Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. For earlier access to these episodes, access
Speaker 1: to Ask Me Anything, sessions, and extended breakdowns of historical
Speaker 1: and current events. Please consider joining our Warning Premium community
Speaker 1: by clicking the link and the description to this episode.
Speaker 1: Something that is true but that you won't read about
Speaker 1: at least very often, is how panicked Republicans are in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: What I'm talking about is the panic of the party's
Speaker 1: pollsters and election strategists. They see the writing on the wall,
Speaker 1: they know what's coming down the pike. They know what
Speaker 1: it means when Carrie Lake is back. The Looney conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorist who is defeated in the Arizona gubernatorial election now
Speaker 1: has her site set on the United States Senate, where
Speaker 1: she can be Lauren Bobert and Marjorie Taylor Green Times
Speaker 1: five Republicans understand that Donald Trump is going off the rails.
Speaker 1: Look at his behavior. This man seeks again to be
Speaker 1: the commander in chief of the most powerful military in
Speaker 1: human history. He wants control of America's nuclear weapons arsenal,
Speaker 1: and by any objective measurement, any standard, his conduct has
Speaker 1: become completely deranged. His attacks on the federal judges and
Speaker 1: judiciary his attacks and threats against the prosecutor in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: whom he accused of having an affair with a gang member.
Speaker 1: It's important to note that's not accidental. The Atlanta prosecutor
Speaker 1: is tough as nails. A black woman. He's disrespecting her,
Speaker 1: insulting her, degrading her. The attack is racist. The attack
Speaker 1: is stereotypical everything that you would expect from Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: He went to New Hampshire. He railed against Chris Christie,
Speaker 1: who has moved into a tie for second place. It
Speaker 1: is on track to win the New Hampshire primary. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump engaged the former governor from New Jersey, calling him
Speaker 1: a fat pig. He is lashing out, he is decomposing.
Speaker 1: This is what one hundred felony counts will do to
Speaker 1: a person, and that's likely the number will be up
Speaker 1: around with all is said and done, as Donald Trump
Speaker 1: heads to the trials. According to the polling, and perhaps
Speaker 1: more importantly, media outlets interpretation of it, Americans are apparently
Speaker 1: tuned out to the wall to wall Trump trial coverage.
Speaker 1: The media is interpreting this as meaning the American people
Speaker 1: are numb or uncaring about the trials. I think this
Speaker 1: is wrong deeply wrong. What the American people aren't necessarily
Speaker 1: in the mood for in the middle of summer is
Speaker 1: wall to wall talking about the trial, between motions, between
Speaker 1: any activity that's repetitive, that's banal, tedious, and exceedingly boring.
Speaker 1: When the trials begin and there is action to cover
Speaker 1: and to report on as the events are taking place,
Speaker 1: I think it is safe to say the American people
Speaker 1: will be highly engaged. Part of what is broken in
Speaker 1: American politics is the life cycle that exists between the
Speaker 1: media and the politicians. The ubiquity of coverage, the constant
Speaker 1: presence of these people in our faces, is leading the
Speaker 1: American people to turn off their televisions, to unplug their
Speaker 1: cable boxes. The coverage of the Donald Trump story as
Speaker 1: it moves into its eighth year, as we approached the
Speaker 1: decade mark, has become brutally tedious. What is it that
Speaker 1: we're supposed to talk about day after day after day
Speaker 1: when you consider his depravity, his treachery, his treason against
Speaker 1: the United States of America. Now, Republicans in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: The ones who run the elections, are deeply panicked. Alexander
Speaker 1: Bolton of The Hill Newspaper has written a nearly perfect
Speaker 1: lead describing the feeling in Washington, d C. Amongst the
Speaker 1: Maga Republicans at this hour. What they see coming down
Speaker 1: the road is Carrie Lake coming back. They see the
Speaker 1: Arizona Conspiracy, theorist and loon who lost the gubernatorial election
Speaker 1: keyed up and ready for a US Senate run. They
Speaker 1: know the incredibly high price that has been paid up
Speaker 1: and down the ballot for Trump sycophancy. They know the
Speaker 1: cost of the appeasement, of the collaboration, of the moral cowardice.
Speaker 1: They know the cost of what it looks like when
Speaker 1: these candidates are made to seem idiotic under questioning that
Speaker 1: they can't keep straight. They can't walk the fine line
Speaker 1: between being four and against Trump. They can't possibly make
Speaker 1: the case that they support and defend the Constitution of
Speaker 1: the United States while standing next to the man who
Speaker 1: tried to burn it down. They can't be on the
Speaker 1: wrong side of Mike Pence, who said I'll always pick
Speaker 1: the Constitution, meaning in his choice between Trump and America,
Speaker 1: he went with America. What will their choice be? Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to my political commentary. If you like
Speaker 1: what you heard today, please also consider subscribing to The
Speaker 1: Warning daily newsletter on Substack. Our democracy hangs in the balance.
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty four presidential election is the most consequential
Speaker 1: in America's history. It's not hyperbole, it's a fact. That
Speaker 1: is why the mission of The Warning with Steve Schmidt
Speaker 1: is to help readers orient to the currents that are
Speaker 1: shaping our times and the unseen forces driving politics that
Speaker 1: are very rarely discussed on cable news. Please sign up
Speaker 1: at Steve Schmidt st e ve E, s C H
Speaker 1: M I DT dot substack dot com, or at the
Speaker 1: link in the show notes section below. Thank you to
Speaker 1: each and every one of you for listening and watching.
Speaker 1: The extremest threat facing America has been cooking now for
Speaker 1: a very very long time. It has been inflamed by
Speaker 1: social media, by the ubiquity of Trump's presence, by his
Speaker 1: ability at any moment to with his fingers divide antagonize
Speaker 1: in sight. A great test is coming for America, and
Speaker 1: this is a test that is past fail. It's very simple.
Speaker 1: We are nearly two one hundred and fifty years old
Speaker 1: as a nation. Generations of Americans have marched into battle
Speaker 1: to defend our freedom. They crossed bridges like the Edmund
Speaker 1: Pettis for Justice. Americans were beaten, killed, lynched, shot so
Speaker 1: they could have the right to vote, a say, a
Speaker 1: stake in the future, their children's future, their country's future,
Speaker 1: their community's future. There is no conceivable way to sustain
Speaker 1: the United States of America outside of a system where
Speaker 1: the people are able to pick their leaders. And this
Speaker 1: requires something from the leaders, a willing to concede to
Speaker 1: the sovereignty and the will of the people. Losing an
Speaker 1: election is hard. Many people take it very, very personally,
Speaker 1: no doubt, for some the loss breaks them. Politics attracts
Speaker 1: all sorts of people, narcissists, the vein, the needy, the searching,
Speaker 1: the yearning. It also attracts genuine servants, people who want
Speaker 1: to make the country stronger, make it better, defend the country.
Speaker 1: It's so hard sometimes to see the difference and to
Speaker 1: tell the difference between the two, but they're there. The
Speaker 1: test at hands means you cannot be for the man
Speaker 1: who tried to take away the right of the American
Speaker 1: people to choose. The test ahead means that you have
Speaker 1: to understand. America is built on the concept that if
Speaker 1: you lose, you acknowledge the will of the people, You
Speaker 1: congratulate your opponent, you support him for her when you can.
Speaker 1: If there are areas of mutual agreement for the betterment
Speaker 1: of something bigger, bigger than you, bigger than your family,
Speaker 1: bigger than your community, bigger than your state, and that's
Speaker 1: the American nation. We will never live in an era
Speaker 1: where there is an absence of threat. The crisis comes
Speaker 1: when there is an absence of character, of national character
Speaker 1: to meet the threat. The fascist threat was crushed because
Speaker 1: of the will and the power and might impart of
Speaker 1: the American people, the same with global communism. But absent
Speaker 1: that will, what would have happened? And so the question
Speaker 1: must be asked, what will happen in the absence of
Speaker 1: will to stop extremism from taking root? In an election
Speaker 1: in the United States? What will happen is Trump's minority
Speaker 1: will grow with its apathetic partners into a very small
Speaker 1: majority and be in a position to take power. And
Speaker 1: if they do, they will begin immediately tearing a part
Speaker 1: the institutions and structures of the government to make sure
Speaker 1: that never again would there be a check or a balance,
Speaker 1: or any limitations whatsoever to the use of Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: authority and power, including deciding if he's ready to retire
Speaker 1: or once to keep ongoing for a third or fourth term.
Speaker 1: These things aren't far fetched. At the eight year mark.
Speaker 1: With Donald Trump, we've watched it all play out for
Speaker 1: a very long time now. Donald Trump said he wouldn't
Speaker 1: concede the election for the first time in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: and he went on to do exactly what he said
Speaker 1: he was going to do. And we now know, because
Speaker 1: of the revelation of a secret memo that was not
Speaker 1: uncovered by the January sixth Committee, that in fact, the
Speaker 1: Trump campaign the conspiracy to take power through an American coup.
Speaker 1: It's highly organized, replanned, premeditated, and very deliberate. And this
Speaker 1: is at the heart the greatest core part of the
Speaker 1: American tragedy over these last eight years. Donald Trump behaved
Speaker 1: in the White House precisely like many of us expected
Speaker 1: him to. Many of us understood that the presidency reveals character,
Speaker 1: it doesn't create it. And we saw from Donald Trump
Speaker 1: an exposition of the lowest character amongst the whole of
Speaker 1: the American people. Truly, the country brought to the White
Speaker 1: House and put into power the worst from amongst us.
Speaker 1: And there he sat degrading the country, attacking its systems
Speaker 1: and its institutions. This cannot be abided any longer. The
Speaker 1: American people have a choice to make. Will a deranged
Speaker 1: man take power again? Because if we do, because if
Speaker 1: we allow it, we're flushing it all down the toilet,
Speaker 1: and that will be the greatest tragedy in all of
Speaker 1: American history.