Steve Schmidt Explains How Donald Trump Is Getting Closer To Power

the simplest answer to that question is President Biden must secure two hundred and seventy electoral votes in order to be re elected president of the United States. The last election he won by forty four thousand votes across three states. This election will likely feature more than two candidates that are capable of getting over thirty percent of the vote,

so functionally, this will be a three way race. And that's why it's so important for the Biden team to understand the situation that was faced by Harry Truman in nineteen forty eight. Harry Truman was faced with the position where there were in effect three Democrats running for president

against one Republican, Thomas Dewey. And so there's a famous newspaper headline that says, Dewey defeats Truman, and later there's a picture of Harry Truman holding that Chicago newspaper from the back of the Ferdinand Magellan railcarps number one loading happy having been re elected. Harry Truman had a candidate, Henry Wallace, a former vice president under FDR, running to his left, and he had strom Thurmond, the South Carolina segregationist,

running to his right. This was all part of the most issac of the Democratic Party, and in the end Harry Truman won the game, playing with the deck as it was dealt. Now, specifically, what Joe Biden has to do is he has to bring the fight to Donald Trump. He has to push the MAGA movement outside the mainstream of Americanism. Corporate media in America has covered the MAGA movement and has covered the rise of Donald Trump for the last seven years through a couple of different prisms.

The first was a profit opportunity. The chairman of CBS News once made it clear Trump may be terrible for America, but he's great for CBS, and he was great for Fox, and he was great for CNN, and he was great for MSNBC. All the while these networks normalized behavior and refuse to call his dogma, his ideology what it actually is, which is fascism. So Joe Biden will have to take the fight to Donald Trump by explaining eight years on what this is and the madness that is exploding around

the country. Just look at the Republican Maga party in Congress. In the last forty eight hours. They have strangled aid to Ukraine, they have strangled AID to Israel, they have attempted to impeach the Homeland Security Secretary. There is an uprising against Mitch McConnell. Everywhere you look in the Republican Maga cabal, there is chaos and it is a harbinger of the chaos that will come to the country preceding the catastrophe that is inevitable should Trump win. And that's

what the race must be about. Joe Biden must convince the American people at eighty two years old, that he is ready for four more years and that Donald Trump is simply an unacceptable alternative. And the Biden campaign has to acknowledge something. There are a lot of people, me included, who are deeply and I mean deeply unhappy about voting to reelect an eighty two year old president. Yet that

is the only choice we have as good Americans. So Joe Biden, more than most, is going to have to court openly and honestly an unhappy electorate that will be with him, but also deserves some acknowledgment from him. Here's a question, and I think it's a really important one.

If we want Biden to win the general election, wouldn't it be better for Trump to be the GOP candidate rather than Nicky Haley. This is important to be honest about, and it represents one of the Biden team's greatest derelictions during the entire course of his presidency. And what I'm about to say is beyond any dispute. There are literally a hundred quotes from Biden administration officials saying three things, all of them anonymous, of course, One that Donald Trump

is the candidate that Biden is best matched against. Two that Donald Trump is the candidate that Democrats want because he's the easiest for Biden to be And number three, Biden beat him once, so he can beat him again. All of this ignoring, of course, residented threat that Donald Trump poses to the American way of life. The most irresponsible conceivable position to have an American politics is to root for Donald Trump to advance closer to power so

he can be defeated. There Trump is a menace and a danger, and it should be the focus of all who stand in opposition to him to oppose him at

the furthest point from political power as possible. The fact that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee again for the third election cycle in a row, and again after inciting insurrection and paralyze the country's politics, citing insanity across America, weakening our standing abroad, dividing us at home, the idea that anybody would cheer him on so their candidate, their guy, their preferred person, could beat him because he's the easiest

guy to beat, and Trump could never get elected again. I think it's the most irresponsible position there is an American politics. And let me be clear about this. The very same people who are saying that Donald Trump can't win are the very same people who said he couldn't win in twenty sixteen. And I was never one of those people. In fact, I was the first person when he came down the escalator and the whole corporate media said he was a clown and a joke who said, no,

he could win, he could be the Republican nominee. And later, when he was racking up victory after victory, I was among the first to say he is winning, he's going to win, and he could be president. And he did become president, and the catastrophe that followed is a historic one. There is a dogma in American politics that is formed

by repetition, and the repetition is that the American political system is immune from disruption, that the two political parties a duopoly will permanently enjoy that duopoly in perpetuity, that somehow the political parties are constitutional, which they're not. The political parties in the country have been failing for a long time. Both are held in low esteem by the American people. And the fastest growing party in America is declined to state or independent. So could an American patriot

run as an independent and win the presidency? Absolutely are there impediments to that one hundred percent. Will it happen in twenty twenty four? It will not. But could it happen in twenty twenty eight? Could it happen in twenty thirty two? It could? And let me tell you this scenario by which it is most likely to happen. Nobody talks about what happens to the Democratic Party if it's

defeated by Trump. My view is, if the Democratic Party loses a presidential election to Donald Trump in twenty twenty four, the party will be destroyed. Who amongst the Democratic leadership will be the first to say say that an independent candidacy is a spoiler, a spoiler of what at that point, because there will be nothing left to spoil. There will only be a country to rescue, and the Democratic Party

would have demonstrated its incapacity to compete on that field. So, therefore, people who want to see a restoration of American democracy, American pluralism, American decency will have to look outside, or will be open to looking outside that system to find a candidate who can lead an American restoration. The question is what can we do about all of the false

media information? Nothing. There's nothing that you can do. There are thousands of stories that have been written where I have been featured and quoted in the story. There have been a lot of profiles written about me over the years. There are factual errors, simple ones, but ones that drive me crazy. In every story, the fact is, it doesn't matter.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair, the overwhelming majority of stories that you read from the most respected news outlets are riddled with error all the time. Though misinformation is different just outright lies. And we see that. We see it on Fox News, we see it on Newsmax, we see it onan The President of the United States, Donald Trump, lied to the American people a documented thirty

five thousand times. Until the American people are ready to sort fact from fiction, are ready to put in the effort to know what is real what is not, to do the homework, the country's going to be plagued by an inability to tell what is true, what is false, what is up, what is down? What is red, what is blue? And there's a simple issue connected to this, and it says, can democracy survive in a country where nobody can distinguish fact from delusion, nobody can tell the

truth from the lie. And the answer is no. So this isn't a political issue. This is a whole society problem. When the truth collapses, dictatorships rise. And that is one of the central lessons of the twentieth century and of modern history. The truth is essential in a democracy, and there is no healthy democracy that countenances tolerates the level of lying that has become routine in American politics and reported across the American media. The question is what impact

do you see for a US Canada relationship. The United States and Canada maintained the longest peaceful, undefended border in world history, across which one trillion dollars in annual trade flows. The Canadian American relationship is sustained by family relationships, by marriage, by military partnership, by great sacrifices in the name of freedom, and also by common values. Donald Trump does not share

Canada's values, and he does not share America's values. If he comes to power, he will come to power in America with an autocrat's heart, and that will be incompatible with Canadian values. So there will be inherent in tensions between a Trump led America in Canada. And also, Trump is a protectionist and he will do everything in every transaction to try to gain advantage against Canadian interests for the sake of America's interests. Trump is a zero sum believer.

He doesn't believe that two sides can both win. He believes that there is a winner, and that there is a loser in every deal, in every transaction, and because of that, he doesn't understand the value of alliances and relationships forged by common history, shared values, and shared sacrifice. And so the Canadian US relationship and a Trump presidency

will deteriorate. It will be strained, and Canada will have a hard time at times dealing with the President Trump, who will more likely than not be looking south across the border towards Mexico, which will have an enormous problem should Trump be re elected, but will be good for Canada in that Trump isn't known for being able to cast his attention on several issues at once. Thank you

for listening to my political commentary. If you like what you heard today, please also consider subscribing to The Warning daily newsletter on substack. Our democracy hangs in the balance. The twenty twenty four presidential election is the most consequential in America's history. It's not hyperbole, it's a fact. That is why the mission of The Warning with Steve Schmidt is to help readers orient to the currents that are shaping our times and the unseen forces drive having politics

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