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Speaker 1: Donald Trump will be sitting down with NBC News. Is

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Speaker 1: Kristen Welker this Sunday is She takes over the venerable

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Speaker 1: Sunday Public Affairs show Meet the Press. She is a

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Speaker 1: very capable journalist. But the interview raises a question. What

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Speaker 1: is it that you ask Donald Trump? What should the

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Speaker 1: interview be about? What is the election about? What is

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Speaker 1: this moment in America about? What is the issue that

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Speaker 1: the country is facing. Let's think about it like this

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Speaker 1: is America in a crisis? Is that crisis more severe

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Speaker 1: than other periods of turbulence in our politics? There is

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Speaker 1: something that has not been adequately expressed by leaders of

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Speaker 1: the Democratic Party about this moment in time that is

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Speaker 1: essential for framing the next election and its stakes. And

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Speaker 1: it's this. The American way of life is absolutely and

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Speaker 1: wholly dependent on the elections process. Our entire civilization is

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Speaker 1: constructed and built around what was a revolutionary concept that

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Speaker 1: everybody got a chance to vote. Today in America, everybody

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Speaker 1: means everybody. And that's a good thing. Because the right

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Speaker 1: to vote has expanded, the franchise has grown. We have elections,

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Speaker 1: and those elections offer a choice. I've spent a good

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Speaker 1: deal of my career working around political campaigns and being

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Speaker 1: involved in elections. I've been involved in winning elections and

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Speaker 1: I've been involved in losing elections. In fact, I was

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Speaker 1: the person who placed the phone call for John McCain

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Speaker 1: to concede the election to President elect Barack Obama. And

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Speaker 1: in that moment, the first person who mattered in America

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Speaker 1: who addressed Barack Obama as mister President Elect. Wasn't his staff,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't his supporters. It was his defeated opponent.

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Speaker 1: John McCain had every ability to do what Donald Trump did,

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Speaker 1: to endlessly appeal, to go state by state and ask

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Speaker 1: for recounts and hand counts and everything else. But he

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Speaker 1: did not because he accepted reality, accepted the will of

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Speaker 1: the American people. He accepted the basis of the election

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Speaker 1: as foundational to American society. If you take away the

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Speaker 1: power of people to choose their leaders, you take away

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Speaker 1: the idea that brought the country to life. What Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump has done and is continuing to do, is assault

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Speaker 1: the foundation of the American way of life. If he

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Speaker 1: succeeds in his attack, which is unprecedented in the history

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Speaker 1: of the country, then he will succeed in hobbling the country.

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Speaker 1: Already plans are afoot. If he wins that thousands of

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Speaker 1: his appointees will come into office and they will strip

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Speaker 1: bare the federal government. They will disassemble the government of

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Speaker 1: the United States. They will operationally make it unable to

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Speaker 1: function at any level. These people are nihilists. The people

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Speaker 1: who assaulted the capital will be the people inside the

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Speaker 1: government tearing it down, taking it apart, and they'll succeed

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Speaker 1: in doing that in a period of months should they

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Speaker 1: get back into power. And those people believe something that

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Speaker 1: needs to be talked about. They don't believe that elections

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Speaker 1: should determine the apportionment of limited political power temporarily to

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Speaker 1: officeholders who govern and represent with the consent through an

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Speaker 1: election of the people that they govern. Legitimacy in government

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Speaker 1: comes from the consent of the people to decide their faith.

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Speaker 1: This is the essence of the American ideal. For almost

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Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty years, power transferred peacefully in the

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Speaker 1: United States until it did it. We should take everything

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Speaker 1: that Donald Trump says literally and seriously, because in many

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Speaker 1: ways he has done exactly what he told us he

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Speaker 1: would do, going all the way back to twenty and

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Speaker 1: fifteen when he said he would not accept the results

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Speaker 1: of an election if he didn't win. When he said it,

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Speaker 1: it should have been a cause of national emergency, as

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Speaker 1: opposed to being ignored or laughed off or eye rolled.

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Speaker 1: The way Mitt Romney tells it, the Republican senators all

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Speaker 1: snapped too and become obedient sycophants when Trump is in

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Speaker 1: the room. When he leaves, they laugh behind his back. Well,

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Speaker 1: maybe that's what they did when he started talking about

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Speaker 1: locking people up, or he started talking about that he

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Speaker 1: would not submit to the will of the people, the

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Speaker 1: violence was inevitable because what Trump told millions of people

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Speaker 1: with the help of loathsome people like Josh Holly and

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Speaker 1: Ted Cruz and Rupert Murdoch and Brett Baer and Sean

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Speaker 1: Hannity and Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingram and the list

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Speaker 1: goes on, was that they lived under occupation that the

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Speaker 1: president was not legitimate, that he had not been elected

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Speaker 1: by the will of the American people. It was a

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Speaker 1: lie without a shred of evidence, and it was a

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Speaker 1: lie aimed at destroying the foundation of the society to

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Speaker 1: sate the ego of one man. The president of the

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Speaker 1: United States who did not want to give up his

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Speaker 1: power when the American people stripped him of it in

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Speaker 1: an election. He did not concede, he did not walk away.

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Speaker 1: And here we are in the midst of a crisis

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Speaker 1: unequaled in American history that threatens the foundations of our democracy,

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Speaker 1: our way of life, and our children's future, unequaled since

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Speaker 1: the American Civil War. That's what the election is about.

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump is a man who lied to the American

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Speaker 1: people thirty five thousand times. Donald Trump is a man

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Speaker 1: who right now wields tremendous power in the society. Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump is orchestrating the impeachment of President Biden. Behind the curtain.

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Speaker 1: He is pulling his dancing he's strings. He is a puppeteer,

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Speaker 1: and he is pulling Kevin McCarthy's strings. Make no mistake

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Speaker 1: about it. Trump stands for revenge and retribution against who

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Speaker 1: his enemies, and his enemies are anybody who isn't in line,

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Speaker 1: obedient fully to Donald Trump. Over and over and over again,

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Speaker 1: he has made this clear. And what we have now

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Speaker 1: is a whole of society problem because of the crisis

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Speaker 1: of cynicism and cowardice that has fully and wholly overtaken

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party, and the crisis of competence within the

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Speaker 1: Democratic Party that has seen to it that the Democratic Party,

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Speaker 1: the Party of FDR and John Kennedy, has not yet

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Speaker 1: been able to put down this anti American fascist movement

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Speaker 1: with argument to the American people about its indecency, its immorality,

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Speaker 1: and it's great danger. The failure has meant that Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump stands, even as we speak, in a hypothetical matchup

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Speaker 1: against Joe Biden, in a campaign that seventy six percent

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Speaker 1: of the country says it doesn't want. That's the truth.

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Speaker 1: We face a moment of transcendent danger because what's at

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Speaker 1: stake is our way of life, and way of life

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Speaker 1: revolves around the choice of a free people up and

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Speaker 1: down a ballot across a vast land to pick the

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Speaker 1: people who represent us and establish law. This isn't just civics.

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Speaker 1: This is foundational morally to the quality of our lives

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Speaker 1: and happiness. That's what the election is about. And if

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Speaker 1: you sit down with Donald Trump and you get an

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Speaker 1: opportunity to interview him, it best be what the interview

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Speaker 1: is about. If it's going to be a successful interview,

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Speaker 1: the time for all the stupidity is long past. The

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Speaker 1: stakes are incredibly high, in the moment is urgently serious.

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Speaker 1: Let us pray the reporters who will be asking these

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Speaker 1: questions understand the absolute and complete failure of American media

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Speaker 1: as an institution to grapple with what we are facing

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Speaker 1: as a nation. Let's hope they do better, and starting

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Speaker 1: on Sunday, Donald Trump can face somebody who asks him

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Speaker 1: the hardest questions that he's ever been asked. Let's hope

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Speaker 1: Kristin Wilker does to Donald Trump what Meddi Hassan did

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Speaker 1: to this fraud vivak Ramaswami. The stakes deserve, the questions

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Speaker 1: the matter, and the questions that matter go to the

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Speaker 1: heart of who we are as a people, a country,

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Speaker 1: a society. I'll be watching, and I hope you will

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Speaker 1: be also