I love talking to you Katie.
Speaker 3: Anyway, thank you guys for watching. We've taken up a
Speaker 3: lot of time. I've heard that these conversations are both
Speaker 3: supposed to be fifteen to thirty minutes, but I can't
Speaker 3: do that with Steve. You guys, I just we usually
Speaker 3: go on and on, but Steve, take care. Let's talk
Speaker 3: against Good to see.
Speaker 2: It, Good to see you. Bye everyone.
Speaker 4: I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning.
Speaker 1: I invite you to join this community, where I promise
Speaker 1: to be honest, blunt and direct about what is happening
Speaker 1: in this country. America is in crisis. Follow and subscribe
Speaker 1: to this channel and on substaff.
Speaker 4: Thank you,