Speaker 1: This is the warning.
Speaker 2: This is Steve Schmidt with the warning, and I have
Speaker 2: some thoughts that I'd like to share about what's going
Speaker 2: on in the country after the terrible assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2: Some of the responses, the online maga mob threatening people,
Speaker 2: the thought policing that we're seeing, and the moral cowardice
Speaker 2: of the MSNBC or ms NOW president who fired Matthew
Speaker 2: Dowd for saying something that is deeply true and is
Speaker 2: important to say. And I think it's very very important
Speaker 2: that we talk about that what Matthew Dowd said. He
Speaker 2: was constantly pushing Charlie Kirk, this sort of hate speech
Speaker 2: aimed at certain groups. And I always go back too.
Speaker 2: Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to
Speaker 2: hateful actions. You can't say these awful words and not
Speaker 2: expect awful actions to take place. They were met with
Speaker 2: swift pushback in condemnation from MSNBC president Rebecca Cutler. She
Speaker 2: said that those words were inappropriate, insensitive, and unacceptable, and
Speaker 2: then went on we apologize for her statements. There's no
Speaker 2: place for violence in America, political or otherwise. I think
Speaker 2: it is very very important that we talk about some
Speaker 2: things with honesty and some integrity. There are three parts
Speaker 2: to what happened been around Charlie Kirk, and I want
Speaker 2: to go through all of them, and I want to
Speaker 2: start in the middle with the murder. And what we
Speaker 2: all saw online was the preciousness of life. And in
Speaker 2: that moment, Charlie Kirk's was obliterated by an assassin. And
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk was a thirty one year old father, and
Speaker 2: he was a husband, and Charlie Kirk had a lot
Speaker 2: of road left in his life. And I don't discount
Speaker 2: the possibility that whatever Charlie Kirk was going to become,
Speaker 2: that from my perspective, much better was among the possibilities.
Speaker 2: I don't know what Charlie Kark Kirk would have become.
Speaker 2: I was stolen by cowards. Act. You should be condemned,
Speaker 2: and that coward did great injury to the cause I
Speaker 2: believe in, which is freedom in the United States Constitution,
Speaker 2: in the United States of America. Because Charlie Kirk didn't
Speaker 2: believe in a lot of the things I believe in.
Speaker 2: The appropriate venue was to debate this, and my side
Speaker 2: is the stronger side of that debate that was weakened
Speaker 2: by this despicable action. I have contempt for the anger
Speaker 2: for it, and I refer all of you to the
Speaker 2: words of Robert Kennedy, who spoke extemporaneously from the back
Speaker 2: of a truck to a mostly black crowd in Indianapolis,
Speaker 2: informing them of the murder of Martin Luther King. And
Speaker 2: he talked about love and we need more love, just
Speaker 2: like we needed more love in nineteen sixty eight. Charlie
Speaker 2: Kirk's legacy is finished. When his life was obliterated, his
Speaker 2: last word was spoken, and that potential, that promise that
Speaker 2: many people saw is gone. There's too much gun violence.
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk's legacy is what Charlie Kirk said, and the
Speaker 2: things that Charlie Kirk stood for were reprehensible. When an
Speaker 2: eighty year old man, the husband of the Speaker of
Speaker 2: the House, was assaulted, Charlie Kirk said Patriot would bail
Speaker 2: out the attacker. He was an apologist for the violence
Speaker 2: against the police officers. On January sixth, I give consideration
Speaker 2: right now to the life of one of the great
Speaker 2: heroes of the country, Benjamin O'Davis, a black man, one
Speaker 2: of the fourth or fifth blacks to ever gra graduate
Speaker 2: from West Point, nobody spoke to him for four years.
Speaker 2: Time becomes the commander of the Tuskegee Airman, four star officer,
Speaker 2: and Charlie Kirk says, when he sees a black pilot
Speaker 2: or a black woman, pilot's not safe to fly. I
Speaker 2: could give you one hundred and anti semitic, racist comments.
Speaker 2: And that's why it is an obscenity that there'd be
Speaker 2: a proposal that Charlie Kirk lie in repose under the
Speaker 2: Capitol don It's deeply inappropriate. That is not a place
Speaker 2: for him. Charlie Kirk never served his country, not for
Speaker 2: a day, not for an hour, not for a minute,
Speaker 2: not for a second. Divided his country. They had a
Speaker 2: guy given right to do so. He was a white nationalist.
Speaker 2: He was a Christian nationalist. He did not believe in
Speaker 2: the American faith. Yet Charlie Kirk had the courage of
Speaker 2: his convictions. He believed in things, and one of the
Speaker 2: things he believed in was we are not all created equal.
Speaker 2: He believed that there is a hierarchy, that some of
Speaker 2: us are more equal than others, and there's a reality
Speaker 2: that that is an evil that brings death, and nobody
Speaker 2: should be intimidated about saying the things that need to
Speaker 2: be said and are true. And so I want to
Speaker 2: respond to something very very directly that was said by
Speaker 2: Donald on the eve of nine to eleven. He said,
Speaker 2: for years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful
Speaker 2: Americans like Charlie Kanazis. This kind of rhetoric is directly
Speaker 2: responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country,
Speaker 2: and I must stop right now. My administration will find
Speaker 2: each and every one of those who contributed to this
Speaker 2: a Trial City and other political violence, including the organizations
Speaker 2: that fund it and support it, as well as those
Speaker 2: who go after our judges and law enforcement officials. If
Speaker 2: I understand what Donald has said, it is this that
Speaker 2: the murder of Charlie Kirk, which I have condemned, was
Speaker 2: not a singular action by a loan assassin who fired
Speaker 2: a rifle and a bullet at a human being. No,
Speaker 2: the murder was a collective act. And the collective act
Speaker 2: was a conspiracy of all of us who object to
Speaker 2: the rising tyranny in the United States, the deployment of
Speaker 2: the military against the people, the deployment of mass men,
Speaker 2: and the right given to them by the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: that says for the first time ever in this country
Speaker 2: that you must show papers, please the indiscriminate violence being
Speaker 2: unleashed against people by the state. That if you oppose this,
Speaker 2: according to Donald Trump, you are part of the conspiracy
Speaker 2: that killed Charlie Kirk. And if you're a part of
Speaker 2: an organization, say the ACLU, say the Democratic Party, say
Speaker 2: the Save America movement, a bulwark subscriber, a contrarian subscriber.
Speaker 2: Maybe you read too much Tara Palmer, then he's going
Speaker 2: to go after you. If you criticize the corrupt Supreme Court,
Speaker 2: well you're complicit in the murder. And so what do
Speaker 2: we know? Like I said, in that terrible instant of
Speaker 2: obliteration of this young man forever more, what happened next
Speaker 2: he definitionally was not part of, couldn't contribute to, had
Speaker 2: no impact on worsening the situation. But immediately in the
Speaker 2: instant when it became known that he had been murdered,
Speaker 2: the worst of the worst. Laura Lumer and Alex Jones,
Speaker 2: neo Nazis Christian nationalist neo Nazi began calls for civil
Speaker 2: war and violence and the killing of their fellow Americans
Speaker 2: for the judgment made by Trump, that we are all
Speaker 2: collectively responsible because we opposed Trump, and we oppose the illiberalism,
Speaker 2: and we opposed his abuses of power, and we opposed
Speaker 2: the stoking of hatreds that have played out NonStop a
Speaker 2: Fox New for many, many years. We're the enemy, We're
Speaker 2: the criminals, and so a mob, a maga mob. And
Speaker 2: I will not take moral lectures from Jesse Waters and
Speaker 2: Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram. These people are liars, These
Speaker 2: people have abused the public. These people serve as sick
Speaker 2: of fans for a accused rapist, an insurrectionist, a convicted felon,
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein's best friend. I take no lectures from these people. None,
Speaker 2: And yet their influence is felt in America's newsrooms. And
Speaker 2: what happened to Matthew Dowd was he was stabbed in
Speaker 2: the back by a woman who is utterly on set
Speaker 2: to be the president of a network, the moral coward,
Speaker 2: and she's succumbed to the mob. And then watching Scarborough
Speaker 2: and mourning Mika Pylon was even more disgusting. Joe Scarborough
Speaker 2: looked his audience in the eye and he said in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four that Donald Trump was a Nazi in
Speaker 2: an election where we now all understand the consequences. Joe
Speaker 2: Scarborough look you all in the eye, sitting at the
Speaker 2: same desk, he condemn Mattthew Dowd from like a coward,
Speaker 2: and he said, if any person believes Joe Biden's not
Speaker 2: at his best intellectually, mentally, physically, then fuck you. That's
Speaker 2: what he said. And so Joe Scarborough gets paid twenty
Speaker 2: million dollars a year or maybe thirty or maybe more
Speaker 2: to lie to you, and Matthew Dowd got fired for
Speaker 2: telling you the truth. Now, what's important to comprehend about
Speaker 2: his firing and what he said. What he said is
Speaker 2: fundamentally the core lesson of the Holocaust. It was l
Speaker 2: Vizel's life message. And these words can't be spoken out
Speaker 2: loud on American television because they offend Donald Trump. Do
Speaker 2: you know why they offend Donald Trump and Maga. They
Speaker 2: offend Donald Trump and Maga because Maga and Donald Trump
Speaker 2: are insiders of violence. And what insiders of violence and
Speaker 2: fascists do at the first opportunity is to use incidents
Speaker 2: to consolidate power with accusations of collective guilt. It was
Speaker 2: with words and images that the Nazis and their adherents
Speaker 2: articulated their extreme anti Semitic hatred and fanned its flames
Speaker 2: with words. They determined all Jews to be their arch
Speaker 2: enemies and blame them for all of the ills of
Speaker 2: society as they perceived them to be. Undoubtedly, without such
Speaker 2: hateful words, the brutal and murderous actions would not have followed. Furthermore,
Speaker 2: it was with words that they justified perpetrating the crime
Speaker 2: of the Holocaust. The United States Holocaust Memorial follows Vad
Speaker 2: Bishem and it says propaganda is a truly terrible weapon
Speaker 2: in the hands of an expert, wrote Hitler in nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty four, when he was a somewhat marginal figure in
Speaker 2: German public life, but he was not marginal to the
Speaker 2: emerging Nazi Party, where he served as its first director
Speaker 2: of propaganda. His insight was how to use its powerful
Speaker 2: messaging and new technologies to build a mass political and
Speaker 2: social movement in the context of German democracy, building a
Speaker 2: fear and resentment coupled with long standing anti Semitism, the
Speaker 2: Nazi Party deployed propaganda to offer a bold new vision
Speaker 2: for Germany. That propaganda help to create a climate that
Speaker 2: embolded the perpetration traders, provided justifications for the collaborators, and
Speaker 2: helped silence the bystanders, all helping to make the genocide
Speaker 2: of the Jews possible. These are the fundamental lessons, fundamental
Speaker 2: lessons of the most important events to ever occur in
Speaker 2: all of human history. Jack Kleiger was a Holocaust survivor.
Speaker 2: This is the living memorial to the Holocaust the Museum
Speaker 2: of Jewish Heritage. When you consider what hate can do,
Speaker 2: you do not have to look for. You bear witness
Speaker 2: to the manifestations of hate in our world today, amid
Speaker 2: rising anti semitism and discrimination against people of all races
Speaker 2: and all faiths. When we speak about the Holocaust, remind
Speaker 2: people that it did not begin with violence. It did
Speaker 2: not begin with concentration camps and ghettos. It began in
Speaker 2: the minds of those who sought the sew division, who
Speaker 2: believed they were better than others. It then escalated into
Speaker 2: words to turn people against each other, and finally it
Speaker 2: spiraled into violence and the death of millions. When we
Speaker 2: say that one must never forget the Holocaust, it is
Speaker 2: because we must never forget how it began, how words
Speaker 2: gave voice to discrimination and led to genocide. As the
Speaker 2: son of a Holocaust survivor, I know well how hate
Speaker 2: speech can lead. They hate for actions. We must ensure
Speaker 2: we never experience another holocaust, So we all have an
Speaker 2: obligation to speak worse and instead lead to peace and
Speaker 2: open promise of a better world. Why is it the
Speaker 2: Yad Vasham and the Holocaust Memorial are built around the
Speaker 2: message for which Matthew Dowd was fired by the president
Speaker 2: of nsnbcis who succumbed to the mob and denounced a
Speaker 2: truth teller and called it news. Why did that happen?
Speaker 2: Why did Rebecca Cutler fire Matthew Dad? Why did she
Speaker 2: capitulate and crumble? Why did that happen? Why did she
Speaker 2: succumb to the mob? And the answer to that question
Speaker 2: is I don't care she did. Matthew dow told you
Speaker 2: the truth when he said too hateful thoughts lead to
Speaker 2: hateful words lead to a forel actions. And the reality
Speaker 2: is is that Charlie Kirk was an apostle of that hatred.
Speaker 2: He was a messenger of division, and the calls to
Speaker 2: turn him in to Maga horsed vessel are deeply inappropriate.
Speaker 2: But that's what's happening. You are seeing a fascist regime
Speaker 2: try to make Charlie Kirk a martyr of the state
Speaker 2: when what he was was a divisive leader of a
Speaker 2: divisive faction of a political movement. Charlie Kirk did not
Speaker 2: serve his country. Laura Ingram does not serve her country.
Speaker 2: She serves Fox News. Fox News is not the American state,
Speaker 2: and these people are some of the most divisive partisans
Speaker 2: there would be when George Wallace survived the assassin's bullet.
Speaker 2: Eddie lived, would it be appropriate to place him in
Speaker 2: repose under the Capital rotunda. It would not. And so
Speaker 2: now this aggression must be confronted because the placement of
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk's body under the Capital Dome is a symbol
Speaker 2: of conquest that the insurrectionists who invaded the space violently
Speaker 2: and who sought to do so to burn down the constitution.
Speaker 2: Those criminals who were pardoned were amongst the first to
Speaker 2: threaten violence in revenge the murder of Charlie Kirk, and
Speaker 2: so they will be able to reassemble under the dome
Speaker 2: that they desecrated to celebrate the life of a person
Speaker 2: who said it was not violence there, it's an inappropriate setting.
Speaker 2: To say the least, there is no outrage over the
Speaker 2: assassination in Maga of State Senator Melissa Wordman. That silence
Speaker 2: is in and of itself a provocative act. Proud Boys
Speaker 2: are violent, the Oathkeepers are violent, the Patriot Front is violent,
Speaker 2: and the neo Nazis are on the march in America
Speaker 2: and they are openly calling for violence against all of
Speaker 2: US Americans in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's death. And
Speaker 2: so I had to test the murder, and I implore
Speaker 2: all of you to to test the murder. And I
Speaker 2: deplore the assassin, and I hope all of you deplore
Speaker 2: the assassin, condemn him. But at the same time, will
Speaker 2: not be intimidated into submission into saying that Charlie Kirk
Speaker 2: stood for the American way of life. He did not.
Speaker 2: He was trying to tear it down. And his words
Speaker 2: leave that record. This moment is unchanged by an assassination
Speaker 2: when it comes to the deep corruption at hand, when
Speaker 2: it comes to the fact that the United States government
Speaker 2: days ago obliterated eleven human beings under nebulous circumstances. To
Speaker 2: say the best and When it was pointed out to
Speaker 2: the Vice President it may be a war crime. He
Speaker 2: responded by saying, I don't give a shit. The cause
Speaker 2: of the escalating political violence and rhetoric in America is
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. It is propaganda to suggest asked there is
Speaker 2: equivalence between some left wing child or not with no authority,
Speaker 2: no power, and the President of the United States and
Speaker 2: his top advice, the most powerful people in the world,
Speaker 2: have on a constant basis over ten years time, threatened
Speaker 2: and threatened, and threatened and threatened and threatened and threatened
Speaker 2: some more. Donald Trump has courted violence, He's stoked violence.
Speaker 2: And now we live in a world where up is down,
Speaker 2: down is up, left is right, right is left. And
Speaker 2: in this Wrwellian world, an honorable man is fired by
Speaker 2: a dishonorable woman because he had the gall to say
Speaker 2: on live television when, by the way, it was completely
Speaker 2: unclear what had happened, and he had not yet seen
Speaker 2: any video. He just knew there were shots fired. And intellectually,
Speaker 2: Rebecca Cut doesn't understand the causation, doesn't understand how it
Speaker 2: was because I saw it clearly in September of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty that if you lie about the outcome of the election.
Speaker 2: If you say it was stolen, that there's an illegitimate government,
Speaker 2: that there's likely to be violence, words to violence. Matthew
Speaker 2: Dowd should get a very good lawyer. That lawyer should
Speaker 2: do everything he can in the discovery process to get
Speaker 2: hold of the emails of panic. They will tell you
Speaker 2: all you need to know about the rot inside of
Speaker 2: MSNBC News is you have that flincher president Rebecca Cutler
Speaker 2: brought to her knees by the Maga mob. And then
Speaker 2: you have the indecency of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brazinski
Speaker 2: attacking this truthteller. The two people who called Trump Hitler,
Speaker 2: lie to the people about Biden run down to mar
Speaker 2: A Lago to get on their knees for trumplive the truth.
Speaker 2: A couple of weeks ago, Joe Scarborough looked the audience
Speaker 2: in the eye after the Alaska summit and he said,
Speaker 2: it was Trump who held all the cards. But there's
Speaker 2: no cost to saying stupid shit on MSNBC and losing
Speaker 2: your job making twenty million dollars a year because he
Speaker 2: definitely lies. He plays the game. Like he said, he's
Speaker 2: on the phone with Donald Trump in the after mathter
Speaker 2: the assassination because Joe Scarborough is so important, he was
Speaker 2: running the Biden campaign off the side of his show,
Speaker 2: And man, what's satisfaction it must give Donald Trump's narcissistic
Speaker 2: ditch to see Joe Scarborough brawling around on the glass
Speaker 2: on his knees in front of him. But Joe Scarborough,
Speaker 2: Amika PRESENTSTI dare to presume did they sit upon some
Speaker 2: type of throne perch where the American people look to
Speaker 2: them for a type of moral guidance? Right? Wrong? About
Speaker 2: what we can say, well, we can think to police
Speaker 2: Matthew Dowd. It's despicable. What Matthew Dowd said is deeply
Speaker 2: true and the cost sometimes of speaking of deep truth
Speaker 2: is what happened to Matthew Dowd. But what happened to
Speaker 2: Matthew Dowd illuminates like a brilliant super nova, the utter
Speaker 2: corruption of the corporate media in America. On MSNBC, there
Speaker 2: are two impregnable gibraltars of integrity. It's Lawrence O'Donnell and
Speaker 2: there's Nicole Wallace. Despicable doesn't begin to describe what was
Speaker 2: said about Matthew Dowd what was done to Matthew Dowd
Speaker 2: by a group of cowards. Let me conclude by summarizing again,
Speaker 2: I will not submit to the idiocracy. And I believe
Speaker 2: that it's necessary to state with perfect conviction and clarity
Speaker 2: three things that in my mind do not oppose one another.
Speaker 2: I'm an American who believes absolutely in the First Amendment.
Speaker 2: I would have liked to debate Charlie Kirk. I'm a
Speaker 2: person who has been targeted by a political extremist enamored
Speaker 2: by Donald Trump, who was sending bombs to people. I've
Speaker 2: dealt with hundreds of death threats. I disdain it, and
Speaker 2: I condemned the murder, but the record is not redeemed
Speaker 2: by the end of a life that was spent dividing.
Speaker 2: He did more cleverly what David Duke did. He was
Speaker 2: condemned by mister Meghan McCain Ben Dominic of Fox News
Speaker 2: as an anti Semite. He dehumanized people, and he's spread conspiracies.
Speaker 2: Watching him be torn into excuse me, watching him be
Speaker 2: turned into Horst Vessel by maga's chilling, and it requires
Speaker 2: the submission by all of us. Intimidated by a mob.
Speaker 2: The silence around their expression that what he stood for
Speaker 2: was noble, and it was not. It was indecent, and
Speaker 2: it was un American. It deserved opposition then, and it
Speaker 2: deserves opposition now. We must all of us who are
Speaker 2: against Donald Trump, be against the lies, against the assassination,
Speaker 2: against the intimidation of the Trump mob, all of it together,
Speaker 2: all at once. Freedom means no person has the right
Speaker 2: to be judge, surey and executioner. It's what makes Stephen
Speaker 2: Miller evil when he says, let's obliterate a boat of migrants.
Speaker 2: It's what makes JD. Vance evil when he says, I
Speaker 2: don't give a shit when somebody points out he doesn't
Speaker 2: have the indiscriminate ability to kill. The man who killed
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk is a version of Stephen Miller. He's a
Speaker 2: little likeman. There's little likemans on the left, and there's
Speaker 2: little likemans on the right. And every good American should
Speaker 2: disdain them, all of them. But every good American in
Speaker 2: this moment who believes in freedom must reject the collective
Speaker 2: guilt imposed by Donald Trump upon all of us. Donald
Speaker 2: Trump concluded after a murder was that he had a
Speaker 2: golden opportunity to make himself more powerful. What I concluded
Speaker 2: after the murder was that a young man had been killed,
Speaker 2: and I prayed for him. The Democrats he reacted to
Speaker 2: this prayed for a young man in his family. They
Speaker 2: didn't do performance theater like Lauren Bobert on the floor
Speaker 2: of the house, or break into hysterics like the whack
Speaker 2: job woman Congressman Marie Luna. Whatever. Here's the deal. George
Speaker 2: Wallace didn't deserve to be shot, but getting shot didn't
Speaker 2: redeem George Wallace and the hatreds that he spread. Sometimes
Speaker 2: terrible things happen to good people, and sometimes they happened
Speaker 2: to bad But no murder for any reason of any
Speaker 2: person is dependent on any person's view of that human being.
Speaker 2: Because the American faith is that that life made in
Speaker 2: the image of God is beyond the comprehension of a
Speaker 2: human being and beyond the power of a human being
Speaker 2: to decide whether it is worthy to take or not.
Speaker 2: We believe that all are created equal and that there
Speaker 2: are no lesser people, and that includes our political opponents,
Speaker 2: no matter how vile we may find their speech. I
Speaker 2: want to say, in conclusion, Matthew Dowd is my friend.
Speaker 2: Matthew Dowd is on substack. I hope every person who
Speaker 2: follows me will subscribe to Matthew Dowd. He is an
Speaker 2: important voice in his country. He is a voice of integrity,
Speaker 2: He is an honest voice. He is an honorable man.
Speaker 2: He is a good father, he is a good friend.
Speaker 2: Happen to him was wrong, and the shift put into
Speaker 2: him was dealt to him in the back by a
Speaker 2: coward who is contemptible. I bet the Cutler should resign
Speaker 2: as the president of MSNBCS has no credibility as a
Speaker 2: news executive. But she's safe in that space because no
Speaker 2: news executives and any of these capitula networks have credibility.
Speaker 2: CBS News is the plaything of the son of the
Speaker 2: richest man in the world. Bob Iger's got no stomach
Speaker 2: for a fight. It's the CEO of Disney. You saw
Speaker 2: their despicable conduct regarding George Stephanopolis. The capitulations of the
Speaker 2: billionaire class for more and more and more and more
Speaker 2: and more. But some of us will not submit to this.
Speaker 2: Matthew Dowd is one of those people, and he deserves
Speaker 2: your respect. I hope you'll follow him and understand that
Speaker 2: in the aftermath of this tragedy. Excuse me, in the
Speaker 2: aftermath of this tragedy, you're saying a rare, rare assertion
Speaker 2: of cynicism at the highest levels, like a perfect game
Speaker 2: in baseball. Charlie Kirk, a racist in life, now martyred
Speaker 2: in death to the cause of his faction, will lie
Speaker 2: by their proposal and state in the place that those
Speaker 2: Maga thugs desecrated during the insurrection. He will be draped
Speaker 2: in the flag that we never saw served his country
Speaker 2: and his ideas were anthma to the values of the country.
Speaker 2: Don't tolerate the gaslighting, my friends, stand up against it.
Speaker 2: I'm Steve Schmidt.
Speaker 1: This is the warning. I invite you to join this community,
Speaker 1: where I promise to be honest, blunt and direct about
Speaker 1: what is happening in this country. America is in crisis.
Speaker 1: Follow and subscribe to this channel and on substack.
Speaker 2: Thank you.