Speaker 1: Steve Schmidt has advised presidents run game changing campaigns and
Speaker 1: become an eloquent defender of democracy. His writings in the
Speaker 1: Warning newsletter have marked him as a singular voice of
Speaker 1: moral clarity in his generation. And I'm thrilled he's joining
Speaker 1: us tonight our narrative to discuss the trial and the
Speaker 1: upcoming election. And we welcome Steve Schmidt to the show today.
Speaker 2: How are you, Steve, I'm good, Jeff. It's a real
Speaker 2: pleasure to be with you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: It's great to have you here. You know, based on
Speaker 1: the current swing state polling, if the election were held today,
Speaker 1: it does seem to me that Donald Trump could win
Speaker 1: that election. In most of these swing states. He's still
Speaker 1: six points ahead of Joe Biden. Are we looking at
Speaker 1: a likely second administration for Donald Trump?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say likely, but he could win, no question
Speaker 2: about it. And in fact, if you elect for were tomorrow,
Speaker 2: he probably would win. You know, reality is that his
Speaker 2: calculus going into this election is that there's enough indifference
Speaker 2: out there, plus the fanaticism of his base to get
Speaker 2: him over the top. Chris Sanunu was utterly humiliated exposed
Speaker 2: for really level of cynicism that's hard to articulate. With
Speaker 2: George Stephanopolis on Sunday, one of the things the New
Speaker 2: Hampshire governor said is that you know, Trump is supported
Speaker 2: by fifty one percent of the country. That has never
Speaker 2: been the case. It will never be the case. There
Speaker 2: will never be a majority of Americans that support This
Speaker 2: question is can it take power with a minority over
Speaker 2: a majority will And the answer to that question is yes,
Speaker 2: that could happen. And you know, Biden is a weak
Speaker 2: candidate in this race. He has enormous liabilities in the
Speaker 2: campaign because this is a communication business and it's going
Speaker 2: to be a campaign where you know, in the end,
Speaker 2: the American people are going to have to evaluate a
Speaker 2: staggeringly easy choice to make in the context of considerations
Speaker 2: around the destiny of the country. Where we're going, what's happening?
Speaker 2: You know, what is Trump? What is his movement, what
Speaker 2: does it stand for, what does it believe in? Is
Speaker 2: it dangerous? You know, all these questions are now in
Speaker 2: front of the in front of the country who's had
Speaker 2: a rather a naive view about it, you know, for
Speaker 2: much of the last decade, which you know will be
Speaker 2: remembered historically as really the trump eraror. Incredibly, it's gone
Speaker 2: on for almost ten years in America.
Speaker 1: Now, I know it is stunning that amount of time.
Speaker 1: I just think about how long I've been doing this podcast.
Speaker 1: When you think about eight years of your life, and
Speaker 1: it's like eight years of how much time it's to
Speaker 1: deal with Donald Trump. It's just unbelievable. But we talk
Speaker 1: about this evaluation that you point you didn't talk about
Speaker 1: the trials Donald Trump may or may not have to
Speaker 1: deal with. Certainly the hush money cases sort of begun.
Speaker 1: Now the Democrats have a lot of weight invested in
Speaker 1: some sort of criminal outcome changing what Americans decide in November.
Speaker 1: Do you view that kind of optimism that some Democrats have,
Speaker 1: that aviction in this case, the hush money case are
Speaker 1: enough to really push Biden over Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: I've done consulting work on political campaigns all over the world,
Speaker 2: and you go into a different country and they hire
Speaker 2: American consultants, and there's this belief embedded in that hire
Speaker 2: that the American consultant is going to bring some sort
Speaker 2: of magic bullet, right, some sort of elixir into the race,
Speaker 2: some alchemy that just because through presence they're going to win,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't work like that. These criminal cases have
Speaker 2: been at a debacle for the cause of defeating Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Now there's only one of them that is going to
Speaker 2: trial before the election, and that's the one we're in
Speaker 2: right now. There's no question in my mind that the
Speaker 2: lead up to it has benefited Trump enormously. That being said,
Speaker 2: watching him come into the courtroom is a diminishing event.
Speaker 2: You know, this is somebody who is stripped of his trappings,
Speaker 2: is a coutremont. The fact is that he is now
Speaker 2: outside of his rarium, like a fish outside of the tank.
Speaker 2: There is no crowd assembled as in the Mar A
Speaker 2: Lago dining room to stand in a plaud when he appears.
Speaker 2: He is being subjected to the same rules like everybody else.
Speaker 2: And I think he appears a lot like the Wizard
Speaker 2: of Oz, right, you know, unmasked from behind and the screen.
Speaker 2: So we'll see what the accumulation of that is over
Speaker 2: over eight weeks time. I do believe this, and I
Speaker 2: wrote about it today. Presidential campaign, in my view, is
Speaker 2: the greatest non lethal competition in the world period and
Speaker 2: it's a contact sport. The contact that the pebot manifested
Speaker 2: a psychological level. And so you put a picture of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump up on the screen, and the one that
Speaker 2: I gravitated to from yesterday is the image coming through
Speaker 2: the doors. Does he look happy?
Speaker 1: He does not look happy.
Speaker 2: This. Does he look like he's going home with a
Speaker 2: spring in his step to bound through the door at
Speaker 2: Trump Tower to make love to his beautiful Millennia in
Speaker 2: the late afternoon.
Speaker 1: That is not what he appears to be doing, though.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you exactly what he does. He leaves enraged,
Speaker 2: and he goes home and he puts the television on
Speaker 2: and he surveils it, all of it. He watches all
Speaker 2: the jokes made about him for his enemies list, he
Speaker 2: evaluates all of the sycophants that are auditioning to be
Speaker 2: vice president. He's available for flattery from the detritus that
Speaker 2: surrounds him. This is a time where you know where
Speaker 2: he is, what he's watching, And this is when he
Speaker 2: should be visited by the campaign taunting him, mocking him,
Speaker 2: diminishing him, destabilizing him and his team to put him
Speaker 2: off balance. In the end, whoever the person is that
Speaker 2: wins the race is going to be the candidate that
Speaker 2: is able to make the race about the other person.
Speaker 2: In other words, if the race is about you, you
Speaker 2: will be the losing candidate. The race has to be
Speaker 2: about Trump. Incredibly, this massive propaganda apparatus that surrounds Maga,
Speaker 2: manifested in Fox newsmax an all this bullshit has been
Speaker 2: able to destroy Biden's reputation for competence, for probity, for
Speaker 2: rectitude after a lifetime of getting to know the guy.
Speaker 2: It's incredible to watch. It's a huge failure on the
Speaker 2: part of the White House. But this is a Rocky
Speaker 2: Apollo Creed fight. Middle of the ring. The President has
Speaker 2: to debate him, has to face them, and has to
Speaker 2: do the equivalent of knocking this disgraceful, disgusting bully on
Speaker 2: his ass. That's the job that at age eighty two
Speaker 2: Biden has demanded did he gets to do again, and
Speaker 2: so he needs to do it, and we have two
Speaker 2: hundred and two days left form to be able to
Speaker 2: do it in a time of growing momentous crisis in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: Let's as fallow up on some of this stuff, because
Speaker 1: if we have a trial here that ends up in
Speaker 1: a conviction for Donald Trump, what does that do to
Speaker 1: the race versus let's say a hung jury in this.
Speaker 2: Case, I think it shrinks him to nothingness. He will
Speaker 2: be revealed over the course of the trial to be
Speaker 2: what I believe him to be, which is a low
Speaker 2: life criminal. That being said, and I've said this right
Speaker 2: through all of this, is that the American people have
Speaker 2: to believe in their institutions here right, and have to
Speaker 2: have faith in them. What Donald Trump did, and I
Speaker 2: say this is someone who plays a concession phone call
Speaker 2: I placed it for John McCain to Barack Obama is
Speaker 2: break his oath and assault in the most dastardly way possible,
Speaker 2: the cornerstone of American civilization, the peaceful transition of power
Speaker 2: and the apportionment of political power through the outcome of
Speaker 2: an election. Now his fate rests in the hands of
Speaker 2: a jury of his peers. It make no mistake, right,
Speaker 2: this Manhattan jury is a jury of his peers. Donald
Speaker 2: Trump is of this place, are in Seoul, and so
Speaker 2: even his most ferocious critics like me have to be
Speaker 2: the people who are the most steadfast and demanding that
Speaker 2: those jurors, those citizens, follow their oath and give him
Speaker 2: a fair trial. But if he's found guilty, then it's
Speaker 2: going to hurt him, is what all of the Poland
Speaker 2: seems to suggest. And I just don't believe that there
Speaker 2: is a movement of Americans out there that will rally
Speaker 2: to the jail house and surround it to break their
Speaker 2: guy out. You have a couple hundred people at the
Speaker 2: most on the streets. This is a TV show, and Trump,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, is a philosopher of
Speaker 2: fuck youism. That's his appeal. If you obliterate trust in
Speaker 2: every institution in the country, and your average person out
Speaker 2: there looks at government, they're not expecting a result. They
Speaker 2: just want to deliver a little bit of agitation back
Speaker 2: towards the people that have been for the last ten
Speaker 2: years completely destabilized by Trump. The banks, the tech companies,
Speaker 2: whatever it may be, the elite of the country. Trump
Speaker 2: is their vessel, not to make their lives better, but
Speaker 2: to deliver a type of sugar high a fuck you,
Speaker 2: because sometimes that fuck you feels good, right, whether you're
Speaker 2: driving down the.
Speaker 1: Road, sure yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Anytime, any day of the week might be time for
Speaker 2: a delicious fuck you. Someone years we have this situation
Speaker 2: and that's what this guy is. And in order to
Speaker 2: beat and put it away. You have to offer better.
Speaker 2: And the reality is right, this is true. There's five
Speaker 2: hundred background quotes to back it up. The Biden team
Speaker 2: wanted Trump, they did it, wanted them in the race,
Speaker 2: right because he was the patchy right, He was the
Speaker 2: easiest opponent. He was the guy that justified the rationale
Speaker 2: for Biden to run for a second term. Only Biden
Speaker 2: can beat Trump, beat him again, and'll lock him on
Speaker 2: his ass again. But hey, uh, somewhere along the way
Speaker 2: right now, Biden's the incumbent. Trump's the challenger. Right, what
Speaker 2: was up is down, and down is up, and red
Speaker 2: is blue when blue is red. And while I all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, Trump looks like he's the only guy
Speaker 2: right that any Democrat right could conceivably be beaten by. Right,
Speaker 2: he is Biden, and so say so. But at any rate,
Speaker 2: wherever we are right now in this moment, the choice
Speaker 2: is the choice, and the choice is Biden versus Trump,
Speaker 2: and it's close race. I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning,
Speaker 2: and I invite you to join. Subscribe on our sub stack,
Speaker 2: on our YouTube channel, follow us. Welcome to the community.