Thanks for listening. For earlier access to these episodes, access to Ask Me Anything sessions, and extended breakdowns of historical and current events, Please consider joining our Warning Premium community by clicking the link in the description to this episode. The situation we find ourselves in as a country didn't happen overnight. It is the accumulation of events over decades. The American people have looked, They've seen, They've seen the
greed of the elites in American society. They've come to the conclusion that there's one set of rules for people at the top and a different set for everybody else. Citicism replaced faith in belief in the majesty of the American system of government. We have lost sight in this country as a general proposition around the meaning of patriotism what it is. We have adopted instead a type of performative jingoism, the type that we see at NFL games.
A few minutes of loud, cheering, giant flags, expensive military hardware flying overhead, people screaming, chanting USA, USA, USA, mindlessly over and over again. That's not patriotism. Patriotism is a deep faith in the idea that animated the United States of America and brought it to life. The right to vote, to choose is elemental to being an American and towards the foundation of the United States. This country rejected the
idea of a king. It eradicated the notion that there are some people born above others, in a higher station of life, who have titles and land in perpetuity. They are above. They are the dukes and the earls, and the king in America said no. George Washington was a man who could have been king, could have been emperor, could have been a military dictator. And each time when he stood at the edge of maximum power, he walked away from it, and by doing so, he set in
motion the most important tradition in American life. That tradition is the peaceful transfer of power between chief executives between presidents, and it had gone on uninterrupted in America since George Washington turned over the presidency to his successor, John Adams. All that had to happen for that to occur was for John Adams to raise his hand and swear a thirty five word oath, and in that instant he became the second President of the United States, and every president
since has sworn the identical oath. But there is only one president who has breached that oath, who desecrated it, who tried to burn it to the ground. Not through misconduct, though he engaged in more misconduct than any president in American history. Not through corruption, though he engaged in more corruption than any president in American history, but through a
declaration of repudiation against the American Revolution. That declaration of repudiation were the speeches that Donald Trump gave between his
loss of the election and January sixth. They are the speeches that antagonized and incited a mob to march on the capital of the United States of America in twenty twenty one, on a mission to hang the vice president and stop the certification of a presidential election, where Joe Biden, who had been duly elected, would take the final steps in preparation to his inaugural as the forty sixth President of the United States, the forty fifth man, to raise
his hand and swear Washington's Oh, that is what Donald Trump desecrated, ruined, and bloodied every person in this country.
All of us are part of a great inheritance passed on to us our ancestors. Whether they'd be black, women, white, Latino, gay, It doesn't matter. All played a part, all struggled for freedom, all endured, and they handed to us a better, freer country than the one they were born into.
Thank you for listening to my political commentary. If you like what you've 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 driving politics
that are very rarely discussed on cable news. Please sign up at Steve Schmidt st e ve E, S, C, H, M, I, d T dot substack dot com again Steve Schmidt dot substack dot com, or at link in the show notes section below. Thank you to each and every one of
you for listening and watching. We stand at an hour where we are poised to be the first generation of Americans to betray that trust, to hand our country to a next generation, more divided, weaker, catering, decay, rotting from within, And what is the evidence of that, the broad national indifference towards the ambitions of a man who tried to
burn it all down, who wants power again. In this moment, indicted on charges that could bring him six hundred years in prison, the former president of the United States remains in a competitive race against Joe Biden. What Donald Trump did is unpardonable, It is unforgivable. The issue is that Donald Trump wants political power outside an election process. It says something remarkable in the indictment, something declarative, simple. He
lost the election. In our corrupt media at Fox News, at Newsmax, at an across the board let donald Trump's poisoned fantasy run wild. Fox News for stoking the conspiracies, was forced to pay a settlement of almost one billion dollars, yet they are undeterred. On the night of his indictment, Donald Trump was having dinner with the chairman and the president of Fox News, Suzanne Scott. Donald Trump didn't try
to tear down American democracy alone. He did it with a phalanx of propagandas in front of him collaborators, people like Suzanne Scott, who have contempt for their country, who have no affection, save for money, save for power, save for the perception of their own influence. Think about the
sacrifices that have guaranteed American freedom. Think about Gettysburg. Think about the crossing of the Delaware, the Normandy Landings, think about the Edmund Pettis Bridge, Think about the blows coming down on John Lewis's head, the blood, the murder, the sacrifice. And we are prepared as a nation, as a society, to lay it all down, to end it all, to say, the insatiable narcissism and appetite of Donald Trump. How is it that our society, our country could have become so sick?
What is it about freedom and liberty that the American people and mass have become so detached from. Here's the deal. We must say no to this. There are more of us than there are of them. And by them, what I mean is this the people who want power without us giving it to them. It's unacceptable, It's un American. But that is exactly what Donald Trump stands for. Make no mistake about it. It's what this election is about. He's running on a platform of revenge and retribution and
he means it. He is hostile to this country's creed, it's traditions, its ideas, its ideals, and most importantly, it's people. Yes, the American people. We are more than a name, more than a tribe. We are a great civilization, a society, a nation. Trump tried to rip it up. Are we really going to let him. It's time as a civilization, as a society, as a people to bring this madness to its end. It is time to repudiate this insanity.
It is time to remind the queen's hustler, the developer, the reality show host who improbably was given the greatest honor that any American can be, that he is not bigger than the country, that he is not above the law, and that this country chooses its leaders, not the other way around.