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Speaker 1: You make this stuff up. Look, we all recall.

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Speaker 2: When presidents faced national security threats with strength and result.

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Speaker 2: That seems like ancient history.

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Speaker 3: There's no worst duty in the modern political era than

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Speaker 3: the State of the Union response. It is a graveyard.

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Speaker 3: It is littered with the corpses of wanna be presidents,

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Speaker 3: people like Marco Rubio, who go from great contenders to

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Speaker 3: cereal sippers and laughing stocks in the course of fifty minutes,

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Speaker 3: where they never stood a chance. Each year, though, the

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Speaker 3: party is able to find someone amongst its best and

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Speaker 3: brightest to make the charge. And each time, perhaps like

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Speaker 3: the bass who bites down on the hook and thinks

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Speaker 3: that they can get the worm without getting caught, a

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Speaker 3: new politician bites down. A new Republican has emerged to

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Speaker 3: compete in this great Olympics, this sacrificial test of response

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Speaker 3: to the State of the Union. Tonight it was the

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Speaker 3: turn of Alabama's junior Senator Katie Bretton. Now, I have

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Speaker 3: to say a couple of things. Her performance against all performances,

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Speaker 3: and I'm talking about ever for a State of the Union,

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Speaker 3: stood out truly personally watching it about a third of

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Speaker 3: the way in, As it turns out, I thought to myself,

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Speaker 3: because I was alone. Is this really happening? Am I

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Speaker 3: watching this? Is it real? My having some type of

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Speaker 3: dissociative episode, an aneurysm, perhaps a stroke. Am I caught

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Speaker 3: in a dream? What's going on right now?

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Speaker 2: Our commander in chief is not in command. The free

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Speaker 2: world deserves better than a dithering and diminished leader. America

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Speaker 2: deserves leaders who recognize that secure borders, stable prices, safe streets,

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Speaker 2: and a strong defense are actually the cornerstones of a

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Speaker 2: great nation.

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Speaker 3: But it was real, and it was fucking astonishing. Now,

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Speaker 3: Katie Brett, from her kitchen, which wasn't an odd place

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Speaker 3: at all for the Alabama junior senator to appear from

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Speaker 3: in a modern address, is a modern woman responding to

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Speaker 3: the eighty two year old president of the United States,

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Speaker 3: particularly from a state where a Supreme Court just ruled

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Speaker 3: in a manner that shut down in vitro fertilization. She

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Speaker 3: comes from a radical state, the state where the clubs

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Speaker 3: dropped and the blows fell on the defenseless heads of

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Speaker 3: the black men and black women who tried to cross

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Speaker 3: a bridge. Like John Lewis, who was celebrated tonight, celebrated

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Speaker 3: by the standing ovation of Mike Johnson, the Speaker who

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Speaker 3: would vote with every vote to strip away the entirety

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Speaker 3: of John Lewis's legacy. But put that aside. There's Katie

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Speaker 3: Brett looking into the camera from her kitchen, a bit

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Speaker 3: overwrought about America and all the great threat post bye

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Speaker 3: huh Joe Biden.

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Speaker 1: Mister President, enough is enough.

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Speaker 2: Innocent Americans are dying and you only have yourself to blame.

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Speaker 2: Fulfill your oath of office, reverse your policies, end this crisis,

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Speaker 2: and stop the suffering.

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Speaker 3: The affectation was absurd, the overacting surreal. It was as

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Speaker 3: if the Handmaid's tail merged with Veep. I was waiting

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Speaker 3: for Julia Louise Dreyfus to walk out. It was an

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Speaker 3: incredible moment, and it was real. She's an actual candidate who,

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Speaker 3: through this speech will absolutely rise into first position for

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Speaker 3: Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, who will idealize and

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Speaker 3: fantasize Katie Brett in a contest that will come down

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Speaker 3: to three women who will be Trump's choice to be

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Speaker 3: vice president. Trump's choices for vice president will come down

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Speaker 3: to three women, at least a Fanic Christino and Katie Brett.

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Speaker 3: And tonight we saw the preview. The inauthenticity is what else?

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Speaker 3: And there we saw the crocodile tears of Maga lamenting

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Speaker 3: the rape of a woman while the candidate that she

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Speaker 3: supports for president has been found guilty of raping a

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Speaker 3: woman by a jury.

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Speaker 1: That's where I spoke to a woman who shared her

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Speaker 1: story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the

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Speaker 1: cartels starting at the age of twelve. She told me

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Speaker 1: not just that she was raped every day, but how

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Speaker 1: many times a day.

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Speaker 2: She was raped. The cartels put her on a mattress

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Speaker 2: in a shoe box of a room, and they sent

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Speaker 2: men through that door over and over again for hours

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Speaker 2: and hours on end.

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Speaker 3: It is amazing, the stench, the hypocrisy, the outrageous arrogance

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Speaker 3: to deliver that performance from your home, from your kitchen.

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Speaker 3: It was as if she went to a university created

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Speaker 3: by TikTok to learn acting, and we were all her hostages.

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Speaker 3: So long as there is states of the union and

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Speaker 3: the opposition party needs to respond, and for as long

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Speaker 3: as there are human beings who will speak in the

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Speaker 3: public and communicate things ideas, convictions, desires, whatever the Katie

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Speaker 3: Brick tape will stand forever as one of the greatest

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Speaker 3: accomplishments of inauthentic communication ever in the English language. Truly

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Speaker 3: an incredible achievement in an age of profound insincerity. Unbelievable

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Speaker 3: performance by the Alabama junior senator. Have never seen across

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Speaker 3: my career anything like it, and I don't expect to

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Speaker 3: ever again. It was strange, It was mesmerizing and utterly

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Speaker 3: astonishing altogether at once. It was in a league of

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Speaker 3: its own when it comes to State of the Union responses,

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Speaker 3: I would give it five stars for truly, truly, and

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Speaker 3: I mean this truly incredible. Thank you for listening to

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Speaker 3: my political commentary. If you like what you heard today,

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Speaker 3: please also consider subscribing to The Warning daily newsletter on substack.

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Speaker 3: Our democracy hangs in the balance. The twenty twenty four

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Speaker 3: presidential election is the most consequential in America's history. It's

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Speaker 3: not hyperbole, it's a fact. That is why the mission

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Speaker 3: of The Warning with Steve Schmidt is to help readers

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Speaker 3: orient to the currents that are shaping our times and

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Speaker 3: the unseen forces driving politics that are very rarely discussed

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Speaker 3: on cable news. Please sign up at Steve Schmidt st

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Speaker 3: e Ve E, s, C, H, M, I, d T

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Speaker 3: dot substack dot com again, Steve Schmidt dot substack dot com,

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Speaker 3: or at the link in the show notes section below.

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Speaker 3: Thank you to each and every one of you for

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Speaker 3: listening and watching