WEBVTT - Donald Trump Is Turning The Oval Office Into A Circus 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:05.360 It is maybe eighth, twenty twenty five. This is the warning. 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:11.680 Eighty years ago. Today, there was jubilation in every corner 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:16.720 of the United States, from every small town square to 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:22.560 New York City, from Piccadilly in London and Paris, wherever 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:27.639 people had endured through the night. They danced into the 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:33.320 night for freedom, liberty that had been won at great cost. 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:38.640 This day marks, within still the span of a single 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:45.199 human lifetime, the end of history's greatest cataclysm, the Second 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:51.319 World War that Winston Churchill described in his memoirs as 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:56.600 an unnecessary war. It was a war that began by 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:02.880 appeasing madness, over and over and over again until it 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:07.160 was too late. Adolf Hitler had a mountain, and at 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.520 the top there was a teahouse, a gift from the 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:14.760 Nazi Party. The road to the top cost many lives 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:19.080 in its engineering and manufacture. There was a hole, a 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.920 boring drilled into the mountain. You can walk into it 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:26.720 to this day, to the Golden Elevator. The s s men, 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:31.400 the Adolf Hitler legion would have lined the rock inside, 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.360 holding torches. All of it. A theater meant to intimidate 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:40.280 anybody walking into that mountain into the Furer's layer, and 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:44.840 up the golden elevator they went, and Adolf Hitler at 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:49.480 the top shook down, intimidated, sought to rule the world. 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:54.320 What he did to the Austrian Prime Minister is precisely 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.280 what Donald Trump did in the Oval Office to President Zelenski. 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:02.800 The Oval Office is where Winston Churchill would sit by 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.440 the side of the deaths, next to Franklin Roosevelt, and 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.240 in the evening they would drink cocktails and talk about 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:15.000 the world. FDR is the most important visionary of the 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:20.600 twentieth century, the man who envisions what would come after catastrophe, 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:25.800 and it began with his fundamental belief in the value 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:30.080 and dignity of human liberty and human rights. The United 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:35.519 Nations Declaration of Human Rights is an American author document. 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:40.440 It was put forward ultimately by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.600 after the death of the President. It is amongst his 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:49.920 greatest legacies. The entire architecture of an interconnected world where 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:54.840 the value of human dignity has been asserted, is rooted 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:59.520 in the Titanic vision of Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt had a 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:04.440 dream that the world that would emerge from the night, 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:08.720 from the darkness, from the slavery that would be better, 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.560 would endure for as long as everybody on the day 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:17.440 this war was won, was still alive. He shared that 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:22.760 one evening at the White House with the Canadian Prime Minister. Today, 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:27.160 the Canadian Prime Minister is the leader of the free 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.760 people of North America. When we look at who is 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:35.880 the person who embodies the spirit of John Kennedy, of 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:40.640 Franklin Roosevelt, of Ronald Reagan, of people who believe deeply 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:45.000 in the Constitution, it's Mark Carne who embodies not an 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:49.440 American fidelity to an American document, but to the principles 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:54.880 that informed that document. Brands principles important and noble ideas 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:59.240 about human dignity and human liberty. Now, in this moment, 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:03.119 some said, well, the issue is the economy, and they're right, 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.720 because it is the oligarch that is a fundamental threat 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.040 to liberty. It is the oligarch that is a fundamental 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.240 threat to capitalism. It is the oligarchic that is a 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:17.760 fundamental threat to opportunity, to upper mobility, to the pursuit 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.600 of happiness so that they may have more and more 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:25.400 and more and more so that their rapaciousness may be stated. 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.600 With more power, with more money, with more access, everybody 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.719 else will be reduced to surfdom. It's an unacceptable proposition 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.720 and one the American people cannot tolerate. So, yes, there 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:42.360 is an economic crisis, but that economic crisis is steeped 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.919 in fundamental questions of right and wrong at the court. 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:50.719 This crisis that Donald Trump has sent into the homes 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.320 of every American family that will get much worse, is 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:58.719 a moral crisis. There is a security crisis in the world. 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:03.720 The flames of war are growing, and this is directly 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:08.760 related to the weakness of Donald Trump, to his shallowness, 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:15.320 to his imbecilities, to his idiocy. Now, Jesse Waters and 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:19.760 Stephen Miller, they may see a strategic genius, a grand 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.680 chess master, but what the rest of the world sees 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:29.559 is a clown who is easily manipulated. What Jizinpang takes 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:33.560 away from the encounter between Donald Trump and Prime Minister 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.000 Mark Carney is that all you need to do to 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.840 win a negotiation with Donald Trump is perhaps offer him 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.719 an extra slice of chocolate cake after dinner. Donald Trump 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.599 is the living proof of the wisdom of the old 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.400 Turkish proverb. If a clown goes to the palace, he 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:56.000 does not become a sultan. Palace becomes a circus. And 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.000 look at this place. What would you call this? From 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:03.520 a decorative style of the corps latter day pemp It 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:08.880 is appalling, tacking just the creative of a sacred American space. 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:14.880 Donald Trump has turned it into Nero's layer. And while 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:19.960 America's economy is burning, global security is burning, a moral 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:25.120 disaster is unfolding that is fundamental to who we are 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:29.320 as a people. And the feckless Democratic Party does not 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:33.920 seem to appreciate, outside of a small minority of its 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:39.840 elected members, that some fights are imposed not on your timeline, 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.880 but your opponents, or in this case, the fascists, the 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:49.240 domestic enemies who wish to end the bedrock principles of 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:54.280 American society, all of which are invested in the idea 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.800 that liberty and rights are bestowed by a higher power 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.640 than the government of men. We believe that all men 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:08.200 are created equal and doubt by a creator, with inalienable 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.720 rights life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And this 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:18.080 requires us as Americans to hold ourselves to a higher standard, 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.600 into a higher faith and to say, though that there 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.000 is evil in the world, and even if that evil 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:30.280 is directed out Americans, that we will treat the most 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:36.040 evil human being with a fundamental level of dignity, even 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:39.600 if they do not reciprocate it, because in the end, 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:45.480 Americanism is superior to the evil. We are better than that, 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:50.480 We are more moral than that. John McCain understood this. 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:55.840 It was, in the essence fundamentally an aspect of what 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.920 you can look back on as a public ministry around 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:04.040 torture and the degradation of human beings rights of which 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:08.440 he was a foremost champion of human freedom for prisoners 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:13.320 of war, prisoners of conscience, prisoners everywhere. And what John 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.400 McCain understood was that the American people have a right 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:21.080 to know what is being done in their name, because 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.840 we are a government of the people, by the people, 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:28.760 for the people, and so we must face together an 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:34.600 urgent reality. And that urgent reality is that the Homeland 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:39.800 Security Department, which has always carried a sinister name, has 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:45.280 turned senister. There is an American gestapo on the loose, 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:49.480 and they are being used and abused and directed to 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:55.800 abused by immoral men and women like Tom Hoeman and Christino, 0:08:56.400 --> 0:09:00.240 guided by Corey Lewandowski and by Stephen Miller. And what 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:05.040 these people are is littlekmans. And do not mistake what 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.440 it is that you are seeing. The man who interrogated 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.120 Aikman understood when he was asked twenty years after Aikman 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:16.360 swung from the road what the core lesson was. He said, 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.080 it gave him his faith in democracy, because in democracies, 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.880 little Aikmans are harmless, and they are everywhere, he said. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.640 It is in a dictatorship of the left or right 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.600 that they turned deadly in an instant. It is unacceptable 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.559 for federal law enforcement to be used as a weapon 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:40.320 to instill fear in ordinary Americans and innocent people who 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.160 travel to this country for whatever reason, who do not 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:48.679 deserve the inhumanity directed at them. And even if it 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.560 is the case that it is decided lawfully that somebody 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:56.319 is to be deported, their deportation should be carried out 0:09:56.480 --> 0:10:01.840 with a dignity deserving of every human life. America is 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.840 better than the lowest amongst us. And that is a 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:10.760 fundamental proposition, because it is anchored in our faith, the 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:15.520 quarterstones of our society, that the human being and their 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.720 rights come from God, not from man. And if they 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.800 are protected for the worst of the worst, they are 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:28.520 protected for everybody. And that is what keeps us safe 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:33.720 in a democracy. And so when Donald Trump sends jack 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:38.640 booted thugs into a Washington restaurant owned by the husband 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.920 of the CBS evening news anchor, two days after a 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:46.559 sixty minutes investigation, I have doubts. And I have doubts 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.920 because of the record that's clearly at hand, a record 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.679 of lying and dishonesty and abuses of power that is 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:58.160 growing every day. And every day Donald issues decrees, and 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.680 he's decrees our lawless. They have no force of law, 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:06.520 no power. They are testaments to his psychiatric condition, not 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.600 his authority. We do not have kings. And the feeble 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:15.400 and feckless American media that compares Donald Trump's first one 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:20.560 hundred days to FDRs is complicit in the gaslighting and 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:24.280 abuse of the American people because in FDR's first one 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:28.000 hundred days he passed and signed into law seventy six 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:32.560 pieces of legislation. He did not issue seventy six decrees. 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:38.360 And those decrees are arrows dipped in a poison of malice. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:43.439 On this the eightieth anniversary of America's defeat of Nazi 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:48.080 Germany as an American general led the European war effort 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:53.640 as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force made up 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.720 of the United Nations countries that stood together in the 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.800 moment of supreme testing. Eighty years we must consider what 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.000 we have become, which is very different from what we 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.000 have been and what we must be. And so it 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.080 is a time for standing up again because what's happening 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.800 all about and all around us is deeply wrong. This 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:19.960 is the warning, and I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning. 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.959 I invite you to join this community where I promise 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:27.079 to be honest, blunt and direct about what is happening 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:31.679 in this country. America is in crisis. Follow and subscribe 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.200 to this channel and on substack. Thank you.