You are one of the people that's going to be a really important future leader of the Democratic Party. Right, and so at some point for people that are watching this, you're gonna become a person who is much better known in the country. It's much better better known to them, more widely seen on television. I hope Leader Jeffries, for example, is more visible than than he's been in laying out that that alternative vision. Where do you think things sit right now?
How how do.
You observe them? Donald Trump has one. It's not a landslide, but it is a sweep. Uh. It's a plurality victory, not a majority mandate. But it is a significant repudiation of the Democrat parties case on a decade basis that Trump is an existential threat to all of these things that we Democrats stand in favor of that are of the utmost importance. It was just it was just rejected wholesale by the country, I think for a bunch for
a bunch of different reasons. When you observe this moment process it thirty four days out from Donald Trump raising his hand taking the oath the military aids with the nuclear football sliding away from Biden towards Donald Trump, all the powers of state back into Donald Trump's hand, with a control of his party of the Senate, narrowly in the House, the courts, and nominating some of the most unqualified people emotionally, temperamentally, character wise that we've that we've
that we've ever seen nominated for office. Where are we and how did we get here?
That's a big question, Stevid. I'd be curious on your thoughts. I'll tell you where I think people are at. You know, there are a lot of places in America, a lot of communities in America that have seen stagnancy decline, just a sense this country hasn't been working for them for forty fifty years. I mean politicians selling jobs off store
for the cheapest wages and highest profits. You drive through America and you go from town to town, and I know you've probably done this, and if there's a town that doesn't have a prison or a hospital, a lot of times it's just economically devastated. And then the most heartbreaking to me is when they say, oh, there used to be a manufacturing plant here, but now there's a prison, and that's where the economy is coming for a local
community people sensing the costs have gone up. You know, they look at the district like mine twelve trillion dollars in the coast and Silicon Valley, and they say, how can you have a country that's producing all this wealth and we're not participating and we're stagnant, and America just doesn't seem to be working. Hey. You know, I think the core of Trump's message was very simple. I'm going to get America to win again. I'm going to get you to win again. I'm going to get you to
move again. And of course there's in my view, not much substance there. I don't think he's going to revitalize Johnstown, Pennsylvania, or Gelsburg, Illinois, or bring new industry or bring the new modern economy to people who have been struggling.
But I think the way to.
Counter him is one to show the hollowness of the actual vision that it's not getting America to move, and then to convey for us that we're actually the party that can bring together this country business leaders, venture capitalist, labor leaders, community leaders, faith leaders, and give it a
purpose of getting this country to move and win. And I really think it's about conveying to people that we get it, that there's this kind of stagnancy there and that we have the vision to get them moving again, give their kids a shot again. And I think we're going to get that opportunity in twenty twenty six and then again in twenty eight. And I believe we've got a great bench of talent for the House, Senate then presidency that's going to be succeeding in doing that.
We live at a time where, uh yeah, I chok around about this right, where even the adults need trigger
warnings now, right. So you know, any time I write anything that is oppositional, say to the party line, you know, and I look back over my last two years, you know, when I said, for example, that Biden's candidacy is a real threat with regard to electing Donald Trump, and just the idea expressed, right, there's a lot of shouting down right that goes on in the Democratic Party that that I observe as something that's new that didn't used to
be there in the fabric of the party. And the sooner it goes away, uh, where there can be honest discussions that are reality based, I think the better the party, the party will be. But for the people that are watching this that have taken away from the election result that the racists have won and Trump seventy seven million
voters are unfixable, broken, unrepentant, bad people, racist all. What is it that you want to that you want to say to them as part of the party and a leader in its future, right about about why they lost and why Donald Trump is about to be sitting in the White House with a Republican House and a Republican Senate. You listen to some of the voices out of the campaign, you know, they I think they're very sincere when they say, you know, they've assessed it, they've taken stock of it,
and they ran a flawless campaign pretty much. And so what would you say right beyond just a blanket indictment of the of the people who voted for Trump. Democrats lost because why and something that has to change that specific that the party does is what?
So I only see that this is still a very decent country, open country, and the most open political system in the world. And I guess that's based on my experience. You know, I'm the son of immigrants. My grandfather spent four years in jail alongside Gandhi for India's independence. My father came here to Michigan to study there in engineering. I was born in Philadelphia in nineteen seventy six, our
bi centenary. I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, at a time where Bucks County was probably ninety eight percent white, as an Indian American of Hindu fay. And you know, the coach said, I played Little League even though I couldn't hit. And I had teachers who said, go publish a local Bucks County current Times. And we celebrated Christmas, and we also on my street celebrated the valley because the neighbors were curious. And I had people who said,
you can do anything in America. And at the age of forty, this country elected me, a first generation Indian American, to represent arguably the most innovative, economically powerful place in the world, if not in human history, in terms of producing. Well, that is an American story. And by the way, I went back to Bucks County with a journalist and met my favorite tenth grade social studies teacher who I really
was inspired by. And guess what it turns out. Halfway through the interview, he tells the journalists that he's going to be voting for Donald Trump. And the journalist I said, well, what if it was Trump versus Kana? And you could tell he's so pained. He's like, well, I respect Rocanna. I really like Rocanna. You know, it'd be a tough decision. And the journalists like, he's voting for Trump. And my point is more people need to actually go figure out
why and talk to people who voting for Trump. You can be George Wallace being a racist. You don't become president of the United States if there are not a lot of people voting for you. And I think the fundamental thing that Trump did was tamp in to an anger with people feeling left out of modern economic prosperity, feeling that the political system was not working for them, the economic system is not working for them, and we have to come in and say we've got a better,
more compelling vision. And by the way, it's not going to be politician driven. It's going to be assembling a team of business leaders, of labor leaders, of local community leaders. And this is we've talked about this before.
That's what FDR did.
FDR he wasn't great in and of himself. Maybe he was temperamentally, but he said, I'm going to bring the best of American talent and we're going to solve this issue of the Great Depression. We're going to win the World War. Guess what. The Democratic Party has the opportunity to be that convening force. We can be the unifiers. We can put everyone on the field and talenty to help revitalize this country. But we need to realize it
needs revitalization. It's not just about the defense of the current status fun institutions, because they're not working for a lot of people.
I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning and I invite you to join. Subscribe on our sub stack on our Uti channel, follow us. Welcome to the community.