Steve Schmidt has advised presidents run game changing campaigns and become an eloquent defender of democracy. His writings in the Warning newsletter have marked him as a singular voice of moral clarity in his generation. And I'm thrilled he's joining us tonight our narrative to discuss the trial and the upcoming election. And we welcome Steve Schmidt to the show today.
How are you, Steve, I'm good, Jeff. It's a real pleasure to be with you. Thank you for having me.
It's great to have you here. You know, based on the current swing state polling, if the election were held today, it does seem to me that Donald Trump could win that election. In most of these swing states. He's still six points ahead of Joe Biden. Are we looking at a likely second administration for Donald Trump?
I wouldn't say likely, but he could win, no question about it. And in fact, if you elect for were tomorrow, he probably would win. You know, reality is that his calculus going into this election is that there's enough indifference out there, plus the fanaticism of his base to get him over the top. Chris Sanunu was utterly humiliated exposed
for really level of cynicism that's hard to articulate. With George Stephanopolis on Sunday, one of the things the New Hampshire governor said is that you know, Trump is supported by fifty one percent of the country. That has never been the case. It will never be the case. There will never be a majority of Americans that support This question is can it take power with a minority over a majority will And the answer to that question is yes, that could happen. And you know, Biden is a weak
candidate in this race. He has enormous liabilities in the campaign because this is a communication business and it's going to be a campaign where you know, in the end, the American people are going to have to evaluate a staggeringly easy choice to make in the context of considerations around the destiny of the country. Where we're going, what's happening? You know, what is Trump? What is his movement, what does it stand for, what does it believe in? Is
it dangerous? You know, all these questions are now in front of the in front of the country who's had a rather a naive view about it, you know, for much of the last decade, which you know will be remembered historically as really the trump eraror. Incredibly, it's gone on for almost ten years in America.
Now, I know it is stunning that amount of time. I just think about how long I've been doing this podcast. When you think about eight years of your life, and it's like eight years of how much time it's to deal with Donald Trump. It's just unbelievable. But we talk about this evaluation that you point you didn't talk about the trials Donald Trump may or may not have to deal with. Certainly the hush money cases sort of begun.
Now the Democrats have a lot of weight invested in some sort of criminal outcome changing what Americans decide in November. Do you view that kind of optimism that some Democrats have, that aviction in this case, the hush money case are enough to really push Biden over Donald Trump.
I've done consulting work on political campaigns all over the world, and you go into a different country and they hire American consultants, and there's this belief embedded in that hire that the American consultant is going to bring some sort of magic bullet, right, some sort of elixir into the race, some alchemy that just because through presence they're going to win, and it doesn't work like that. These criminal cases have been at a debacle for the cause of defeating Donald Trump.
Now there's only one of them that is going to trial before the election, and that's the one we're in right now. There's no question in my mind that the lead up to it has benefited Trump enormously. That being said, watching him come into the courtroom is a diminishing event. You know, this is somebody who is stripped of his trappings, is a coutremont. The fact is that he is now outside of his rarium, like a fish outside of the tank.
There is no crowd assembled as in the Mar A Lago dining room to stand in a plaud when he appears. He is being subjected to the same rules like everybody else. And I think he appears a lot like the Wizard of Oz, right, you know, unmasked from behind and the screen. So we'll see what the accumulation of that is over over eight weeks time. I do believe this, and I wrote about it today. Presidential campaign, in my view, is the greatest non lethal competition in the world period and
it's a contact sport. The contact that the pebot manifested a psychological level. And so you put a picture of Donald Trump up on the screen, and the one that I gravitated to from yesterday is the image coming through the doors. Does he look happy?
He does not look happy.
This. Does he look like he's going home with a spring in his step to bound through the door at Trump Tower to make love to his beautiful Millennia in the late afternoon.
That is not what he appears to be doing, though.
I'm gonna tell you exactly what he does. He leaves enraged, and he goes home and he puts the television on and he surveils it, all of it. He watches all the jokes made about him for his enemies list, he evaluates all of the sycophants that are auditioning to be vice president. He's available for flattery from the detritus that
surrounds him. This is a time where you know where he is, what he's watching, And this is when he should be visited by the campaign taunting him, mocking him, diminishing him, destabilizing him and his team to put him off balance. In the end, whoever the person is that wins the race is going to be the candidate that is able to make the race about the other person. In other words, if the race is about you, you will be the losing candidate. The race has to be
about Trump. Incredibly, this massive propaganda apparatus that surrounds Maga, manifested in Fox newsmax an all this bullshit has been able to destroy Biden's reputation for competence, for probity, for rectitude after a lifetime of getting to know the guy. It's incredible to watch. It's a huge failure on the part of the White House. But this is a Rocky
Apollo Creed fight. Middle of the ring. The President has to debate him, has to face them, and has to do the equivalent of knocking this disgraceful, disgusting bully on his ass. That's the job that at age eighty two Biden has demanded did he gets to do again, and so he needs to do it, and we have two hundred and two days left form to be able to do it in a time of growing momentous crisis in the world.
Let's as fallow up on some of this stuff, because if we have a trial here that ends up in a conviction for Donald Trump, what does that do to the race versus let's say a hung jury in this.
Case, I think it shrinks him to nothingness. He will be revealed over the course of the trial to be what I believe him to be, which is a low life criminal. That being said, and I've said this right through all of this, is that the American people have to believe in their institutions here right, and have to
have faith in them. What Donald Trump did, and I say this is someone who plays a concession phone call I placed it for John McCain to Barack Obama is break his oath and assault in the most dastardly way possible, the cornerstone of American civilization, the peaceful transition of power and the apportionment of political power through the outcome of an election. Now his fate rests in the hands of a jury of his peers. It make no mistake, right,
this Manhattan jury is a jury of his peers. Donald Trump is of this place, are in Seoul, and so even his most ferocious critics like me have to be the people who are the most steadfast and demanding that those jurors, those citizens, follow their oath and give him a fair trial. But if he's found guilty, then it's going to hurt him, is what all of the Poland
seems to suggest. And I just don't believe that there is a movement of Americans out there that will rally to the jail house and surround it to break their guy out. You have a couple hundred people at the most on the streets. This is a TV show, and Trump, at the end of the day, is a philosopher of fuck youism. That's his appeal. If you obliterate trust in every institution in the country, and your average person out
there looks at government, they're not expecting a result. They just want to deliver a little bit of agitation back towards the people that have been for the last ten years completely destabilized by Trump. The banks, the tech companies, whatever it may be, the elite of the country. Trump is their vessel, not to make their lives better, but to deliver a type of sugar high a fuck you, because sometimes that fuck you feels good, right, whether you're driving down the.
Road, sure yeah, and.
Anytime, any day of the week might be time for a delicious fuck you. Someone years we have this situation and that's what this guy is. And in order to beat and put it away. You have to offer better. And the reality is right, this is true. There's five hundred background quotes to back it up. The Biden team wanted Trump, they did it, wanted them in the race, right because he was the patchy right, He was the easiest opponent. He was the guy that justified the rationale
for Biden to run for a second term. Only Biden can beat Trump, beat him again, and'll lock him on his ass again. But hey, uh, somewhere along the way right now, Biden's the incumbent. Trump's the challenger. Right, what was up is down, and down is up, and red is blue when blue is red. And while I all of a sudden, Trump looks like he's the only guy right that any Democrat right could conceivably be beaten by. Right,
he is Biden, and so say so. But at any rate, wherever we are right now in this moment, the choice is the choice, and the choice is Biden versus Trump, and it's close race. I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning, and I invite you to join. Subscribe on our sub stack, on our YouTube channel, follow us. Welcome to the community.