Speaker 1: Chief Schmidt here with the warning, and I am joined
Speaker 1: tonight by my frank Congressman Joe Walsh writes the Social
Speaker 1: Contract you can find out a substack. It's a great
Speaker 1: substack site. I urged you to follow it, to subscribe
Speaker 1: to it. We'll talk about that phrase, what that means,
Speaker 1: the social contract, a social compact, and that got broken
Speaker 1: in America a long time ago, and understanding how it broke,
Speaker 1: why it broke, when it broke, is KTA understanding why
Speaker 1: we have a fascist in the White House, Because, as
Speaker 1: I pointed out early on in this at the beginning
Speaker 1: ten years ago, fascism rose in the nineteen thirties not
Speaker 1: because it was strong, but because democracy was weak. It
Speaker 1: was rotten, it was detained in the whine of republic.
Speaker 1: We're lucky in America that we have a much stronger democracy, UH,
Speaker 1: with with much stronger foundations and a history. But it's
Speaker 1: being tested. And what Trump is, I think is is
Speaker 1: certainly clear. So we'll talk about that, the social contract,
Speaker 1: the social compact, talk about citizenship and the meaning of that.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about what's going on in the news, UH,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about specifically an issue UH that's in
Speaker 1: the news, which is presidential fitness, presidential coherency, and and
Speaker 1: very specifically let's talk about that with regard to Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: who is serially incoherent, uh, inco inconsistent, and and I
Speaker 1: think let's start with with with right now, when you
Speaker 1: look at this trip across the Middle East and you
Speaker 1: see the disrespect from the Trump cabinet officials before the
Speaker 1: Article one branch of government, before the Congress, when you
Speaker 1: see the lion, when you see the law breaking, when
Speaker 1: you see the sneering, it leaves you breathless, and you
Speaker 1: sit there and you say wow. And I kind of
Speaker 1: lean back and say, these people really believe, truly they
Speaker 1: have a license to do whatever they want on the
Speaker 1: basis of forty nine point nine percent of the vote
Speaker 1: and a presidential election and the delusion about the stolen election,
Speaker 1: and they are completely off the rails. And the idea
Speaker 1: that there isn't going to be an accounting for the
Speaker 1: epic law breaking, for the epic taking for the steering
Speaker 1: that we're saying is just mads to me.
Speaker 2: And so I just like, how did.
Speaker 1: You see it when you watch all of this?
Speaker 3: First off, Steve Smith, damn good to be with you.
Speaker 2: Brother, Thank you for all you do. Look, Trump believes
Speaker 2: he's an untouchable.
Speaker 3: He believes you said it, Steve. He believes he can
Speaker 3: do anything he wants. He believes he'll get away with
Speaker 3: anything he wants to do. And again, don't take this wrong.
Speaker 3: In a way, I can't blame him. The son of
Speaker 3: a bitch tried to overthrow an American election four years
Speaker 3: and four months ago.
Speaker 2: He didn't pay a price for that.
Speaker 3: He committed crimes trying to overthrow an American election, and
Speaker 3: he's back in the White House.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's an idiot.
Speaker 3: But Steve, if that were me and I got reelected,
Speaker 3: I think I'm an untouchable too. It's a scary place,
Speaker 3: and the people around him believe that.
Speaker 1: Is well, if you're sitting there in Congress, and and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking specifically of Chris Murphy, I'm thinking about it,
Speaker 1: Eric Swawell, I'm thinking about it, Jamie Raskin. People who've
Speaker 1: done an exemplary job at these hearings, with a Christy nome,
Speaker 1: with the cash totel holding holding them to account. Then
Speaker 1: you see the contempt, and you see the indifference and
Speaker 1: the nonsense and the refusal to answer basic questions in
Speaker 1: the In the case of Eric Swallwell, hey look at
Speaker 1: the picture, right, she refuses to look at the picture. Bill.
Speaker 1: I've been backstage right as a staffer, and a lot
Speaker 1: of hearings, been on the presidential side, behind the behind
Speaker 1: the witnesses and Supreme Court confirmations and stuff. So, been
Speaker 1: on both sides of the room, and usually when that
Speaker 1: hearing is over, you don't go into the room kind
Speaker 1: of like huh, right, like where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: And so if you're on the Democratic side and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think, if I was the first person swallow
Speaker 1: wells he's backstage, I'd be like, great job, But honest
Speaker 1: to god, I'd be like around the table, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: so what, Congressman, what what the fuck do we do here?
Speaker 1: What's the next round of questions? Like what's the what's
Speaker 1: the question right that you start asking them, Like, for example,
Speaker 1: do you start and say, uh, Mountam secretary, can you
Speaker 1: talk to me for just a minute or so about
Speaker 1: the article one branch of government and how you and
Speaker 1: how you see? I mean, what what's the leadoff question?
Speaker 1: That kind of starts to frame when these people are
Speaker 1: up there. Some of the bigger issues right at the
Speaker 1: foundation of all of this that we got to figure
Speaker 1: out how to start talking about in opposition.
Speaker 3: What's the question, Steve, That's a great question, and I
Speaker 3: think you're right to think about Article one. I think
Speaker 3: you're right to focus on every fucking unconstitutional thing this
Speaker 3: president has done. I go back, Steve, I go back
Speaker 3: to the hearings for all of his cabinet officials.
Speaker 2: And every single one of.
Speaker 3: His picks to be in his cabinet was asked, point blank,
Speaker 3: did Donald Trump lose the twenty twenty election? Did Joe
Speaker 3: Biden win? And none of them would acknowledge that, Not
Speaker 3: Pam Bondi, not Pateel, none of them, not Marco Rubio,
Speaker 3: none of them would say Trump lost the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 3: So I'd start with a question where you know they're
Speaker 3: not going to tell you the truth. And I think
Speaker 3: it should be centered around I say this as a
Speaker 3: former member, damn it.
Speaker 2: It should be centered on what Congress should be doing.
Speaker 3: The playing from guitar, I mean, he can't accept that
Speaker 3: gift without Congressional approval. Rights as Madam's secretary. It says
Speaker 3: it right there right in the Constitution. I drilled down
Speaker 3: on something like that where you know they have to
Speaker 3: lie to try to get away with it, and I
Speaker 3: just keep pounding, Steve. I think the Democrat's biggest problem
Speaker 3: is they.
Speaker 2: Sound like politicians.
Speaker 3: I want them to sound like just somebody who's fucking
Speaker 3: pissed off, a regular person who's righteously angry. I think
Speaker 3: that's what the American people want.
Speaker 2: To hear.
Speaker 1: When you think about right this, like exact moment, right,
Speaker 1: we're here in May, and where are we going to
Speaker 1: be by Labor Day? Where are we're going to be
Speaker 1: at the end of the at the end of the
Speaker 1: summer here.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you what the summer, Steve, I think
Speaker 3: could be ugly, only in that as the weather gets warmer, oops,
Speaker 3: as the weather gets warmer. These protests are growing very organically,
Speaker 3: Steve Schmid, These protests are growing, and I think they're important,
Speaker 3: and I think they're important to grow.
Speaker 2: You know, Trump won in November and everybody kind of
Speaker 2: checked out for a couple months, but.
Speaker 3: Then all of a sudden, organically in January and February,
Speaker 3: people started springing back up. So I could see some
Speaker 3: ugliness this summer. I still believe, and I know you've
Speaker 3: said the same damn thing. Trump is looking for an
Speaker 3: excuse to go after Americans on the streets. I'm still
Speaker 3: expecting that this summer, and I want to know how
Speaker 3: are the Democrats going to respond to that? How are
Speaker 3: they going to take that on? Are they going to
Speaker 3: righteously go after that?
Speaker 1: These have to be peaceful protests. The opposition has to
Speaker 1: be disciplined, and Democrats have to have no tolerance for
Speaker 1: any radical element, any extremist element that seeks to ignite violence,
Speaker 1: that seeks to provoke violence that gives Trump a pretext
Speaker 1: of any type whatsoever, anywhere. And there can't be a
Speaker 1: single instant where you have reporters on television, you know,
Speaker 1: fronting the American people and telling them the opposite of
Speaker 1: what is happening is is happening. And so the opposition
Speaker 1: has to be credible, It has to be decent, it
Speaker 1: has to be better. And I think there's going to
Speaker 1: have to be some new and decent faith is right
Speaker 1: that become synonymous with change in America, that emerge in
Speaker 1: a time of in a time of real crisis, and
Speaker 1: I think we're just experiencing that right now. Is that
Speaker 1: you have a cohort of people that are in a
Speaker 1: dynamic inside the Democratic Party that are not focused on
Speaker 1: fighting back against Donald Trump so much as they are
Speaker 1: consolidating their position, their power, their authority within the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: So example, you know with Chuck Schumer imposing litmus tests
Speaker 1: on Senate candidates that hey, you got to support me
Speaker 1: as the leader in order to run right for a
Speaker 1: US Senate race in this state or that state. And
Speaker 1: that's wrong because these races should not be decided by
Speaker 1: the Senate leader from New York in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: In these cloistered back rooms. And it's been a disaster
Speaker 1: for the Democratic Party. And so Democrats all across the country,
Speaker 1: Like you said, I think that you're going to see
Speaker 1: a wave of normal people, ordinary people, if passed his prologue,
Speaker 1: get involved in campaigns at a congressional level. And I
Speaker 1: think the question is is how high does the tsunami
Speaker 1: wave come? And I think are there is there a
Speaker 1: chance to see some independent candidates running in Republican districts
Speaker 1: with no Democrat running at all, maybe leaving it blank,
Speaker 1: that might have some success, and they can be in
Speaker 1: a coalition with Democrats in Congress to oppose all the
Speaker 1: insanity as need be. But you know, I think that
Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of opportunity for there
Speaker 1: to be people lac Date who never thought they were
Speaker 1: going to be impiled. Takes four years ago, in about
Speaker 1: eighteen months.
Speaker 3: Steve, I think you're spot on, and I do think
Speaker 3: you're going to see independence running in a number of
Speaker 3: congressional districts, maybe even a state or two. Look, I
Speaker 3: come from the Tea Party. I know there's good and
Speaker 3: bad right with the Tea Party. But I think what's
Speaker 3: going on in the Democratic Party right now is reminiscent
Speaker 3: of that. The good elements of the Tea Party were
Speaker 3: that we thought we were the conscience of the Republican Party.
Speaker 3: All of this debt, we got to quit spending all
Speaker 3: of this money. I see the Democratic Party having kind
Speaker 3: of their own Tea Party movement. Look you know this, Steve,
Speaker 3: You're one of the smartest guys out there.
Speaker 2: We're living in a populous moment.
Speaker 3: Regular people are pissed off at a broken political system.
Speaker 2: Trump recognized the moment.
Speaker 3: He's a fake popular he's a demagogue, he's an evil populist.
Speaker 3: But like Democrats haven't even recognized this moment. I spent
Speaker 3: every day last year in a battleground state, campaigned for
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris and Steve Schmidt. Everywhere I went, average regular
Speaker 3: voters told me a variation of, Hey, Joe, I know
Speaker 3: Trump's an asshole, but the Democrats look down on me.
Speaker 3: They don't understand me. I heard Steve. I heard shit
Speaker 3: like that everywhere from just regular folks. There is a
Speaker 3: yearning out there right now for people you nailed it to.
Speaker 3: They want to see regular people. They don't want to
Speaker 3: see politicians. And again, they want to see people righteously angry.
Speaker 3: Some Democrats have gotten that. Most of them still go
Speaker 3: sound like some talking.
Speaker 1: Point when you hear think about this moment, right there's
Speaker 1: no escaping the fact that the Democratic Party lost to
Speaker 1: MAGA in twenty twenty four, and that's quite an achievement
Speaker 1: to lose to the most loathsome political movement since the Confederacy.
Speaker 1: And so there's just no question that something better has
Speaker 1: to be offered. And one of the cycles that is
Speaker 1: true in American history is that we look at great presidents,
Speaker 1: they have usually followed epically terrible presidents. And with Trump,
Speaker 1: we have the worst president in American history and the
Speaker 1: most abusive by the time, by the time we get
Speaker 1: to the end of this, and so I think that
Speaker 1: there needs to be a reform and renewal era of
Speaker 1: American politics where people are able to understand that we
Speaker 1: live in a big country, that we want to have
Speaker 1: the right to disagree, we want to have the right
Speaker 1: to dissent, and that we have to work together because
Speaker 1: we share some things in common. And we have an
Speaker 1: idiotized society that is going to pay the price. And
Speaker 1: we'll see how costly the catastrophe it come is going
Speaker 1: to be. But no question in my mind that we
Speaker 1: are headed for big trouble. I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about the Tea Party because I want everyone to
Speaker 1: understand who watches this, who's a Democrat. The Tea Party,
Speaker 1: which I was never supportive of, right as an element
Speaker 1: within the Republican Party, was always misunderstood in the media,
Speaker 1: and the Key Party was cast as a reaction to
Speaker 1: Barack Obama, when in fact it was a reaction to
Speaker 1: the Bush presidency within the Republican Party, and it was
Speaker 1: a reaction to the failed wars, to the excesses of
Speaker 1: the military strategy, to excessive spending, to all of these degradations.
Speaker 1: Right to what true conservatives believed in that had in
Speaker 1: this moment of the Bush presidency all gone up in flames.
Speaker 1: And so there's this moment in the Republican coalition. I'm
Speaker 1: a moderate Republican right by birth, by temperament from New Jersey,
Speaker 1: Christy Whitman, Tom Kane, left edge right of the of
Speaker 1: the Republican Coalition, from a moderate state that the Republican
Speaker 1: Party was, the was the good government part of the
Speaker 1: coalition was was pro choice, and there is a pro
Speaker 1: choice tradition in the Republican Party, and it was a
Speaker 1: it was a big tent. And what breaks that during
Speaker 1: the Bush presidency is the Terry Schivo decision. If you recall,
Speaker 1: this is a comatose woman that the governor of Florida,
Speaker 1: right goes to federal court, the federal court intervenes, and
Speaker 1: then Congress acts to intervene an end of life decision,
Speaker 1: and the President of the United States boys, I'm from Texas,
Speaker 1: really to state the social conservative wing of the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: And that totally blows apart the coalition, all the moderates,
Speaker 1: all the libertarians. And so when you come in into
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, this key party coalition which the
Speaker 1: media covers as well. This exists to be against Obama
Speaker 1: is really, in its foundation a rebuke to the Bush
Speaker 1: administration and to the Republican leadership, and that is played
Speaker 1: out on Fox News, and what you're seeing now all
Speaker 1: over the country is a real breach that exists between
Speaker 1: the powers of the Democratic Party in Washington. And I
Speaker 1: think real voters that are very angry at Chuck Schumer
Speaker 1: are very angry at all the appeasement that you pointed out,
Speaker 1: such as the fact that all these people in their
Speaker 1: confirmation here and say, hey, you know, I can't tell
Speaker 1: you who won the election, right, it was President Biden,
Speaker 1: and right, I'm still going to vote to confirm you. Right.
Speaker 1: So it's an incredible thing to witness. But I just
Speaker 1: want to get you to talk about that Tea Party
Speaker 1: in terms of that it's a rebuke to its own side,
Speaker 1: and that's how that starts out.
Speaker 2: Steve.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you said that, and coming from the
Speaker 3: Tea Party, I got to write the book about it
Speaker 3: one day, because you're right, it started before Obama.
Speaker 2: It started with Bush.
Speaker 3: It was a reaction instantly, like to all his bailouts. Look,
Speaker 3: I'm asked all the time, how did we get Trump?
Speaker 3: The Republican Party base primarily then middle age, older white people.
Speaker 3: They felt like the Republican Party establishment was ignoring them.
Speaker 3: The base, I would argue the establishment was then along
Speaker 3: came Tea Party people like me and we and I'm
Speaker 3: guilty of this, Steve. Back in the day, we inflamed
Speaker 3: the base. We got them fired up, and we got
Speaker 3: them pissed off. So there was this perfect storm then
Speaker 3: for Trump. When I look back on the Tea Party,
Speaker 3: I primarily think it was mostly driven by matters of
Speaker 3: governments too big, damn it.
Speaker 2: We got to stop.
Speaker 3: Bankrupting future generations. That's what That's what resonated with me.
Speaker 3: But Steve Schmid, there was an uglier side to it.
Speaker 3: There was some of the nationalistic side to it. There
Speaker 3: was some of the racist side to it. I didn't
Speaker 3: pay enough attention to that then. I wish I had.
Speaker 3: But when we didn't deliver, like when I got sent
Speaker 3: to Congress and we didn't do shit about government spending,
Speaker 3: that's right away when the base got pissed off and
Speaker 3: Trump tapped into those uglier elements of the Tea Party
Speaker 3: A few years later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, listen, there's no question. Listen, Mitt Romney
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve was the guy who took Donald Trump
Speaker 1: from a racist on the sidelines, who was a conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorist on the birther And that's the difference between Romney
Speaker 1: and John McCain. Right. John McCain would not have tolerated that,
Speaker 1: did not tolerate it. Mitt Romney sought to take advantage
Speaker 1: of it, right, And I can I can go back
Speaker 1: right through twelve fourteen years of Donald Trump on the
Speaker 1: scene and all of the people that have tried to
Speaker 1: ride the Trump tiger right and have wound up inside,
Speaker 1: you know, with with Mitt Romney being one of them,
Speaker 1: you know, withdrawing from public life talking publicly about his
Speaker 1: fear of Donald Trump. And so in the in the end,
Speaker 1: you had a guy who was over and over over
Speaker 1: again right on these television networks talking about the President
Speaker 1: of the United States doesn't have a birth certificate, right,
Speaker 1: And it's all nonsense, I mean and again, I ran
Speaker 1: the McCain campaign, right, And so if you run a
Speaker 1: presidential campaign, right, if you're involved in politics and campaign
Speaker 1: at any level, right, every type of crazy story that
Speaker 1: you can imagine about your opponent is going to be
Speaker 1: rung into your phone right by by someone. It's on point, right,
Speaker 1: And and the first time I ever heard the Obama right,
Speaker 1: wasn't wasn't born in the United United States? Right? I
Speaker 1: you know, I said to a guy, right, he was
Speaker 1: like the guy that you have on a presidential campaign,
Speaker 1: like on the movies. Right, You're like, huh right, obviously right,
Speaker 1: this this would be a big deal. Right, Is this
Speaker 1: trick or not? And they go out and they look
Speaker 1: and come back, this is absolutely not true. Right, you know,
Speaker 1: Brack Obama was born as a United States citizen. It
Speaker 1: is all a conspiracy, and it was all nonsense. It
Speaker 1: was always nonsense, but no one ever called it out.
Speaker 1: And so you go back to January sixth, you go
Speaker 1: back to the moment he came down the escalator. Everybody's
Speaker 1: position about Trump, right, over a period of time, reveals
Speaker 1: itself in that moment in time, right, And you know
Speaker 1: when there are moments when people say, whoa right, this
Speaker 1: guy just did something right. And so what we have
Speaker 1: to have happened in the country now is we got
Speaker 1: to get a lot of people back right that fall
Speaker 1: into the category of they voted for Hillary, they voted
Speaker 1: for Trump. Right, and they voted for Trump a second
Speaker 1: time and are going to be disappointed, Or they voted
Speaker 1: for Trump, they voted for Biden, they voted for Kamala right,
Speaker 1: and you want to keep them engaged, or in some
Speaker 1: type of combination where you have a Trump vote and
Speaker 1: a Biden vote right, or a Hillary vote, a Trump
Speaker 1: vote in a Biden vote that's split either two one
Speaker 1: or one two. In the last three elections, you want
Speaker 1: to try to get those voters who have wobbled back
Speaker 1: to Trump back over, and you have to have some
Speaker 1: grace to them if you're Democrats with regard to the anger,
Speaker 1: and I feel anger, but I have it for the
Speaker 1: people that manipulated and lied to ordinary people, right it
Speaker 1: went out and sold them a bill of goods. And
Speaker 1: I'm also deeply unhappy with the with the with the
Speaker 1: with the small group with people that were responsible right
Speaker 1: for defending the Republic against all of this insanity, who
Speaker 1: failed into defense when the stakes were very was very high.
Speaker 1: You know, I want a lot more political campaigns than
Speaker 1: I lost during my days. I have lost them, but
Speaker 1: for you know, I was saying to someone, for Christ's
Speaker 1: sakes when I lost the presidential election, right, as part
Speaker 1: of the team on it. We lost it to Barack Obama, right,
Speaker 1: you know we didn't. We didn't lose it to associate
Speaker 1: pathic felonious great criminal. Right. So there's a big, big difference,
Speaker 1: and that's we got to talk about that.
Speaker 2: You're right, Steve. Uh.
Speaker 3: Look, Democrats have to decide if they want to fucking
Speaker 3: win or not.
Speaker 2: Period.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm I think our political systems broken. I felt
Speaker 3: that way for a while, Steve. I'm a populist. I'm
Speaker 3: not an evil populist like Trump. I've always considered myself
Speaker 3: a good populist. We're living in this small and so
Speaker 3: Democrats got to recognize this.
Speaker 2: Moment of all the never trumper.
Speaker 3: Steve Smith, I'm a weird duck because I'm a reformed
Speaker 3: Maga gangbanger. I come from the Maga base. I voted
Speaker 3: for Trump in sixteen.
Speaker 2: My bad.
Speaker 3: I've publicly apologized that for that for seven years.
Speaker 1: I just think you owe an apology. That is the point.
Speaker 1: Is the point, right, It's that you have a vote,
Speaker 1: you made your decision, and you had a different judgment.
Speaker 1: Who are you apologizing to, right, Jake Tapper, Right, I now,
Speaker 1: you're right. I don't right, like, who are you apologizing to? Right,
Speaker 1: You've been a consistent voice ever since the guy walked
Speaker 1: into a meeting, he pulled out his country in Finland
Speaker 1: with Vladimir Putin and right, sometimes, right, you got to
Speaker 1: look at someone and say, wow, you know, right, you got.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of courage to say that, like you
Speaker 1: you you, you went out and said, wow, you know
Speaker 1: I was wrong about this guy. So I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think you owe anyone in an apology. But
Speaker 1: but I but I, but but I say that because
Speaker 1: we got we got fifteen hundred people on right now,
Speaker 1: and I want to I want you all to understand
Speaker 1: is when you talk to people over the coming months,
Speaker 1: as as as times get tough, Right, the accountability isn't
Speaker 1: right like to be paid by the truck driver, right,
Speaker 1: the accountability is to be paid by Elon Musk and
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio and Christy No. Right, not for the people.
Speaker 1: Right that you know looked at for example, that a
Speaker 1: million people died of opioid overdoses and they never ever, ever,
Speaker 1: ever right heard about it being discussed on on national media.
Speaker 1: Right and FDR understood this. He talked about invisible man
Speaker 1: talked about forgotten man, right, are a lot of forgotten
Speaker 1: people in the country. And and what the Democrat Party
Speaker 1: has to understand is that the voters don't have to
Speaker 1: meet the Democrats on the Democrats' terms. The Democrats have
Speaker 1: to meet the voters where they are out in the country.
Speaker 1: And so I think that humility right in our politics,
Speaker 1: that says, hey, we want to have a big tent
Speaker 1: that welcomes all people, right, raise the flag high, and
Speaker 1: say we got some fundamental rights that we got to
Speaker 1: reassert again because we have a gangster in the White
Speaker 1: House that thinks like whether we get to speak out,
Speaker 1: whether we get to sing a song about him, whether
Speaker 1: we get to burn him in effigy or not as
Speaker 1: a criminal matter as opposed to a matter of conscience.
Speaker 1: And that's what we got to agree on. That's what
Speaker 1: we got to stand together on right now.
Speaker 2: And brother, I'm with you.
Speaker 3: I love the way you put that, Steve, My god,
Speaker 3: we have the very thing our founders feared in the
Speaker 3: White House right now. So like if and by the way,
Speaker 3: there ain't no third party coming, There ain't no fourth
Speaker 3: party coming. It's the Democratic Party for right now is
Speaker 3: the opposition party. And with that guy in the White
Speaker 3: House at this moment in time, if the Democrats can't
Speaker 3: get over themselves and do what you just said, be
Speaker 3: a fucking big tent. Be a tent that's big enough
Speaker 3: for an AOC and a Joe Walsh at this moment
Speaker 3: in time to save this democracy. The Democrats Steve need
Speaker 3: to decide if they want to be that.
Speaker 2: I think they're going to get there.
Speaker 3: But if they don't, as bad as Trump is, Maga's
Speaker 3: going to keep winning.
Speaker 2: I believe that.
Speaker 1: I think I think that the biggest problem that Democrats
Speaker 1: have right now is a lack of coherency with leader
Speaker 1: ship in Washington, DC that can go out and do
Speaker 1: do three things every day. Right. And so this starts
Speaker 1: with all the deficiencies around Chuck Schumer right, which have
Speaker 1: a which have a campaign implication for the next cycle
Speaker 1: because he's politically incompetent. But in this moment, like tomorrow,
Speaker 1: at what time tomorrow is the is the Democratic senators
Speaker 1: coming out to hold a news conference where where they
Speaker 1: talk about the three biggest things that we got to
Speaker 1: talk about tomorrow, that is produced with excellence, that has
Speaker 1: video that is delivered to the American people, that the
Speaker 1: abuses of power are called out too. There's a fundamental
Speaker 1: issue that that I just I don't I don't give
Speaker 1: a fuck. Wehear of polls, right, and and when the
Speaker 1: more people who know about it, the hire it's in
Speaker 1: a poll. Right? How what is the ship that Elon
Speaker 1: Musk took with regard to our data? Right, A full
Speaker 1: accounting of what these those teams did, what they have,
Speaker 1: where it is the status of it immediately, right? And
Speaker 1: and so out of that right, what is the plan
Speaker 1: for oversight hearings with the Democratic majority in the Senate
Speaker 1: and the House? What is the what is the plan
Speaker 1: for hearings around the country? What is the plan for investigation?
Speaker 1: What is the plan for audit? What is the plan
Speaker 1: for criminal referral and prosecution? Right? Because there must be
Speaker 1: accountability for all of this. And by the way, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump asserting a pardon power right after the fact, but
Speaker 1: I pray the premeditation of a crime I think is
Speaker 1: challengeable by the next president asserting the same powers that
Speaker 1: Trump has abused. For a season of accountability before there
Speaker 1: is a long, long season of presidential restraint. And so
Speaker 1: there has to be a plan. And then finally, finally,
Speaker 1: the last thing is to say, what is the use
Speaker 1: of power right that we that we have right now
Speaker 1: that we intend to use right to slow this down,
Speaker 1: to stop it, to demand concessions. What's the plan, right?
Speaker 1: And so we're going to use our power right to
Speaker 1: make this stop. And somebody's got to enunciate that from
Speaker 1: a position of leadership in the House and Senate. And
Speaker 1: I just like, why is nobody doing that?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: What is the what is the what is the malfunction?
Speaker 3: And Steve everything you just said the Democrats should be
Speaker 3: doing tomorrow morning, and you're right, it should be filmed,
Speaker 3: there should be video, It should go out everywhere on
Speaker 3: social media.
Speaker 2: My big fucking problem.
Speaker 3: Is we're one hundred and twenty days in to this
Speaker 3: fascist regime.
Speaker 2: Why weren't they doing this on day one?
Speaker 3: It feels like ten years ago, but you remember everything
Speaker 3: Trump and Musk.
Speaker 2: Did on day one and day two and day three.
Speaker 3: For the life of me, I don't know why the
Speaker 3: Democrats were caught flat footed.
Speaker 2: I was I'm not a Democrat.
Speaker 3: I wasn't the only one out there last year calling
Speaker 3: Trump a fascist. Kamala Harris said the same damn thing.
Speaker 3: Joe Biden said the same damn thing, and then the
Speaker 3: fascist wins.
Speaker 2: We do what Trump and his.
Speaker 3: People couldn't do in twenty twenty. We acknowledge the result.
Speaker 3: The American people spoke, We accept the loss, and he won.
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris conceited.
Speaker 3: But you called this man a fascist he is, then
Speaker 3: you don't go through all the other protocol that Joe
Speaker 3: Biden and everybody went through. But then you're the Democrats
Speaker 3: and you believe who he is. From day one, Steve,
Speaker 3: it seemed like they tried to get along with him.
Speaker 3: They tried to appease him, They went down to mar
Speaker 3: A Lago, they tried to coddle him, just be lying
Speaker 3: everything they said about him last year. And Trump and
Speaker 3: must didn't give a fuck because from day one they
Speaker 3: were engaged in their unconstitutional, fascist bullshit. So I don't
Speaker 3: know why they weren't ready from day one. They should
Speaker 3: be ready now they need captivating messengers. I don't see
Speaker 3: anybody on Capitol Hill like that. I think the voices
Speaker 3: have got to come from out in the country.
Speaker 1: I think that there are some really exceptional young members
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill. I think Jason Crow, I think Jake Auchincloss.
Speaker 1: I so I look for example. And this is this
Speaker 1: is my test. So everybody imposes an expectation on you
Speaker 1: about what it is that you are supposed to believe, right,
Speaker 1: that comes from a label and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: And so I'm not supposed to listen to Bernie Sanders
Speaker 1: and to say, oh, I agree with every word on that.
Speaker 1: And I think that what Bernie Sanders is saying right,
Speaker 1: and what AOC is saying right about the inequality of wealth,
Speaker 1: about some of the insiderism inside the Democratic Party, that
Speaker 1: all of these issues about the connection between corruption and autocracy,
Speaker 1: between fundamental reform and free enterprise. That you know, the
Speaker 1: person who has the capitalist position in the debate right
Speaker 1: now is Bernie Sanders. If you believe like I do
Speaker 1: that FDR. You can debate all day long the economics
Speaker 1: of the New Deal, whether it was successful or not.
Speaker 1: But what the New Deal did do is give confidence
Speaker 1: to people both in the economic system and in the
Speaker 1: political system when they needed to have confidence at a
Speaker 1: time where the collapse of confidence led to fashism across Europe. Right, So,
Speaker 1: so we're seeing a collapse of confidence in the economics system.
Speaker 1: That's an increase and at the same time that collapse
Speaker 1: of confidence that that is started and stoked by Trump increases.
Speaker 1: Trump will is to be asserting political power that is
Speaker 1: necessary to deal with the loss of confidence and all
Speaker 1: the issues that come from it on the economy side.
Speaker 1: So it is a it is a dangerous set of
Speaker 1: tides that are all coming together now where Trump right
Speaker 1: is clearly searching for pretext. You look at the overreaction
Speaker 1: on the seashells and COMI let's lock them up, right,
Speaker 1: the National Intelligence Director on the slightest pretext to use power,
Speaker 1: the economic disaster that's now coming and will worsen, and
Speaker 1: the dis desire right to deploy force. Like, I think
Speaker 1: all of those things are on the board right, pretty
Speaker 1: predictable that they're bearing down.
Speaker 3: You either believe he's a threat to democracy or you don't.
Speaker 3: You do, Steve Schmidt?
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: Democrats either believe that or they don't.
Speaker 3: It's hard to argue that they've been acting for the
Speaker 3: past one hundred days like they believe that. I still
Speaker 3: think there's a chance they have to. Things are going
Speaker 3: to get uglier when I say out loud publicly that
Speaker 3: if politically things look really bad for Trump next year
Speaker 3: and Republicans that Trump will do everything he can to
Speaker 3: try to prevent the midterms from happening. You may think
Speaker 3: I'm a loon for saying that, but I believe that,
Speaker 3: and I know a lot of Democrats believe that. But Steve,
Speaker 3: they're afraid to say that. You can't be afraid to
Speaker 3: say stuff like that. I think the biggest failure of
Speaker 3: this old Trump era has been the failure of imagination.
Speaker 3: Like we didn't. We couldn't have imagined thirty years ago
Speaker 3: that somebody would lose an election and try to overthrow it.
Speaker 2: He did it.
Speaker 3: So don't tell me that guy wouldn't try to prevent
Speaker 3: the midterms from happening somehow, right, prepare for the worst,
Speaker 3: at least be have the imagination for it.
Speaker 1: Well, that's absolutely right. It's September of September of twenty
Speaker 1: September of twenty As he was talking about I only
Speaker 1: accept the results of the election, he said it. I said,
Speaker 1: they'll be violence, and we'll go to the water's edge
Speaker 1: and we'll see who cloud crosses the rubicon right to
Speaker 1: that place of And it was everybody right, except for
Speaker 1: a few few people who crossed to that space denial
Speaker 1: of an election. And I think that right. This is
Speaker 1: the great failure of the media. Right. I just saw
Speaker 1: somebody say the worst is yet to come. Yes, the
Speaker 1: worst is yet to come. This is the cornerstone of
Speaker 1: the society. Right, that we pick our leaders, that we
Speaker 1: choose our leaders. The art that surrounds the Capitol rotunda,
Speaker 1: one of the most famous pictures is Washington bowing to Congress,
Speaker 1: subordinating himself, laying down his command when he could have
Speaker 1: been a caesar, right, draping his military cloak on the
Speaker 1: biggest chair in the painting, the unseat upon throne. And
Speaker 1: so this is all fundamental to to who we are. Right.
Speaker 1: It's like a family of cops that one day Dad
Speaker 1: comes home and he says, hey, now we're in the
Speaker 1: bank robbery. Right. I mean I don't right. So it's
Speaker 1: a total departure, right from every aspect of what we believe.
Speaker 1: And as soon as it became mainstream to talk about
Speaker 1: it with indifference attached, it was a crisis.
Speaker 3: And Steve sort of in the Democrats' defense, Trump is
Speaker 3: so bad and so dishonest, and so lawless, and so
Speaker 3: ignorant and so corrupt and so cruel. And every day
Speaker 3: Trump does a thousand bad ugly, Unamerican, treasonous things. Over
Speaker 3: the years, Democrats have really just felt like all we
Speaker 3: got to do is say.
Speaker 2: Trump is bad, baby, and we're gonna win.
Speaker 3: All we got to do is say Trump bad, Trump bad,
Speaker 3: Trump bad, and will win. So Democrats haven't had to
Speaker 3: do the hard work of writing themselves and who are
Speaker 3: they and what do.
Speaker 2: They stand for? I think, and I don't know that
Speaker 2: I know your take on this, Steve Schmith.
Speaker 3: I think November, this past November dispelled the notion forever
Speaker 3: more that Democrats can just win by saying Trump bad.
Speaker 3: They gotta fucking be something and stand for something, and
Speaker 3: I don't think they know what that is.
Speaker 2: Yet.
Speaker 1: There was this moment that I thought was like really incredible,
Speaker 1: and it was when Chuck Schumer came out after Bob Menendez,
Speaker 1: from my home state of New Jersey, was indicted with
Speaker 1: gold bars sewn into the suit jacket, and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, Bob Menendez has been a great representative for
Speaker 1: the people to New Jersey, right, And that's that's the
Speaker 1: that's the issue, right, is that you have to have
Speaker 1: a first off, the Democratic Party doesn't function as a
Speaker 1: national party because it is disenfranchised and disinvested from forty
Speaker 1: states that are in the United States. Right, So like
Speaker 1: we can't we can't treat North Dakota, South Dakota, and
Speaker 1: Oklahoma like their suriname Eritrea right and Nigeria right. These
Speaker 1: are these are places in the United States and filled
Speaker 1: with Americans who are being failed by MAGA governments at
Speaker 1: at an epic level. And if you don't have outreach,
Speaker 1: if you don't meet people where they are, if you
Speaker 1: have a politics of ignoring and disdaining and condescending, right,
Speaker 1: it triggers the voter response of go fuck yourself. And
Speaker 1: it happens one hundred percent of the time. And so
Speaker 1: you have to have a rest duration of connection. And
Speaker 1: that's number one. Number two, the Democratic Party needs to
Speaker 1: have a plan to set things right, which means fundamental reform, corruption, ethics,
Speaker 1: all of these things to be dealt with. A recision
Speaker 1: of presidential authority and power or return to regular order.
Speaker 1: How you pass an appropriations bill, how you pass a bill,
Speaker 1: fundamental change campaign finance law. There has to be some
Speaker 1: type of consideration given to appropriate public content and media
Speaker 1: in a free society on public airwaves. There has to
Speaker 1: be a change in a libel law that that does
Speaker 1: not permit the full on smearing and assault on the
Speaker 1: on the truth. UH. There's a lot of things that
Speaker 1: have to be done. There has to be a confrontation
Speaker 1: with concentrations of power and money, breaking up big companies
Speaker 1: that have grown far too powerful, privacy legislation, medical legislation,
Speaker 1: anybody who has gone through customs with the UH with
Speaker 1: the AI driven face scanner. Right, this this part of
Speaker 1: our future. We have to the American people have to
Speaker 1: take control of it. So so there has to be
Speaker 1: a comprehensive thinking through of a freedom agenda, right that
Speaker 1: has privacy as a prosperity component. And that's what Democrats
Speaker 1: have to be, right. They have to be the freedom party, right,
Speaker 1: and they have to be the human being party, and
Speaker 1: they have to be the party that has tolerance for
Speaker 1: a broad coalition, and they have an empower and strain
Speaker 1: that runs through the party that is anesthetical to the
Speaker 1: achievement of those goals in a two party system. So, right,
Speaker 1: this is the place we're at, right, And that's that's
Speaker 1: what we got to figure out.
Speaker 3: Yes, And it's so ironic Steve that you said they
Speaker 3: got to be the Freedom Party because I believe that.
Speaker 2: I mean I was.
Speaker 3: There when sort of we helped launch the Freedom Caucus
Speaker 3: in the House. And the Freedom Caucus now is the
Speaker 3: Trump Caucus. So the Republican Party has abandoned all notions
Speaker 3: of freedom. I was a Republican from the very beginning
Speaker 3: because I always believed in kind of freedom, limited government,
Speaker 3: free trade and all the rest. This Republican Party has
Speaker 3: abandoned all of that.
Speaker 1: It's an obedience caucus.
Speaker 3: Yes, look, Democrats, America, this may bother you, but America
Speaker 3: knowingly chose the asshole in November over you. They chose
Speaker 3: the asshole over you. So figure that out. We we
Speaker 3: we are. We are very much.
Speaker 2: In an anti establishment era.
Speaker 3: And I loved everything that Steve Schmidt just said about reforms,
Speaker 3: privacy reforms, government reforms, election reforms. You're right, Steve, the
Speaker 3: Democrats ought to herald a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean what at the at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, we've seen a couple of instances in our
Speaker 1: adult lives where where places and things that we have
Speaker 1: a deep attachment to are gone. The World Trade Center
Speaker 1: in New York, and so in the immediate aftermath, people say, well,
Speaker 1: we got to rebuild exactly what was there, and that
Speaker 1: almost never happens, right, It's it's not going to happen
Speaker 1: in Pacific palis Ades with the community that burned down.
Speaker 1: It's not going to happen with regard to what Trump
Speaker 1: is burned to the ground. Inside, inside the federal government,
Speaker 1: what fractured. So right, when Democrats come to power, there's
Speaker 1: going to have to be an assessment of what happened,
Speaker 1: who did what, accountability for law breaking, but also how
Speaker 1: do you deliver a service that delivers a dollar value
Speaker 1: for a dollar spent? Does the program that reaches the
Speaker 1: poor kid deliver a service to the poor kid? Because
Speaker 1: what was burned down that existed pre Trump is gone,
Speaker 1: it's gone, right, and so what will come after it
Speaker 1: has to be thoughtful, has to be sustainable, has to
Speaker 1: be able to deliver a service and make the delivery
Speaker 1: of that service is popular. If you're the party that
Speaker 1: stands for the proposition that government can do things, then
Speaker 1: you have to be the party that demands competence from government.
Speaker 1: And so perfect example of this is in California, many
Speaker 1: many billions of dollars has been spent on high speed
Speaker 1: rail for twenty five years. There's not one foot of
Speaker 1: track that exists, that's been laid down billions of dollars, right,
Speaker 1: and so why would anyone defend that? Why would anybody
Speaker 1: defend that? And it's ridiculous to have to defend it
Speaker 1: and feel like you have to because of a magic
Speaker 1: letter next to your name. And that's what has to
Speaker 1: be thrown out the window. All of it.
Speaker 3: Well, and Steve, a lot of this, though, is the
Speaker 3: issues Democrats need to rethink where they are on some issues.
Speaker 3: What you just said high speed rail, spot on. Where
Speaker 3: is all the housing in this country being built in
Speaker 3: Red states? Manufacturing is booming in the South. Democrats need
Speaker 3: to wake up to this. I come from Illinois. What's
Speaker 3: going on in Illinois?
Speaker 2: What's going on in California?
Speaker 3: This is a real problem. The issue, Steve, of immigration.
Speaker 3: When I campaigned for Harris in every battleground state every
Speaker 3: day for three months, I heard more about the issue
Speaker 3: of immigration than any other issue. And yeah, Trump demigogue's
Speaker 3: the fucking issue. And he lies about it because he
Speaker 3: tries to scare people. They're eating cats and dogs. They're
Speaker 3: eating cats and dogs. Utter lies in bullshit. But the
Speaker 3: Democrats kind of ignored the issue. They didn't even talk
Speaker 3: about or look the other way when it came to
Speaker 3: the border. So even on that issue, Steve, a lot
Speaker 3: of regular Americans said, I'm going to vote for the
Speaker 3: guy who's lying to me about immigrant He's lying to
Speaker 3: me about these migrants because the other party doesn't even
Speaker 3: acknowledge that this is an issue we need to do
Speaker 3: something about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's a really it's an incredible issue
Speaker 1: that sums up I think a lot of this moment
Speaker 1: and where we got to. I was always an outspoken
Speaker 1: advocate for immigration reform. Right. That was, you know, essentially
Speaker 1: the McCain plan, which is I understood it, the issue,
Speaker 1: the issue. Here's what the issue was, as that that
Speaker 1: I thought reasonable people could could could sit and come
Speaker 1: together on this, which was this at the time, was
Speaker 1: we have about eleven million people in the country illegally,
Speaker 1: and the reason that they're here illegally is because our
Speaker 1: economy function and with them, not without them. So we
Speaker 1: tolerate this, We've looked away. So why are they here?
Speaker 1: They're here because of us. So if you want to
Speaker 1: do something about this and secure the border, right, okay, right,
Speaker 1: And what the votes existed was to basically say, you
Speaker 1: people here illegally got to pay a fine. You've got
Speaker 1: to go to the back of the line. You may
Speaker 1: be eligible to get a green card like fifteen years
Speaker 1: from now and become a citizen seven years after that. Right,
Speaker 1: I love going to new citizen ceremonies, right, I think
Speaker 1: they're an incredible thing to go to. But that compromise
Speaker 1: fell apart because when the Republicans were in charge, Democrats
Speaker 1: didn't want to give them a victory. When Democrats were
Speaker 1: in charge, Republicans didn't want to give them a victory,
Speaker 1: and everyone played politics, and over time, right, the issue
Speaker 1: lost all nuanced, and so the choice became we're either
Speaker 1: going to have no border or we're gonna have right,
Speaker 1: I guess ice Barbie and mass deportations. And so in
Speaker 1: the choice between no border and ice barbe and deportations,
Speaker 1: I know what side wins that to be, and it's
Speaker 1: the ice bar beside. It's the well, we're going to
Speaker 1: kick everybody out, right, because we can't have this. And
Speaker 1: so what Democrats have to be able to do is
Speaker 1: to meet the American people where they are and to
Speaker 1: appreciate that everybody who's voting in an election is an
Speaker 1: American citizen and whether their third generation Hispanic or second
Speaker 1: generation Hispanic or from wherever. Just like everybody, the majority
Speaker 1: of the country wants the immigration laws enforced, and they
Speaker 1: don't like the abuse that Trump's doing. But the alternative
Speaker 1: to what's Trump doing is not an open border, it's
Speaker 1: a humane enforcement of a sane border policy. And that's
Speaker 1: the bar that Democrats have to meet in order to
Speaker 1: ask for power to govern the country and to have
Speaker 1: a remedy for this. I mean, it's as simple as that.
Speaker 1: What Democrats have to ask for is power to make
Speaker 1: things stop it shouldn't be happening, which does not mean
Speaker 1: getting a green light to do things that are reciprocal
Speaker 1: of this that no one wants to see happen on
Speaker 1: the opposite side of the coin. And I don't know
Speaker 1: what else to say beyond that.
Speaker 3: And they're Democrats are lucky, Steve, because you're right with
Speaker 3: this issue of immigration, Trump's taking the pendulum and he's
Speaker 3: running so far in that direction. We're disappearing people off
Speaker 3: the streets and deporting innocent people. So he's given a
Speaker 3: great opening to Democrats to be where you advocated years
Speaker 3: ago they be Trump's doing that with every issue, the transgender,
Speaker 3: every issue. He and MAGA are so extreme that if
Speaker 3: Democrats can just nudge a little bit over here on
Speaker 3: every single one of these issues, they can grab most Americans.
Speaker 1: For example, tomorrow there should be a news conference that
Speaker 1: kicks off with Democratic senators and talk about mister Obrego
Speaker 1: and say, for instance, that we insist this administration followed
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court decision. Excuse me for one second. I
Speaker 1: have a thirteen year old black lab. I'm going to
Speaker 1: let him out of this room. He wanted to come in.
Speaker 1: Hang on right, good guy, he had heard enough.
Speaker 2: That's a thirteen year old black lab.
Speaker 1: That's a thirteen year old black lab. So he was
Speaker 1: he had had enough of our He had first Smith right.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is like I would say, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: happy we get to talk about this, and I literally
Speaker 1: have a guy on a dolly dressed up like Hannibal Lecter,
Speaker 1: and I would play a clip from Trump at one
Speaker 1: of the rallies, and I would roll out the Hannibal
Speaker 1: Lecter guy right like on the on the dolly with
Speaker 1: the mask and the whole thing in the straight jacket,
Speaker 1: and I would say, we got him right. This is right.
Speaker 1: We caught him earlier today. Right, this is Trump's guy here, right,
Speaker 1: Hannibal Lecter, and that Trump was talking about with the
Speaker 1: cats and the dogs, and'd be like, here's the great
Speaker 1: thing about America, right, there's two great things right that
Speaker 1: we got going for us in our time of trouble. Right,
Speaker 1: right that even Hannibal elector here, he gets to stand
Speaker 1: in front of a judge. Right, he's got that going
Speaker 1: for him. And if he gets kidnapped by Somali pirates,
Speaker 1: the Navy seals are coming together. Right, those are two
Speaker 1: things we have going for us right as a people.
Speaker 1: And so Hannibal elector or not, he gets to stand
Speaker 1: in front of a jury, right, he gets to stand
Speaker 1: in front of a judge. He gets to stand in
Speaker 1: a courtroom, and he gets due process. And we don't
Speaker 1: have people who go on Fox News, right, who are
Speaker 1: the national Intelligence director or the national director of this
Speaker 1: that or the other, the FBI director or the Homeland
Speaker 1: Security Cabinet secretary and say, oh, that person should be
Speaker 1: in jail because Trump hates them.
Speaker 3: Bullshit, Steve, Steve, it's it's part of my language. It's
Speaker 3: fucking evil. Got what department? But it was just revealed
Speaker 3: today that in that first planeload of two hundred and
Speaker 3: sum people that we deported to that El Salvador jail,
Speaker 3: our government now is acknowledging that at least fifty of
Speaker 3: those people entered this country legally, legally, and we snagged
Speaker 3: them and sent them to an El Salvador jail.
Speaker 2: That's evil.
Speaker 1: Where are the filing of state kidnapping charges. Where is
Speaker 1: the international NGO community, Where is the Catholic Church? Where
Speaker 1: is the civil society in the country who is not
Speaker 1: speaking up to this? And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: we're what we're witnessing in our Salvador, right, it's really
Speaker 1: important to talk about is that we're we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to talk about this as a society, right and and
Speaker 1: there's gonna be somebody sitting on CNN he says, well,
Speaker 1: it's time not to talk about this today or it's
Speaker 1: the wrong time, right.
Speaker 3: But we are.
Speaker 1: Involved as a nation in a cash transaction with the
Speaker 1: dictator of our Salvador that speak that that sends to
Speaker 1: a concentration camp. People that have been abducted from American
Speaker 1: soil without due process, including people who may be in
Speaker 1: the country legally right, have been ordered to be returned
Speaker 1: by the by the Supreme Court. Is that is that
Speaker 1: we are sending people right and involved in a cash
Speaker 1: transaction and with a dictator who essentially buys them from
Speaker 1: the United States. And so what we're seeing is an
Speaker 1: active evil and it's happening, and it's being done in
Speaker 1: our name, and it is illegal under American law, it
Speaker 1: is illegal under the UN Human Rights Charter. We are
Speaker 1: involved and engaged as a nation and illegal and inhumane
Speaker 1: activity that the people in this administration are willfully, knowingly
Speaker 1: and premeditatively engaged and with full knowledge that it's against
Speaker 1: America's treaty obligations, against America's law because they say they
Speaker 1: are above the law. And so this election in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six is a profoundly important one because of the
Speaker 1: fact that we're gonna put a check on him, right
Speaker 1: or we're not. But the failure to put an overwhelming
Speaker 1: check on Donald Trump will mean for Donald Trump that
Speaker 1: he's going to be able to assert power in ways
Speaker 1: that are a nightmare for three hundred and fifty million
Speaker 1: people who think they live in a free country.
Speaker 3: We did not put a check on him after he
Speaker 3: tried to overthrow an American election.
Speaker 2: How we doing now? How we doing now America?
Speaker 3: So you're right, Steve, My god, so he thinks he's invincible.
Speaker 3: Now that's how you and I began our conversation. If
Speaker 3: we don't put a check on him in twenty six,
Speaker 3: forget about it, forget about it. And it's up to
Speaker 3: the Democrats right now. And we are all somehow Democrats
Speaker 3: right now. But my god, you and I just spent
Speaker 3: Steve Smith four minutes, five minutes talking about raw, ugly
Speaker 3: evil this country, putting people in this country legally on
Speaker 3: an airplane, throwing them in an El Salvador jail. Listen
Speaker 3: to how pissed off, righteously pissed off you.
Speaker 2: And I are. I want to hear that from Democratic
Speaker 2: elected officials.
Speaker 1: Damn it, we hear it from some right And I
Speaker 1: want to and I want to say, I want to
Speaker 1: I want to throw some names. You got Jason Crowe,
Speaker 1: you got Jake Auchincloss. You have Abigail Spamberger in Virginia,
Speaker 1: Mikey Sheryl, you have Joscelyn Benson in Michigan. You have
Speaker 1: Mallory mcmarrow in Michigan. You have candidates all over the country,
Speaker 1: and the Democratic Party. And the line that you should
Speaker 1: look at is not some artificial line, it's some meaningless term. Right,
Speaker 1: they're progressive or they're conservative or this. They either have
Speaker 1: fighting spirit or they do not. They're either faithful to
Speaker 1: the US Constitution or they are not. They're either going
Speaker 1: to lift the flag up higher they're not. And they're
Speaker 1: either tolerant. Right for all the rest of us who
Speaker 1: are with our hands out saying hey, we'll fight with
Speaker 1: you against these people who want to take away power,
Speaker 1: want to take away rights, We want to take away
Speaker 1: the fundamental blessings of liberty from from our fellow Americans.
Speaker 1: And we won't. We won't tolerate it. And so that's
Speaker 1: that's the calling of this moment, is to say that
Speaker 1: we won't tolerate this. Uh, we won't abide it, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna oppose it. And I want to
Speaker 1: I want to turn over to you for that, and
Speaker 1: I want to talk about one last thang, whige is
Speaker 1: this military parade, and then we'll wrap it.
Speaker 3: I just I just want to because Steve, I so
Speaker 3: fucking loved what you just said. I want to echo it.
Speaker 3: I'm not a progressive, but I don't give a fly.
Speaker 3: And you know what if, if if, if the democratic
Speaker 3: voice is far left or centrist, I could care less,
Speaker 3: just like you where it comes from.
Speaker 2: You're either fighting or you're not.
Speaker 3: You're either in there defending this democracy in the rule
Speaker 3: of law or you're not. And I don't give you
Speaker 3: a damn if you're far left or somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1: No, And I've and listen, I've evolved on my view
Speaker 1: on taxation. With these guys who are worth two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty billion dollars, we got to think about how
Speaker 1: it is we're going to take a lot of their
Speaker 1: shit from them, right as a society, as as a people,
Speaker 1: enough is enough. We have to recalibrate what we need
Speaker 1: to do. So one thing that is happening on June
Speaker 1: fourteenth is a day of desecration. This is just a
Speaker 1: tragic day, Flag Day. Of course, it's the birth of
Speaker 1: the United States Army, which is turning two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty years old, and so this is a year of
Speaker 1: for Found anniversaries. We kicked off the two hundred and
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary cycle of the country with Paul Revere's Midnight
Speaker 1: Run with the battles of Lexington conquered Bunker Hill. We
Speaker 1: have the anniversaries of the US Navy, the Marine Corps
Speaker 1: of the US Army, and the Washington assumes command and
Speaker 1: the Army is formed a few days later two regiments,
Speaker 1: and that is going to be turned into a dear
Speaker 1: Leader parade. Right the greatest force for liberation in the
Speaker 1: history of the world, the American Army, and the American
Speaker 1: Army is going to be desecrated on June the fourteenth,
Speaker 1: as you see American soldiers forts to participate in this
Speaker 1: most un American spectacle. How do you think about it
Speaker 1: on June the fourteenth, Well, we're going to see how
Speaker 1: should people feel about this? I feel like it's a
Speaker 1: desecrative event, a shameful event, a dishonorable event. The soldiers
Speaker 1: who are forced to march in it or not. Service
Speaker 1: in the military is not They serve the Constitution, not
Speaker 1: a man. But what needs to be said about this
Speaker 1: as we get ready to witness this, because there's some
Speaker 1: important things that need to be said around this event,
Speaker 1: which is at every one of those men and women
Speaker 1: wearing the uniform of the country don't serve the president.
Speaker 1: They serve the American people, and they wore an oat
Speaker 1: to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump. And that's what's
Speaker 1: special about the United States. I can't I think we've
Speaker 1: lost you here on the mute.
Speaker 2: Steve Schmidt. You nailed it.
Speaker 3: It's a desecration and it should every American sad and
Speaker 3: every American angry. Because Donald Trump envisions a day where
Speaker 3: he's like Kim Jong owner, he's putin and you've got
Speaker 3: these soldiers and tanks marching by, kicking up all saluting him.
Speaker 3: It should piss off every American. But I'll also bring
Speaker 3: this up, Steve, June fourteenth is also the next big
Speaker 3: nationwide protest day. It's a no King's protest day, and
Speaker 3: there are going to be again millions and millions of
Speaker 3: Americans out in every city and community in the country
Speaker 3: protesting against what this guy is in the White House
Speaker 3: and just embracing that basic principle that we don't have
Speaker 3: kings in America. So June fourteenth is also going to
Speaker 3: be a big protest day.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're going to protest the King, remember this.
Speaker 1: Everybody burning the king and effigy is not an act
Speaker 1: of violence. It's an active speech. It's an active dissent.
Speaker 1: If you do it, though, make sure you talk to
Speaker 1: your local fire department and fire all follow all local
Speaker 1: fire code. But right, you know, someone out there somewhere
Speaker 1: right is going to burn right the king or folk King,
Speaker 1: our dime store, Mussolini in effigy. And it's not an
Speaker 1: assault on the nation. It's not a national security event.
Speaker 1: It's an act of it's an active speech. And in
Speaker 1: this country, on this night, when Donald Trump is threatening
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen and Fance and threatening Bono and Oprah and
Speaker 1: anyone who dared oppose him, trying to intimidate dissent, well
Speaker 1: I want to say to all of you, don't let
Speaker 1: it intimidate you. You're an American. Rights are not privileges.
Speaker 1: Their rights they don't come from Donald Trump. They come
Speaker 1: from the air you breathe them in when you took
Speaker 1: your first breath on American soil. And you are an American,
Speaker 1: and you are free, and you are free to assert
Speaker 1: your conscience, to assert your rights, to speech, the petition
Speaker 1: the government, to worship as you please. And when you
Speaker 1: see the jackbooted government thugs of this administration trampling on
Speaker 1: people's rights, when you see it being done to the
Speaker 1: least of us, appreciate it's being done to all of us.
Speaker 1: When you see it being done to the most prominent
Speaker 1: of us, like Bruce Springsteen or Oprah, appreciate that it's
Speaker 1: being targeted at them, because if it can be done
Speaker 1: to them, it can be done to any of us.
Speaker 1: And so when you see people targeting the least of
Speaker 1: us and some of the people that have the most fearlessly,
Speaker 1: with arrogance, unrestrained, take it seriously, but do not be
Speaker 1: afraid of it. Appreciate that there is nothing they can
Speaker 1: do against all of us together, that they are a
Speaker 1: small minority. And that's what this thugocracy is. Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is sustained by a court of thousands and an inner
Speaker 1: court of hundreds, not a movement of millions. And so
Speaker 1: the American people are going to be woken up. The
Speaker 1: American people are going to be stirred. The American people
Speaker 1: are going to have to face the danger. And we
Speaker 1: have always done that. Whinston Churchill observed about us before
Speaker 1: I give it over to Joe to take us home,
Speaker 1: that Americans in the end usually do the right thing,
Speaker 1: although we'll wait till the last possible moment to do it.
Speaker 1: So with that, let me go over to Joe Walsh
Speaker 1: and ask you to bring us home tonight and say
Speaker 1: good night to everybody, and thank you so much. We
Speaker 1: can find you again on substack at the Social contract.
Speaker 1: In the social contract in America has always been this
Speaker 1: notion that we hand it off a little bit better,
Speaker 1: a little bit stronger, to the next generation to keep
Speaker 1: on keeping on with the work of perfecting the union.
Speaker 1: So that's what the work of America has always been.
Speaker 1: That's what the Social Contract has always been. Joe Walsh
Speaker 1: a great champion of it, an important voice in this moment,
Speaker 1: and it was great to have you on tonight, Joe,
Speaker 1: and please say goodnight to everybody. We have two thousand
Speaker 1: people and then many more see it in the in
Speaker 1: the aftermath, and so you know, give them the final
Speaker 1: word if you would.
Speaker 2: I shall.
Speaker 3: Steve Schmidt, thank you, my friend, for inviting me on.
Speaker 2: Thank you for everything you do. Thank you Steve.
Speaker 3: Schmidt for being a consistent voice. We need a lot
Speaker 3: more of that. Look, I'll echo what Steve said, don't
Speaker 3: be afraid, don't be afraid, don't be afraid.
Speaker 2: And I'll closed with this. We're lucky.
Speaker 3: We are not every generation of Americans has had the
Speaker 3: opportunity to fight to defend this thing.
Speaker 2: Look at it that way.
Speaker 3: I know it seems like it sucks right now, but
Speaker 3: we have an opportunity that so many other generations haven't had.
Speaker 3: We get to fight, scratch and claw to save our democracy.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Steven, thank you so much, and thank you everybody.
Speaker 1: I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning. I invite you
Speaker 1: to join this community where I promise to be honest,
Speaker 1: blunt and direct about what is happening in this country.
Speaker 1: America is in crisis. Follow and subscribe to this channel
Speaker 1: and on substack.
Speaker 2: Thank you.