Speaker 1: Should Donald Trump be president, he has pledged that he
Speaker 1: will be a dictator on day one. Day five will
Speaker 1: be day five of a profound national crisis. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to another session of Ask Me Anything, And the question
Speaker 1: is from the warning community. Where do I think the
Speaker 1: United States will be on January twenty fifth, twenty twenty five?
Speaker 1: I suspect the United States will remain on the North
Speaker 1: American continent, just joking. On the other hand, should Donald
Speaker 1: Trump be president, he has pledged that he will be
Speaker 1: a dictator on day one, So day five will be
Speaker 1: day five of a profound national crisis. The singularly most
Speaker 1: dangerous aspect of what Donald Trump is promising to do
Speaker 1: is to deploy the American military as a police force
Speaker 1: against the American people on American soil, into a American
Speaker 1: communities in the name of a national emergency declared absurdly,
Speaker 1: ludicrously and belevolently under the Insurrection Act. Should that be happening,
Speaker 1: there will be mass protests on the streets. The society
Speaker 1: will shut down. What we will see is an unraveling,
Speaker 1: constant chaos. The society will be at each other's throats.
Speaker 1: It will be a time of tumult global panic, and
Speaker 1: it will preface what is to come, and each day
Speaker 1: of that Trump presidency will be worse than the next.
Speaker 1: It will get heavier, and then there will be war.
Speaker 1: There will be a war in Europe, and there will
Speaker 1: be a war in Asia. And it will not be
Speaker 1: a low casualty war like the American wars in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: in Iraq war where aircraft carriers get sent to the
Speaker 1: bottom of the sea, taking five thousand Americans with them.
Speaker 1: It will be a war of great suffering and death,
Speaker 1: where beautiful cities are reduced to rubble. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: if President Biden is reelected, what that will mean is
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump will never be the Republican nominee again.
Speaker 1: It will not mean that he doesn't remain for some
Speaker 1: time the leader of this malignant fascist movement. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that he'll disappear, but it means he will have
Speaker 1: been defenestrated. It will mean that the campaign promising retribution,
Speaker 1: the campaign promising concentration camps, the campaign promising a police state,
Speaker 1: which is what would be required to achieve the mass
Speaker 1: deportations that Trump is talking about, had been repudiated. You
Speaker 1: have been defeated, and America will be taking its first
Speaker 1: steps moving on. And the question is from the warning community,
Speaker 1: is Biden's PR team the worst you've ever seen? The
Speaker 1: answer to that question is no. The worst I've ever
Speaker 1: seen is the Trump communications team. It was an abysmal,
Speaker 1: degenerate pack of liars. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kelly Mcaninni, Sean Spicer.
Speaker 1: There has never been a White House communication operation that
Speaker 1: lied as a matter of core strategy to the American people.
Speaker 1: The very first thing said on camera by a member
Speaker 1: of the Trump administration was that something that was obviously
Speaker 1: not true was true. When Sewn Spicer walks out, points
Speaker 1: to a picture and says that the picture with the
Speaker 1: smaller crowd size in fact is bigger, it was a
Speaker 1: scene straight out of nineteen eighty four. There are few
Speaker 1: Americans who have ever raised their hand and sworn an
Speaker 1: oath of defense to the Constitution who have ever betrayed
Speaker 1: it as badly as the people around Donald Trump. Ever,
Speaker 1: and the worst person in the Trump communications operation, the
Speaker 1: worst of the worst, the lowest of the dreg was
Speaker 1: Kelly Anne Conway. And Kelly An Conway is an abusive parent,
Speaker 1: a narcissistic personality, and somebody made famous by the access
Speaker 1: media who they celebrate as she lies to them to
Speaker 1: their faces. Kelly Ann Conway is a total of the
Speaker 1: corruption of the American media, the corruption of the Trump
Speaker 1: white House, and she was the worst of the worst
Speaker 1: of the worst communications team they've ever been. So no
Speaker 1: Biden pr team isn't worse than that, but they are incompetent.
Speaker 1: The Biden White House has an incompetent communication operation. When
Speaker 1: I worked in the Bush White House, I did a
Speaker 1: short stint in Iraq, and my job there was to
Speaker 1: assess all of the communication efforts that were underway and
Speaker 1: audit them, assess them, evaluate them, and understand what it
Speaker 1: is and why it is the American people are hearing
Speaker 1: what it is they're hearing. And the first thing that
Speaker 1: I realized in Iraq was we didn't have a communication problem,
Speaker 1: though many people in the White House believe that. Well
Speaker 1: we had in Iraq was a losing the war problem.
Speaker 1: And you can't fix a losing the war problem by
Speaker 1: a communication strategy. You can make it worse, but you
Speaker 1: can't fix it. So Biden's age can't be fixed with
Speaker 1: a communication strategy, but it can be made infinitely worse
Speaker 1: as an issue, and the White House has managed to
Speaker 1: do that. What Joe Biden promised was that he would
Speaker 1: extinguish the extremist movement, and that hasn't happened. There's never
Speaker 1: been a president who's had more legislative success without appreciation,
Speaker 1: without any gratitude or anybody crediting him for the accomplishment.
Speaker 1: And now because of the failure to do that, the
Speaker 1: White House communications operation is angry. It's petulant. It's angry
Speaker 1: with the American people, who they yell at when there
Speaker 1: are issues that are raised that are legitimate, such as
Speaker 1: the President's age. Angry with the media, They're angry with everybody.
Speaker 1: But the fact of the matter is this, American politics
Speaker 1: at the presidential level is a communications business. Period. Would
Speaker 1: the Chiefs have won the Super Bowl if Travis Kelcey
Speaker 1: couldn't catch a ball? If Patrick Mahomes wasn't Patrick Mahomes,
Speaker 1: of course not. The idea that a presidential campaign can
Speaker 1: be detached from the capacity to inspire people is nonsense.
Speaker 1: Defeating Trump requires the president to lay out a vision
Speaker 1: that's better than the insanity. Communications in a presidential campaign
Speaker 1: isn't about demanding a vote on the basis of past accomplishments.
Speaker 1: It's a transaction about the future, and nobody seems to
Speaker 1: understand that. In the Biden White House, the president is cloistered,
Speaker 1: he's sheltered, and the result of that is every appearance
Speaker 1: the stakes are raised existentially raised. This deficit in the
Speaker 1: Biden White House can cost him the presidency and cost
Speaker 1: democracy in America. There has never been a White House
Speaker 1: where there's been a better legislative affairs effort, frankly, a
Speaker 1: better White House Counsel's office, more effective. Paired with an
Speaker 1: ineffective communications operation. It's just utterly, utterly, utterly broken. Everybody
Speaker 1: involved in it really needs to take a pause, a break,
Speaker 1: and they need serious help. And I think that's going
Speaker 1: to become more clear in the weeks ahead, and I
Speaker 1: think ultimately you will see some of the Democratic Party's
Speaker 1: biggest hitters get into the game because they have to,
Speaker 1: because this is so broken. The question is is why
Speaker 1: isn't Donald Trump behind bars? This is very simple. I
Speaker 1: want everybody to understand this. If you are a critic
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, you must be at the front of
Speaker 1: the line demanded fairness for Donald Trump in his criminal trials.
Speaker 1: The entire point of all of this is Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is not above the law, but he's also not below it.
Speaker 1: He's entitled to the constitutional protections that every American citizen is.
Speaker 1: And Donald Trump has been convicted of no crimes. He's
Speaker 1: been charged with crimes. He's been found guilty as a
Speaker 1: rapist in a civil action, He's been found guilty of
Speaker 1: fraud in a civil action. Those convictions, some of the
Speaker 1: will be appealed. Donald Trump will be sentenced to prison
Speaker 1: if he's convicted by a jury, and nobody, nobody, nobody
Speaker 1: should be cheering for the conviction of political opponents. I
Speaker 1: coined a phrase during the Republican National Convention while Michael
Speaker 1: Flynn was speaking in twenty sixteen, and the wild crowd
Speaker 1: was chanting over and over again, lock her up, lock
Speaker 1: her up, lock her up. I called it banana republicanism.
Speaker 1: This isn't something that happens in a healthy democracy. It's
Speaker 1: what happens in banana republics. Is the United States to
Speaker 1: be a banana republic. We must not allow this. These
Speaker 1: criminal cases against Trump have been compromised, in the case
Speaker 1: of Georgia by the misconduct of the prosecutor. Franny willis
Speaker 1: living on did she thinks it's okay to hire her
Speaker 1: boyfriend is the special prosecutor, pay him seven hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in fees of taxpayer money, and then travel around
Speaker 1: with him. Holy shit, It's like, does she work for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump? She ran on a platform of integrity and
Speaker 1: when it was examined, kaboom. So don't root for Donald
Speaker 1: Trump to go to jail, root for America to move
Speaker 1: past Trump, root for the system to work. Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has put the country in an impossible position with his misconduct.
Speaker 1: He has brought us to this point. One man, with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's life as his testament to the damage one demna,
Speaker 1: god man, one ruthless person can do to a country
Speaker 1: as great as ours. And the only thing, the only
Speaker 1: thing that can make it worse is if Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and trump Ism and maggot contaminate the only political party
Speaker 1: left standing that believes in the rule of law, democracy,
Speaker 1: in the values of the republic. The next ask me
Speaker 1: anything question is what is the best way to influence
Speaker 1: candidates outside of giving money? What can we do? I
Speaker 1: don't think that the issue is so much influencing candidates,
Speaker 1: it's influencing elected officials. It is a very simple proposition.
Speaker 1: Most elected officials want to be re elected. Can you organize?
Speaker 1: Can you be a component part of a cohort that
Speaker 1: has the capacity on the margins to make life politically
Speaker 1: difficult all the way to untenable for an elected official.
Speaker 1: The most important thing to understand is these people work
Speaker 1: for you, and you don't have to tolerate they're bullshit.
Speaker 1: We live in an era where American politics has gone
Speaker 1: off the rails, and it's gone off the rails because
Speaker 1: the overwhelming majority of politicians have come to the conclusion
Speaker 1: in the Trump errors, they can get away with anything,
Speaker 1: and the result is we're in one of the most
Speaker 1: corrupt eras in American history. We see a level of
Speaker 1: corruption in this country we haven't seen since the late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century in the early part of the twenty first century.
Speaker 1: And so being involved, being part of a community is
Speaker 1: how you influence elected officials. When it comes to influencing candidates,
Speaker 1: trying to lobby candidates to take positions is not effective.
Speaker 1: Candidates got to win an election. Work for the candidate,
Speaker 1: be involved in the choice, but don't try to impose
Speaker 1: words and slogans on candidates. I'll give you an example
Speaker 1: of Democrats doing this. That's one of the dumbest of
Speaker 1: all time. Defund the police. Defund the Police was a
Speaker 1: slogan invented by white, woke liberals with ivy league degrees
Speaker 1: who live in New York and Washington, d C. People
Speaker 1: who live in communities where there's crime want the police.
Speaker 1: They just want a police department that's not abusive towards
Speaker 1: the citizen because of their skin color. Why is that
Speaker 1: concept so hard to explain absent to slogan. Nevertheless, for
Speaker 1: some Democrats it is. And the result of that is
Speaker 1: the campaign becomes about the slogan, and the slogan is
Speaker 1: a deadly one. So let's not do that in campaign
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Just ask me anything. Question is, Steve,
Speaker 1: are you concerned about the third party candidates? Am I
Speaker 1: concerned about the third party candidates? It depends on what
Speaker 1: the definition of concern is. If you look at a
Speaker 1: lot of the comments that are made by top Democratic
Speaker 1: Party officials, I think the fair interpretation of them is
Speaker 1: that they would wipe these candidates off the ballot, and
Speaker 1: I'm against that. And I think we have to understand
Speaker 1: that you have eighty six percent of the country eighty
Speaker 1: six percent doesn't want to see the rematch between Biden
Speaker 1: and Trump. We have a two party system that's a duopoly,
Speaker 1: and they're delivering a result that the market doesn't want.
Speaker 1: Let me be clear about this, I will crawl over
Speaker 1: broken glass to vote for Joe Biden over Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Am I happy with that choice? I'm outraged by it.
Speaker 1: So one of the things the White House has to
Speaker 1: get its hands around is the concept of the grumpy
Speaker 1: Biden voter. There are a lot of us who are deeply,
Speaker 1: by deeply, I mean deeply unhappy about the President walking
Speaker 1: away from his commitment to serve one term. I think
Speaker 1: the idea that this country would have a president pushing
Speaker 1: ninety years old is out fucking rageous. That being said,
Speaker 1: the choice is the choice. Now. The national media is
Speaker 1: not covering Robert Kennedy Junior for a lot of different reasons.
Speaker 1: Robert Kennedy Junior is unfit to be the president of
Speaker 1: the United States. He's a conspiracy theorist, he's a liar,
Speaker 1: he's a demagogue, and he cannot be trusted with responsibility.
Speaker 1: That being said, right now, well twenty five percent of
Speaker 1: the country wants him to be the president of the
Speaker 1: United States, some smaller percentages may want one of the
Speaker 1: other candidates, like Cornell West. There is nothing that any
Speaker 1: Democratic Party official can do about those candidates. They have
Speaker 1: a right to run in America. What the Biden campaign
Speaker 1: has to do with the third party candidates is understand
Speaker 1: they have to be focused on what they can control,
Speaker 1: and they have no control about that. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what Harry Truman faced in nineteen forty eight. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the famous headline de he defeats Truman. Harry Truman
Speaker 1: held that a loft smiling from the back of railcar
Speaker 1: one the Ferdinand Magellan and that rail car, by the way,
Speaker 1: was used in every one of FDR's re elections, was
Speaker 1: used in Harry Truman's comeback campaign in forty eight, and
Speaker 1: it was used by Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: No president who's ever campaigned for reelection from railcard one
Speaker 1: has ever lost. Joe Biden should take railcard one and
Speaker 1: he should go campaigning around the country like Harry Truman did,
Speaker 1: because he faces the same problem that Truman did. There
Speaker 1: were three Democrats running in the nineteen forty eight election,
Speaker 1: all of them cutting into Truman's coalition strom. Thurmond was
Speaker 1: running as a segregationist Dixiecrat, and Henry Wallace, who was
Speaker 1: Franklin Roosevelt's vice president, was running to the left of
Speaker 1: Harry Truman, really as a socialist. Yet Truman won. You
Speaker 1: have to win the game as it comes to you.
Speaker 1: You have to play the deck of cards. That's dealt. Yelling, ignoring,
Speaker 1: shouting down the third party candidate by the president's most
Speaker 1: partisan supporters doesn't help the president. What the president has
Speaker 1: to do is calmly, repeatedly make clear the choice in
Speaker 1: the end is between him and Trump. And if people
Speaker 1: are thinking about voting for whomever, that, in fact, as
Speaker 1: it is counted, is a type of vote for Trump,
Speaker 1: which is something they may not need at all. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to my political commentary. If you like
Speaker 1: what you heard today, please also consider subscribing to The
Speaker 1: Warning daily newsletter on substack. Our democracy hangs in the balance.
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty four presidential election is the most consequential
Speaker 1: in America's history. It's not hyperbole, it's a fact. That
Speaker 1: is why the mission of The Warning with Steve Schmidt
Speaker 1: is to help readers ori to the currents that are
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Speaker 1: in the show notes section below. Thank you to each
Speaker 1: and every one of you for listening and watching