Speaker 1: Seven hundred and nineteen days from now we get a vote,
Speaker 1: a referendum on the first two years of the Trump
Speaker 1: presidency and on the corrupt MAGA rubber stamp Congress. This
Speaker 1: is the warning Donald Trump is off to a fast
Speaker 1: start assembling his cabinet. The Democratic Party is in no
Speaker 1: real functional position to oppose all of them, particularly given
Speaker 1: the resounding victory Donald Trump achieved in the election last week.
Speaker 1: Yet the American people and the Trump opposition are on
Speaker 1: the edge of an extremely important moral victory. When all
Speaker 1: of the votes are cast, it seems that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: will not have a majority support of the American people.
Speaker 1: He will be a plurality winner, and the scale and
Speaker 1: the size of his victory will be less than what
Speaker 1: George W.
Speaker 2: Bush achieved when he beat.
Speaker 1: John Kerry by one hundred and forty one thousand votes
Speaker 1: in the state of Ohio, becoming the nation's forty third president.
Speaker 1: We should talk about the man that he picked to
Speaker 1: be Secretary of Defense, because when he was picked, Donald Rumsfeld,
Speaker 1: who had at one point been the youngest secretary in
Speaker 1: the nation's history, was celebrated. He went on to become
Speaker 1: the worst defense secretary in American history by a lot.
Speaker 1: He was the principal architect of two losing wars that
Speaker 1: killed a million human beings, five thousand plus of them Americans,
Speaker 1: wounded tens of thousands, incited a suicide epidemic, and cost
Speaker 1: four trillion dollars. The arrogant Rumsfeldt sent the first cavalry
Speaker 1: division to Bagdad without its armor. He mandated that the
Speaker 1: United States Army fight a war of ideology on the
Speaker 1: basis not of doctrine, not on training, but the whims
Speaker 1: of rumsfeld ego.
Speaker 2: And it was a disaster.
Speaker 1: And now Donald Trump has raised the anti He has
Speaker 1: appointed somebody to become the Secretary of Defense, a National
Speaker 1: Guard officer and Princeton graduate with no real world experience
Speaker 1: outside of Fox News, to become the leader of the
Speaker 1: trillion dollar a year Department of Defense, which cannot pass
Speaker 1: an audit. Pete Hegseeth will be taking the place of
Speaker 1: Lloyd Austin, a competent, decent, qualified man. Pete Hegseth, a
Speaker 1: man who believes women should not be in combat, a
Speaker 1: tinkerer with the codes and customs of the military, trying
Speaker 1: to impose the MAGA worldview on its system of honor,
Speaker 1: including his demand that war criminals be pardoned by Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: who violated the most important codes and mores of the military.
Speaker 1: When the Navy Seals wanted to take Eddie Gallagher's tried
Speaker 1: in a way, Pete Heegsath was there to politicize it,
Speaker 1: to foxify it. And now he'll be the Secretary of
Speaker 1: Defense unless Democrats can stop him, and he should be
Speaker 1: target Numero Uno for the confirmation hearings. Democrats should demand
Speaker 1: immediately the full release of his service files, all of them.
Speaker 1: What were his fitness reports? The simple fact is, I'm
Speaker 1: not somebody who believes that the personal lives of leaders
Speaker 1: should be a disqualification. But the simple truth is Pete
Speaker 1: Hegsath is on his third marriage and two times he's
Speaker 1: had affairs with coworkers. Adultery is a crime in the military.
Speaker 1: Pete Hegsath is a clown who has no business leading
Speaker 1: the American armedforces. Democrats should fight this all the way home.
Speaker 1: The American people love their dogs, me included. There is
Speaker 1: no maga whatever who is quite like Corey Lewandowski's mistress,
Speaker 1: Governor Christy Noam of South Dakota, who is to be
Speaker 1: the Secretary of Homeland Security because in the way that
Speaker 1: Trump is a narcissist, it appears that Christie Nome is
Speaker 1: a sadist in her own words, with her own confessions,
Speaker 1: She's a small state governor who is not competent to
Speaker 1: the task of running America's bloated homeland security behemoth. Christi
Speaker 1: nom will do whatever Trump tells her to do. Will
Speaker 1: she take away people's tsa pre because she doesn't like
Speaker 1: their politics or their Nexus cards or global traveler cards?
Speaker 1: Who gets to be on the no fly list Democratic committeemen.
Speaker 1: With Trump's reign of revenge set to fall upon the country,
Speaker 1: Christie Nome is going to have a hard time answering
Speaker 1: tough questions and a confirmation and Democrats should go after
Speaker 1: her heart with discipline and focus. Fact that the matter
Speaker 1: is the Democratic Party right now is not in fighting shape,
Speaker 1: but it has to, like a wolf pack or a
Speaker 1: lion pack, go after the weakest members of the Trump
Speaker 1: heard That's how zebras get eaten. And the slowest zebras
Speaker 1: in Trump's Maga pack are Pete Hegseth and Christy No.
Speaker 1: They're extremely vulnerable and they have been nominated for some
Speaker 1: of the most important offices in the country Now the
Speaker 1: grifting former governor of Arkansas and Fox News host Mike.
Speaker 2: Huckabee has been nominated to be ambassador to Israel.
Speaker 1: That's a joke, not unsuspected, but Democrats should do everything
Speaker 1: they can to embarrass this man because he deserves it.
Speaker 1: During his confirmation hearings, he's a political extremist who will
Speaker 1: go to the Middle East, to a place of tension
Speaker 1: in a time of war and say manifestly stupid things
Speaker 1: that will inflame the situation and get people killed. Now,
Speaker 1: most people don't remember how corrupt Mike Huckabee was when
Speaker 1: he was the governor of Arkansas. I shit you not,
Speaker 1: but he released the equivalent as governor of a wedding
Speaker 1: registry where you could send the governor gifts for the
Speaker 1: governor's mansion, and of course Huckabee pocketed all of them.
Speaker 1: We never really got to talk about it on the
Speaker 1: McCain campaign because it wasn't our political interest.
Speaker 2: But one of my long lost.
Speaker 1: Regrets is that we never really got to mix it
Speaker 1: up with Mike Couckabee and call this clown and fool
Speaker 1: and liar and grift or out for what he is.
Speaker 1: One of the worst Americans out there. Truly, and so
Speaker 1: the confirmation process for Mike Cookabee should not be courteous.
Speaker 1: It should be brutal. Every one of the Trump grits
Speaker 1: who comes before the Congress should get it with both barrels,
Speaker 1: because that's the job of the Congress, not to rubber
Speaker 1: stamp Trump's most obnoxious picks. And by the way, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the co presidents, the conspiracy theorist vvak Ramaswami
Speaker 1: and Elon Musk. Together they will be reinventing government, leading
Speaker 1: the government Efficiency Office. As Senator Elizabeth Warren points out,
Speaker 1: why not an efficiency office? The job of one person
Speaker 1: will now be run by two giant egos, the South
Speaker 1: African Elon Musk and vvak Ramaswami, the nine to eleven
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists.
Speaker 2: What could go wrong?
Speaker 1: They probably aren't up to the task. And that's okay
Speaker 1: because sooner or later, no matter how inept the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party is, Donald Trump and his team of nut jobs
Speaker 1: will be undone. By the combination of their incompetence, their arrogance,
Speaker 1: and their streams. They will trip themselves up. That it
Speaker 1: would be good if a decent opposition formed as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible. That was tough, that was focused and was
Speaker 1: brutally honest. And what that means is it's time to
Speaker 1: discard all of the grifters and all of their groups
Speaker 1: that raise money from senior citizens promising to be centurions
Speaker 1: of democracy while pocketing ninety eight cents on the dollar.
Speaker 1: It ought to be illegal, and it probably is. But
Speaker 1: here's the thing. A decent opposition is what is required
Speaker 1: to beat Donald Trump. A mirror image opposition will lose
Speaker 1: to him every time because the.
Speaker 2: Small time grifters of the.
Speaker 1: Resistance movement are nothing compared to the big time grifters,
Speaker 1: the big sharks of the Maga movement. A decent opposition
Speaker 1: stealed by conviction and fortitude will have a great victory
Speaker 1: seven hundred and nineteen days from now if it is
Speaker 1: built on a foundation of principle and conviction, in fierceness
Speaker 1: in defense of the Constitution from the attack and assault
Speaker 1: that it's about to sustain. An election was lost that
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been. But everybody who is part of the
Speaker 1: movement that stands opposed to Donald Trump as a matter
Speaker 1: of conviction and conscience can be certain that they are
Speaker 1: on the right side of history because they are on
Speaker 1: the side that believes all Americans are created equal, that
Speaker 1: they have inalienable rights, that we should not bow to
Speaker 1: a king or a caesar, and that nobody has the
Speaker 1: right to persecute any American for speaking out with regard
Speaker 1: to what they think, what they believe, or the faith
Speaker 1: they have.
Speaker 2: To threaten to do so is un American.
Speaker 1: And though it was given a mandate by the American people,
Speaker 1: the American people are fickle, and soon Donald Trump will
Speaker 1: have full control of the entire government, and the American
Speaker 1: people will get to see what MAGA looks like in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. They're going to get to see incredible brutality.
Speaker 1: They're going to get to see in humanity. They're going
Speaker 1: to get to see a repudiation of our exceptionalism as
Speaker 1: a country, our excellence as a people. It's going to
Speaker 1: be a shameful period sad one. It requires, in this moment,
Speaker 1: tough and focus people who can tell the truth, who
Speaker 1: can rally people to a cause and communicate something better
Speaker 1: than what Donald Trump is capable of. If that is done,
Speaker 1: then victory is not so far off. If it is not,
Speaker 1: and terrible things will happen, and the situation will worsen.
Speaker 1: It's time to start talking about and to start thinking
Speaker 1: about better, and the first step to that means letting
Speaker 1: go of the past.
Speaker 2: And that past includes.
Speaker 1: A lot of failed democratic leaders who's incompetence purchased us
Speaker 1: four years of Donald Trump. Every one of you who
Speaker 1: sees this should be outraged over it, but that outrage
Speaker 1: cannot deter you from participation and the work of fighting
Speaker 1: back and taking back one house of government and then
Speaker 1: a second. This is the work at hand. The country's
Speaker 1: future depends on it. Quitting, tuning out, disengaging at the
Speaker 1: moment of maximum danger when MAGA has maximum power is
Speaker 1: simply not an option. It will make everything worse and
Speaker 1: all of us less safe. A great contest is underway,
Speaker 1: and its end result is unclear. Donald Trump has won
Speaker 1: two elections and lost one. The midterm elections between did
Speaker 1: not break his way. He will not have achieved a majority,
Speaker 1: and the country is closed divided. The next rounds in
Speaker 1: this fight are undecided. Let's get back to work. There's
Speaker 1: much to be done. This is the warning. I'm Steve Schmidt.
Speaker 1: This is the warning, and I invite you to join.
Speaker 1: Subscribe on our substack on our YouTube channel follow us,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the community,