What happened over the weekend is that a Trump appointed judge and it's kind of interesting what happened here. Steve Is, the original judge in this case, was considered a liberal, and the Justice Department went in and asked him to recuse himself because his wife is involved in some activism around some of the issues in the case, and he
probably didn't have to, but he did recuse himself. And then the case ended up in the hands of Karen Immergut I hope I'm pronouncing her name wrong, a Trump appointee from the first term, and the case was the state of Oregon suing the Trump administration and saying you cannot take over our National Guard and send them to Portland. Now, a lot of people thought originally that Immergut was going to be a friendly judge to the Trump administration. She wasn't.
She wrote one of the most courageous decisions of the entire year. If people have not read it, you should go and read it. It's it's a thirty one page decision, a true active bravery to stand up to this administration. A lot of judges wouldn't have done this, especially the deference that judges generally give the commander in chief and specifically in a situation like this for people who don't
know the full story. Once she told the administration it was illegal for them to take over the Oregon National Guard and send them into Portland, Trump immediately commandeered troops from California, which National Court troops he had already federalized within hours of this ruling, and had them on their way to Portland. Naturally, state of California wasn't happy about this. Gavin Newsom joined the Oregon lawsuit and said asked the same judge to extend her temporary restraining order to the
California troops as well. There was an emergency meeting last night about this issue, and the judge immediately released a new restraining order, which might be worth just reading because it's like, you know, it's like having a child who finds a loophole, so you got to like strengthen you know the rules, the rules at home and defendants, this is Trump and Pete Hegseth are enjoined from deploying federalized members of the National Guard in Oregon, and it applies
to any members of the National Guard, any federalized members. So originally this was just about Oregon. Now she's saying everyone, what happened after that? And this is where it gets bad, Steve, And this is where this is something that you've been talking about for a while. The governor of Texas, Governor Abbott, basically lent Trump few hundred troops to let him do
with them as he pleases. I have to say, if this were happening in a foreign country, if they're happening in Russia, like twenty years ago, when and Putin was like sending troops to one of the you know, to one of the far off territories in the country, and the governor there was saying, no, you can't have them, and Putin kept trying to figure out ways to send troops into this territory. We would be describing this as
a as a country falling, falling apart, coming apart. Finally, the last thing, just to catch people up, Illinois now has sued President Trump over his effort to deploy National National Guard troops in Chicago. So we're going to see if this that that case is going to be very important and we'll see if the judge there does with this Trump ap pointed judge in Oregon did so that's that's that's the latest. Where does it go from here, Steve, what do you think.
Well, you have two fights playing out and they are happening in two different theaters fundamentally, so let's separate those. The first one's in Washington, DC, and that's around the federal government shutdown, and that's playing out between the Democratic leadership and the Trump White House. And then there is the use of the army, and that's what it is.
Once you federalize the National Guard, it's no longer the California National Guard, it's the US Army by the time it gets to by the time it gets to Oregon, and you have what is a fight playing out now between the Democratic governors and the administration. So let's take these two things separately. They're connected, but separate with regard to what comes next. The Democrats, of course, are correct about how terrible it will be for the loss of
these healthcare subsidies. However, it's the wrong hill to fight on and or to die on. And that's an important concept because it's a die on the hill you choose to fight on type of fight where you can't give in and in the end, the people who are affected by what Trump wants to do overwhelmingly are the Trump voters,
and elections have consequences. So Chuck Schumer has architected a political strategy that is, in essence, a bailout of the red states that provision the aggression against the rest of the country. It's an untenable political position for a lot
of different reasons. And if we're teaching a class about this twenty years from now and we're trying to describe what it was like, I don't think we're going to be saying that in twenty twenty five in the fall, there was a great healthcare crisis, there's a great crisis
in the American state, and questions around American liberty. And so what the Democrats in Washington have to demand in a situation that has changed since the shutdown began, including events that a are Stephen Miller's announcements of his hates and the use of force, and the justifications the escalations in Chicago and Oregon, that the Democratic position in Washington simply be, you don't have the votes and we demand these things stop. In addition, two and so the Democratic position here as
this shutdown goes on, has to harden. It has to evolve, and it has to meet the moment where the moment needs to be met, and it's around the demands that these unconstitutional outrages and obscenities cease. And that's on the federal side. There's a different equation on the governor side. And I think that I've thought a lot about America while watching, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of Blue Jays games this year in Toronto over the summer, and
it's a great team team. The Democratic governors need to be a team and they need to put any rivalries aside for the twenty twenty eight presidential season and operate as such. And there are a couple of states that are of outsized importance here. Those are California, and those are New work in Illinois and New Jersey. But the big calif but the big Democratic mega states Oregon and Washington,
and the governors of those states must meet. The Democratic governors must meet, the Democratic legislative leaders of those states must meet, and they must appreciate that they have to adopt the philosophy, not policies, and the philosophy is that the maximum of abuse of power by the federal government and the Trump regime demands the maximum legal use of legal power, and so those states have the ability to enter into binding compacts with one another on everything from
banking to one hundred other issues that can thwart the federal abuses of power and protect a maximum number of citizens and derail the autocratic takeover and agenda. There is tremendous power in the teachers funds, pension funds in California, the state employee retirement funds, the same in New York. This is why this governor's raise in New Jersey is so important. But the blue state governors have to get in a room, and the legislators in Illinois and in
California need to investigate the abuses. What happened at that apartment complex can be investigated through the power of investigative committees of the Illinois legislature and JB. Prinsker should call the Illinois Legislature into emergency special session. All of the Democratic states should call their legislatures in to a special
session to deal with the exigence circumstances at hand. Every opposition entity, group organization in the country needs to stand ready as soon millions of people will be on the streets and common cause for the No Kings protests that are taking place very very soon. And as Lincoln said, with public opinion, anything is possible. Without it, nothing is possible.
Then we must poison the waters of public opinion to rally the American people against these obscenities, this arrogance, these preening, lying federal officials, who dare to point guns at us and abuse us when these people work for us? How dare they?
I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning. I invite you to join this community where I promise to be honest, blunt, and direct about what is happening in this country. America is in crisis. Follow and subscribe to this channel and on substack. Thank you