I'm Katie Curic, and welcome to Next Question. So I'm back in the city for a few days and away from my usual recording setups. So I apologize if I sound a little bit like I'm underwater, but I just had such a fascinating conversation with Steve Schmidt, and I wanted to get this episode out into the world as quickly as possible. You probably have heard of Steve before. He's a longtime Republican strategist, and he was the campaign manager for John McCain's two thousand eight presidential bid. In other words, he's a real Republicans Republican, but two years ago he quit the GOP and now, as co founder of the Lincoln Project, he's channeled all of his energy into defeating President Trump. We talked about what led him to renounce the party he's been loyal to for thirty years, what to expect during this final sprint to election day, and how he thinks Trump is um will impact our political system for many years to come. You renounced your membership in the Republican Party in two thousand eighteen, and you have said you are going to vote for Joe Biden absolutely. What was it that made you say, I don't want to be a Republican anymore. Well, the Republican Party by two thousand eighteen, and my view had become fully the party of Trump, and Trump is um and I think that we know more today than we did even in two thousand eighteen. The straw that broke the commis back for me were the children's detention and family breakup policies at the at the Southern border, and I just think they were appalling. They were immoral policies. They harkened back to the worst abuses in our country's history, the separation of families at the slave auction blocks, separation of Indian children from their families in the latter night teenth century, and that did it for me. What we see now, though, right is Trump is um fully formed, rooted. It's an ideology, it has meaning, and the Republican Party's platform and this is important because it's the third oldest political party in the world. It formed in eighteen fifty four. Republican Party of two thousand and twenty exists fully as an instrument for Donald Trump. It's a cult of personality. The evidence of that is the platform. With the platform requires is obedience to Donald Trump and loyalty to Donald Trump. That's the full meaning of Republicanism now, and that trump is ideology is one that is illiberal, anti democratic, bad for the country and the party that is the vessel for it, that has been the handmaidens to the cantactrophy. That's befall in this country. It's the Republican Party. You started something called the Lincoln Project. What is the goal of the Lincoln Project, Steve, It's to defeat Trump. And Trump is um, plain and simple as that plain and simple as that um. When when you look at the Republican Convention, there were three features to it. There was breath taking line of the type that you see in no healthy democracy anywhere in the world. One but was unprecedented in the political history of the country. From the from the gavel coming down right to begin it to the gavel coming down to end it, you saw utter lawlessness, flat out breaking and violating of dozens of federal laws that have to do with preventing the use of taxpayer dialars for partisan causes, the use of federal property. And then, lastly, and and really ominously, you saw the seizure of important symbols of the American Republic, of the of the state. You saw Trump take those symbols the White House for instants turn it into a partisan totem and an expression of his authority. So what does that all mean, Well, it means in essence that he's saying, I am the truth, I am the law, and I am the state. No thank you, and that ideology. He knew how deadly this virus was. He knew it. The Republican senators knew that. He knew. He lied to the country hundreds of times downplayed this. It's the biggest, greatest, deadliest lie in the history of the United States. That's the moment we're in, and it has decimated the economy, broken a million dreams, and has fundamentally ended the American way of life. There are many people who follow me on social media and they will say Steve Schmidt is biased. They described the media as communicating fake news. If that, in fact is the case and true, why does President Trump enjoy so much support Still? I think that there's two issues, and I think people get confused on them. Right, there's a there's a political question and there's a sociological question. And so let's start with the political question. That The political question is is that where you look right now in this where this race is, Joe Biden has a bigger lead Obama did, has a bigger lead that Bush did had as a bigger lead than Bill Clinton did. Here is a commanding lead. The majority of this country rejects Trump, and Trump is um and wants him gone. You look at the swing states right now, Biden is in a strong position. Donald Trump is losing the race. The second issue is a sociological question, And and at least a third of the country is in thrall to a cult of personality, and so for fort pent of the country, the millions of people who ascribed to Q and on who are poisoned by social media, by disinformation that's both organic and state sponsored um by a president who's lied twenty five thousand times and has let loose hundreds of Brascy theories. You have a billion dollar anger industry through extreme media in this country, and and all of it accounts for a number that's way too big in a healthy democracy that hasn't just surrendered their agency to a political leader, but have opted out of reality in some fundamental ways. And and the truth is, there is such thing as objective truth and fact. Then the wholesale rejection of it is authoritarian. You don't see that in democratic societies, and it should make everybody understand the degree to which the system is blinking yellow to red because of it. Let's get a little more granular. Steve has shove Biden up seven to eight points in national polls, also up in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina. President Trump appears to be closing the gap in Florida. So is it all going to get down to? As our late friend Tim Russert said in two thousand, Florida, Florida, Florida, I think Florida is is incredibly important for a couple of reasons. Um. First, Trump's made clear in a way that is completely alien to every other president, right like democracy requires someone being willing to lose, being willing to say we hear the voters get you next time. Trump Trump has inferred time and time again that unless he wins, the election is illegitimate. And there are a thousand bad things that I can think of off the top of my head, right that that flowed from that from violence in the streets uh to chaotic paralyzed government, a constitutional crisis. We should pay attention on Roger Stone, clown and criminal though he may be communicating to Donald Trump through the television, which is how you communicate to Donald Trump about seizing absolute power in the country. So Florida, right, Florida makes it very hard if Biden wins decisively there for Trump to make the legitimacy claim, because it means he's gonna lose big all over the country and it could be an early night. Nobody wants to see this election go on for weeks and months. So when you look at Florida right now, Trump is overperforming with Hispanic voters, and he is underperforming at a historical level with senior voters. And so Mike Bloomberg is gonna spend a hundred million dollar US in Florida. I think Donald Trump's in a lot of trouble there. If the election were tomorrow, he would lose. But Republican state, Republican governor. The COVID crisis has been a disaster there. The governor's a D S c has rival Trump's. But um, it will it will be a it will be a state that bears watching. Um And if Biden wins it. It's all over early on election, right. Why are Hispanics still trending towards Donald Trump? In Florida you have a lot of um human population obviously, but also Venezuelan uh South American that is triggered by the socialism message, which hasn't been rebutted effectively by the Democrats of the Biden campaign, you know, in the in the state now the way to go after those voters. I think he's on a corruption message, right. You know, they didn't necessarily leave their countries to come to America because of the politics of the government, whether it was you know, right of center Colombia, UM socialist, Venezuela, communist Cuba. Why they left was because of the corruption. It's just endemic to all of those systems. And you know, the ability to focus on Trump's corruption and you know that they see that quality coming to American life, right, would would be an effective message there. Who else is this socialism message resonating with that has not been effectively rebutted by the Biden administration, that somehow Biden presidency would be co opted by the extreme left. I think that there's a a a broad, a deep It extremely sophisticated multi layered propaganda UH network UM that includes Fox News, includes talk radio, includes Facebook chat sites, includes O. A. N and Alex Jones. And if you if you listen to the to the accumulation of it all, UM, you think America's cities or burning right now? That New York City, UM looks like something from Escape from New York, the movie in the late nine seventies. That that America's cities are burning, that chaos is at hands, that UM, socialism, Antifa, all of these things are about to descend upon America. And and there is there is a far too large number you know that that buys into it. I mean, look, we're we're going to see our first members of Congress who are a Cuban on conspiracy theorists, right, this is this is a conspiracy theory built around the fact that much of the governing class of the country or cannibalistic pedophiles, and Donald Trump is working secretly with the military to break up the ring and it's a global phenomenon. Is the genie out of the bottle, Steve. When it comes to that kind of false information getting perpetuated by all these people that you cited, it might be. Look, you have you have an Oregon you have reports of right wing militia setting up roadside checkpoints and just had to be rebuked by the sheriff's office. You see these cami, these these Hawaiian shirt clad boogaloo boys right storming state capitals. We ye. The reality is is that all of that is a minority of the country. And I wish those people well, I do. I wish them no harm. But we can't be ruled over by them, is what the is. What the point is is the the country has been pitched into a unbelievably precipitous decline over a over a short period of time, and it's being propelled by all of the pathogens that I just described, the combination of unreasonableness, outright insanity, opting out of out of reality, opting out of opting out now, and it's it's it's bad. Let's talk about another key demographic group that each candidate is fighting for. We're talking about white suburban women. Now. Trump won white women in two thousand and sixteen against Hillary Clinton by nine I mean a lot of trouble now with white women. Explain that, Well, what white suburban women the the issue more than any other issue that that has peeled them off of him is his embrace of all of the racial animals and going back to George Floyd, to the embrace of the Confederate flag, that that demographic in his country is just repelled by it. And so he is in a lot of trouble in the in the suburbs, and everybody is affected by by COVID. You know, I don't I don't say lightly that the American way of life has ended, but it but it has right, Like I mean, you can't go and be with a parent and end of life decision. The grandparents can't go to see the birth of their grandkids, weddings, birthdays or mitzvah's communions, tailgates, football, and the list goes on all over the and and none of it, none of it had a big more with political strategists and Lincoln Project co founder Steve Schmidt. Right after this, let's talk about the law and order message. That is the old chestnut that Republicans often return return to in campaigns. The Trump administration is using it. It's not very effective, or is it. Well, it's it has not been It has not been effective, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't have the potential to be in in certain places that that message is aimed, if you want to break it down demographically at non college educated white male voters, particularly in the rust Belt states. But each time he delivers that message, he hurts himself with college educated, suburban women voters, particularly in the in in the sun Belt states, right in Florida, in Arizona. So he's in a death spiral, so to speak, because the message they've decided to communicate, the fear based message on the crime, is pulling share from them with one demographic, you know, with slight to marginal gains in a in another. But you look, if it is, it is jarring to watch some primetime Fox News right the depiction of what's happening in the in the in the country is this dystopian healthscape positioning Trump as the defender of Western civilization. Um, it's remarkable. It doesn't appear to be persuading people. Um. But you know for that for that Trump base, you know, does it maintain their intensity? Sure it does? Um. You know, has Trump effectively been able to use these issues to distract from having to answer questions about COVID? He absolutely has um. And but that's what it's about, right, It's about It's about a failure. It's literally the greatest failure in American history, COVID. And he wants to do anything he can to try to make the race about something else. And and here's the reality of the of the two thousand and sixteen elections. The the person who was losing that race was the person that the race was about. And for of the race, Donald Trump was losing because it was about him, and James Comey made it about Hillary Clinton in the last week and Donald Trump won by seventy eight thousand votes across three states. He's going to try to do everything he can to make the race about something other than what it is about. And what it's about is the biggest failure in American history. Sitting behind the Resolute desk, you believe the Democrats have not been effective enough in refuting the socialism argument. What about the law and order our commits, Steve Half, The Democrats have been strong enough saying that most of the protests have been peaceful, but they do not tolerate some of the crime. I think the stakes are so enormously high in the selection, so enormously high. Um, I think the country is on the line, and so therefore anything that bets Trump's campaign is a bad thing. And so when you look at the civil rights leaders of the nineteen sixties, John Lewis, Martin, Luther King, they were two things, and we only remember the one or talk about the one right. They were profoundly important moral figures. They imbued this movement with justice and righteousness, and it was fueled by the morality of non violence. And what what it what had proved is the dignity of the movement and the justice right that it was, that it was striving, that it was striving to achieve. The second part is they were really smart political strategists. They were really smart. They moved public opinion to their side. So like, let's look at Portland's right. Here's an idea, get away from the federal courthouse. Deny oxygen to the federal stormtroopers, unbadged math, no ideas, be smart in the tactics there. There there should be no tolerance for looting, for disorder, for villions in cities. And you see, the mayor of Portland's is every bit the incompetent right that the mayor of New York is that the governor of Florida is right. We've seen some profoundly incompetent political leadership, most of it in the Republican Party, but some of it in the Democratic Party. And Democratic leaders should absolutely make clear right that the burning and looting of a city for any is intolerable. Intolerable, let's talk about blue colored voters. Listen to this quote by a thirty year old electrician in Ohio from an article on the Economists quote, He's done a great job. He's got everyone back to work. I'm pretty much for him. Another pipe fitter added, he shoots his mouth off, but at least that shows he's honest. What's your reaction into those statements? Um? I think the Democratic Party has a has a cultural problem. I was asked at a dinner with a lot of Democrats to what would what would my advice be for this for this election, and that I answered it like this. I said, imagine that there's a building going up in New York City, though there's a rural example for this also, and that building is eighty stories high and there's hundreds of people working on it. First Democratic candidate for president walks by the building and they just don't notice anyone there, like the people that are working on it are just invisible to them. Um, they would fall into the category of what FDR talked about is the invisible man, the forgotten man. The second Democratic candidate walks by the site and sees the men and women working on it, sees tattoos, see cigarette smoking, and sees the ploricals it says, none of these people will be out in East Hampton this summer, thank god. UM just doesn't care for them. Third candidate walks by that building site and what they see is the dignity of labor. What they what they see are people doing hard jobs, dangerous jobs, necessary jobs, doing things whether it's wiring and welding eight d feet in the air, that they couldn't do themselves in a million years. I mean, that's the Democratic Party that Harry Truman and John Kennedy and Bobby Kenny and Bill Clinton would have would have recognized, right. And and there is a there is elitism right in condescension, right that flows from the elites of this country towards the working class people in this country. In the eyes of a lot of working class people, and one of the vessels one of the institutions, right that that does that to them or the Democratic parties politicians, you know, when people are laz about manufacturing jobs, all of these things. You know, Trump speaks in a language um that resonates with with some of them. During the campaign in two thousand and sixteen, Donald Trumps that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still support him. In many ways. That's a very few statement, isn't it. Look thirty three thirty four of the country wherever, wherever you want to peg the number, no problem, I mean, you you have. I mean Trump's demagoguery is spectacular. But the trend line existed before before Trump and in an election has become a type of war, type of battle where the vote right is is cast for a lot of people in this country to inflict harm on their other enemy tribes. And that's what it is now. You look at some of the cultural stuff. I mean, look, we know when Trump goes out and you know, says stand up for the flag, you know, and embraces the cops and the and the fireman in the way that he does. Now, all of it is demagoguic. In the extreme right because he is depicting this civil war literally in the country where the cities are burning, where he's shown such hostility to the democratic cities, the Democratic States, And you know, there there's a market for it, and you know one should no one should be naive about how that market came to be. I mean, look, we got there's a multi billion dollar industry in this country that exists to piss people off and to turn them against each other. Ask to you about the impact on Bob Woodward's book, Jeffrey Goldberg's article in the Atlantic about calling people who served in the military suckers and losers, Michael Cohen's book, Mary Trump's book. There's a whole industry of people who are who are coming out and speaking out against President Trump. Will those things move the needle at all? Or will they make his supporters dig their heels in even more? There are small slices of undecided voters, and there are Republican voters who know how badly he's failed that that I have to make a decision to vote for Joe Biden. Right that they are, and we we know this on our targeting and our and our research. So when so, the military is the most respected institution in the country. Do I think that will hurt him. I think that that will hurt him. I think that people know. Number one, that he said it. It sounds like the type of thing Trump would say. He's basically said that type of stuff publicly before. It's a perfect annunciation of the Trumpian philosophy. So yeah, and I think it's a I think it's a disgrace, right, And I do think that hurts it, um the all of it. Right. There's been some criticism of of Bob Woodward about how could you have this and not let the country no. Look, I mean some journalists report on television, some right for magazines, so him, right for monthly magazines, and some right books. And and what's the argument, right that it wasn't obvious that Donald Trump was lying, that he was delusional, that in fact, the snake oil cures and the advice to Jack lysshol were probably not good ones. Right there, there's nothing that we didn't already know right that that Woodward has revealed. But four right, the the only open question was was it the case that Trump just wouldn't absorb information or was it, as we now know, he did absorb the information He knew. It's the it's the greatest misjudgment, malfeasance, literally in the history of the country. There's there's nothing, there's nothing even close. There's nothing even close. Stay tuned for more of my conversation with Lincoln Project co founder Steve Schmidt. Steve, much of this election will really depend on turnout. We saw the highest historic turnout levels for the two thousand eighteen mid terms. Are people sufficiently fired up, in your view, to actually go out and vote or send in their mail in ballots? Um? You look, I think all of the polling shows that there's a lot of intensity in the race on you know, on on both sides. I think that you know, Trump's barkcore supporters, UM will be excited to vote for him. And I think that there's incredible intensity around the attitude of people who want him out, who want to remove from power. UM. Now, I think that one thing that's that's just up in the air. You know, you look at some of the poll numbers and you look, you know, Republicans rely on mail and voting, right and Trump has turned off millions of people to mail in voting, while the parties are spending tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars. The Republican Party included trying to get people to do mail in voting. So I don't know what that looks like, right I don't know what the impact that is when you when you look at like states for like right now, you see Democratic advantages on mail and bat mail in balloting returns, absolute ballot requests that are just in the numbers or staggered. So what does the COVID election look like? I don't know. Um, you know, I I think that um you know, I think everybody should take seriously, Um you know, the ability of a pathetic Trump, governors, secretaries of state, you know, in Trump's name, to interfere on election day all over the country. I think this could be a very chaotic election. Bred Sicario was saying the other day that there's a real divide that exists between Democrats and Republicans, that Republicans are going to go more likely than not in person voting Democrats mail in ballots. So on election night it could appear that Donald Trumps won because the mail in ballots had yet have yet to be counted. That is a scenario that could that could happen and it's not a great scenario. Why well, because Trump will claim has signaled that he'll claim that that these mail in ballots are fraudulent, and that as his lead evaporates, that result is thus illegitimate. And you, if you really want to stay up at night quaking and fear about American democracy, read up on how much license electors have under the Constitution to do as they will as as the Electoral College gets ready to meet. Um. We we have we have had in this country peaceful transition to power since it's never been in question, right, Um. George the Third asked what Washington would do, and when he was told that Washington intended to go home to Virginia in retirement and to give up power, George the Third said, and that will make him the greatest man of this age. This is the most fundamentally American aspect of our democracy is that no person is above the system. And so you have for the first time someone who is lighting a fire around the idea of the legitimacy of an election for president of the United States in the United States of America. It's astonishing. And and that and that no one, that no one in the Republican Party takes to the floor of the Senate and House and condemned this. It's outrage. How does it look for both Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham who have been stalwarts supporters of the president, they're both up for reelection. Yeah, I mean, look, you know, Mitch McConnell is likely to win. You know, Amy McGrath is a is a good candidate on paper, but just is not is not caught on out there um against McConnell. Lizzy Grahamson is in trouble in South Carolina. Um. You know, he is in a two point race, but under under fifty Um, I think that Jamie Harrison could beat Lindsey Graham. Um. You know, I I think that Lindsay is so vulnerable on the character questions, the just it's his conduct is disgraceful and you know, and and egregiously so and like at a at an Olympic gold medal level. And there's there's a lot of competition, you know, in the disgrace Olympics, right, that surrounds that surrounds the Donald Trump era. But I think Republicans are on track to lose the majority um in the Senate. And you'll see losses in the House races, and the realities is the party from a total number of seats state legislatures, everything else has been decimated in the Trump erea. And it's important to remember this is a redistricting year. So the Republican year is going to have implications for Republicans for the next you know, for the next ten years. But but I think like one thing that people really don't understand so much is that you know, what happens when Republicans lose, and they lose and they lose power, right, and people say, well Trump will be gone and right, things will start snap back to normal. That's not what's gonna happen when when a political party is not a consumer product. Right, It's not like you have a new cola beverage and say, God, that sucks, No one likes it, right, so we'll we'll get rid of that, put a new one out. Political parties are almost like astronomical objects, like a like a star apsing. As the star collapses, it shrinks. As it shrinks, it gets more dense. As it gets more dense, it gets hotter. Right, So the Republican Party is shrinking, right as it loses power and Trump isn't gonna go away. Trump is Um will be here to stay. You'll have a very early start to the next presidential campaign cycle right away, right in, in in, and the party is just gonna get crazier. It will get crazier, and and it will be led by the presidential candidates and by the media figures, right who will have the most power because they'll be out of power in the government. And Um, we're we're we're in for. We're in for years and years and years of of an extremism in our in our politics, fomented by what will be the rent mint of of Trump's support basis as it as it becomes, whatever it's going to become in these next years, you'd be a little more sp I mean, you're kind of talking theoretically. Can you kind of give me examples so you're saying that Fox News Trump, I mean, give me, give me examples so people can really understand what you're saying. You know, the most important figure in the Republican Party, right if the Senate loses its majority, Trump loses the White House is gonna be Tucker Carlson, Right, it will be It would be Tucker Carlston. It will be Laura Ingram, it will be Mark Leven Right, they will be the leaders, right because they have media platforms right of this noxious movement. Tom Cotton, Nicky Haley, the governor of South Dakota will all be will all be candidates. Mike Pence will will be a candidate. Um and and the more kid, the fight is gonna be over, right, who is the biggest trump Ist in the in the race, who carries on the legacy And and that legacy right will be built on the illusion that the election was stored, right, so that there will be a mythology right that exists around the start of the next election about the stolen election, that that Trump is the leader. I mean Trump. Trump's not gonna do with George W. Bush and Barack Obama did right, he will he will be ever present in an American life. He's not. He's not going gently into any any retirement. And so you know, all of this stuff that that's out there now, right, that's been encouraged, the all these white supremacist and white nationalist groups, all of the racial animals, the demo, it's it's all stripped there. He's just plainly evident to see that there's a there's a movement in this there's a political party in this country. One of them doesn't doesn't exist to make the union more perfect anymore, doesn't exist to advance policies under an intellectual framework. It exists to be obedient and loyal to Trump. That's what the platform is and what will become of Donald Trump himself if in fact he's defeated. I don't I have I have no idea. You know, he may be prosecuted, um in various jurisdictions. If you read accounts of the investigations that are underway, from tax fraud to charitable fraud, right to to what have you. But but he will. He will be the leader of a faction that's about thirty five percent of the of the country. Um M. And he will. He will be a huge figure in the in the politics and the life of the nation. Will be a destabilizing, a date destabilizing force. Um he may. He may well decide to set up his own Trump media network. Who knows, um, But but but he's not going anywhere, that's for sure. Is there a chance that the Republican Party will reconstitute itself with people whose ideology is more closely aligned with say yours or yours was, You can't have a modern political party. I don't believe any longer and accommodate within that coalition people like me, with people like Mike Pence who believe if you have a gay teenager, what you should do is take them, torture them, and pray away the game. I get some moral it's wrong on on issue after issue, the racial animus that we've seen unleash. They can't. There's no compromise. Those elements have to have to go, have to be have to be defeated, have to be put back underground. What it's a political party that's not committed to American democracy? Sure, where is the outrage over with Donald Trump, the commander in chief of the American military, what he said about the men and women, some of whom right now are in harm's way? Where is the out or are people who died right absolutely like but Susan Collins Corey guard there all these people, So let me understand this. They they all knew how deadly COVID was, and it's clear now they all knew that Trump knew how deadly it was, and yet they watched him go out day after day after day, lie to the American people, politicized common sense preventative measures like mask wearing. They watched this insanity play out for months, as the death toll rose and rose and rose, and they did nothing nothing. What Why didn't one of them march down to the Oval office and say stop it? What are you doing? Well? Why didn't one person on the White House f hundred thousand people dying say what the fun is going on here? Why? Nobody? Nobody? And then Susan Collins premise of a reelection bit is give me six more years so I can watch your back. I'll fight for you. Oh my god, I mean the the collapse of this institution into a cesspool of just immorality, indecency, malice. But but it's also fundamentally become undemocratic. Trump assault institutions, the rule of law. It's a threat to American liberty and everybody should wake up to that. You know, It's like, what do you say to to a Trump supporter, you know, in a in a somewhere in the in the country. But I'll say is wake up, wake up? You think this man cares about you, your family, about the country. We listened to his words, look at his actions. He's wrecked the country in four years. If I stood here on the day that he was elected, and I was pretty pessimistic, and I sat there and I told you that as we were coming into about two months out from the we'd have two hundred thousand dead people, shattered economy, American way of life basically done. Americans can't leave the country. Would you would you would have been You would have looked at me and thought I should be locked up. I mean, the the performance here is so far out of bounds of anything that we've ever seen in the entire scope of history of this country. It's never been an act of incompetence that that's even a remotely close to to what Donald Trump has done, not even remotely close. Is there any scenario, Steve, where you could see Donald Trump getting re elected? Sure, Look, we're living in the middle of historic and momentous events, and some of those events have not played out yet before the before the election. Right now, it looks like Donald Trump is going to be defeated. Um, that's the trajectory of the of the election. But could that change? Um? It could? I think these debates are going to be monumentally important, and you know, Joe Biden's gonna have to make the case. He has to take the presidency from Trump. He has to lead a broad coalition of people in this country, and he has to communicate that we can do better than this, that this is, that this is an outrageous, an outlandish situation that our country is in. Do you have faith that Joe Biden is strong enough to do that. I do. I've been really encouraged by his performance over the last couple of weeks. I think I think he is genuinely outraged and offended, first over Trump's desecrations of his duty with regard to the military, but also with regard to what we're going to hear on all of these Woodward tapes as they're as they're released and we get to all the revelations. And I think that when he and I think that Joe Biden understands from his comments in the last couple of weeks, that he has to confront Trump's vile character and the lethality of his incompetence in unsparing terms, in unsparing terms, and finally, what do you see unfolding on November three? Um, just from a strategist point of view, and from a turnout and votes being counted, etcetera. You know, sometime in early October four years ago, I said it looked like Hillary Clinton was on track to get four electoral votes, and she was, Um. I think if there was one scenario right now that you know, I think is the most likely scenario, I think it's that Joe Biden will have a decisive victory on election night, and that a lot of the scenarios that are the worst case scenarios are not going to play out, but they have to be prepared for and we have to consider the unthinkable when it comes to Donald Trump, right, questions about the legitimacy of the election are profoundly important. I mean, our our democratic our democratic history is not an entitlement to a democratic future. It's not, it's not. This is this goes to the heart of the idea of the country. We picked the leaders. Government works for us. We tell the government what to do. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Right to vote, which has been expanded that franchise over the course of our history. To everybody, this is this is, this is on the line. And when when a president says the things that he says, he should be taken at his word. You don't think it's the possibility that he will claim victory on election night because mail in ballots, the majority of which will be then in Democratic voters, won't have been counted. I know for sure that he will look out for himself and not the country. I don't. I don't know. Is it possible that Acting Deputy Secretary Chad Wolf, on a report of voter fraud, deploys Homeland Security agents to seize ballot boxes? I think that's possible. Do do I think that there are a hundred thousand federal forces around polling booths with long guns? I think that's possible. Uh? Do I do? I think that Donald Trump would try to cheat? Absolutely? Would he try to steal the election? Will Will he do everything he can to cause as much chaos as a hedge against the defeat. Will he acknowledge the will of the voters? He will not. Will he do what Richard Nixon did in nineteen sixty when he could have challenged John Kennedy's victory? He will not. Will he do what al Gore did when al Gore told his team not to attack the Supreme Court, he will not. And so this this election is between two very different men. Only one of them believes in the democratic institutions and history of the of the country. It's important to understand that does it for my conversation with Steve Schmidt, who is the co founder of the Lincoln Project, and one thing is for sure, he is very passionate and is very worried about the future of our country. I hope you enjoyed this episode if you can enjoy an episode like this of Next Question, and I look forward to sharing our new podcast series beginning October one, called Turnout, all about Voting in America. Thanks again for listening. Until next time, I'm Katie Curic. Next Question with Katie Kuric is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Curic Media. The executive producers are Katie Kurk, Courtney Litz, and Tyler Klang. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Our show producer is Bethan Macaluso. The associate producers are Emily Pinto and Derek Clements. Editing by Derrek Clements, Dylan Fagin, and Lowell Berlante, Mixing by Dylan Fagan. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser. For more information on today's episode, go to Katie Couric dot com and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Katie Currik. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

I'm Katie Curic, and welcome to Next Question. So I'm back in the city for a few days and away from my usual recording setups. So I apologize if I sound a little bit like I'm underwater, but I just had such a fascinating conversation with Steve Schmidt, and I wanted to get this episode out into the world as quickly as possible. You probably have heard of Steve before. He's a longtime Republican strategist, and he was the campaign manager for John McCain's two thousand eight presidential bid. In other words, he's a real Republicans Republican, but two years ago he quit the GOP and now, as co founder of the Lincoln Project, he's channeled all of his energy into defeating President Trump. We talked about what led him to renounce the party he's been loyal to for thirty years, what to expect during this final sprint to election day, and how he thinks Trump is um will impact our political system for many years to come. You renounced your membership in the Republican Party in two thousand eighteen, and you have said you are going to vote for Joe Biden absolutely. What was it that made you say, I don't want to be a Republican anymore. Well, the Republican Party by two thousand eighteen, and my view had become fully the party of Trump, and Trump is um and I think that we know more today than we did even in two thousand eighteen. The straw that broke the commis back for me were the children's detention and family breakup policies at the at the Southern border, and I just think they were appalling. They were immoral policies. They harkened back to the worst abuses in our country's history, the separation of families at the slave auction blocks, separation of Indian children from their families in the latter night teenth century, and that did it for me. What we see now, though, right is Trump is um fully formed, rooted. It's an ideology, it has meaning, and the Republican Party's platform and this is important because it's the third oldest political party in the world. It formed in eighteen fifty four. Republican Party of two thousand and twenty exists fully as an instrument for Donald Trump. It's a cult of personality. The evidence of that is the platform. With the platform requires is obedience to Donald Trump and loyalty to Donald Trump. That's the full meaning of Republicanism now, and that trump is ideology is one that is illiberal, anti democratic, bad for the country and the party that is the vessel for it, that has been the handmaidens to the cantactrophy. That's befall in this country. It's the Republican Party. You started something called the Lincoln Project. What is the goal of the Lincoln Project, Steve, It's to defeat Trump. And Trump is um, plain and simple as that plain and simple as that um. When when you look at the Republican Convention, there were three features to it. There was breath taking line of the type that you see in no healthy democracy anywhere in the world. One but was unprecedented in the political history of the country. From the from the gavel coming down right to begin it to the gavel coming down to end it, you saw utter lawlessness, flat out breaking and violating of dozens of federal laws that have to do with preventing the use of taxpayer dialars for partisan causes, the use of federal property. And then, lastly, and and really ominously, you saw the seizure of important symbols of the American Republic, of the of the state. You saw Trump take those symbols the White House for instants turn it into a partisan totem and an expression of his authority. So what does that all mean, Well, it means in essence that he's saying, I am the truth, I am the law, and I am the state. No thank you, and that ideology. He knew how deadly this virus was. He knew it. The Republican senators knew that. He knew. He lied to the country hundreds of times downplayed this. It's the biggest, greatest, deadliest lie in the history of the United States. That's the moment we're in, and it has decimated the economy, broken a million dreams, and has fundamentally ended the American way of life. There are many people who follow me on social media and they will say Steve Schmidt is biased. They described the media as communicating fake news. If that, in fact is the case and true, why does President Trump enjoy so much support Still? I think that there's two issues, and I think people get confused on them. Right, there's a there's a political question and there's a sociological question. And so let's start with the political question. That The political question is is that where you look right now in this where this race is, Joe Biden has a bigger lead Obama did, has a bigger lead that Bush did had as a bigger lead than Bill Clinton did. Here is a commanding lead. The majority of this country rejects Trump, and Trump is um and wants him gone. You look at the swing states right now, Biden is in a strong position. Donald Trump is losing the race. The second issue is a sociological question, And and at least a third of the country is in thrall to a cult of personality, and so for fort pent of the country, the millions of people who ascribed to Q and on who are poisoned by social media, by disinformation that's both organic and state sponsored um by a president who's lied twenty five thousand times and has let loose hundreds of Brascy theories. You have a billion dollar anger industry through extreme media in this country, and and all of it accounts for a number that's way too big in a healthy democracy that hasn't just surrendered their agency to a political leader, but have opted out of reality in some fundamental ways. And and the truth is, there is such thing as objective truth and fact. Then the wholesale rejection of it is authoritarian. You don't see that in democratic societies, and it should make everybody understand the degree to which the system is blinking yellow to red because of it. Let's get a little more granular. Steve has shove Biden up seven to eight points in national polls, also up in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina. President Trump appears to be closing the gap in Florida. So is it all going to get down to? As our late friend Tim Russert said in two thousand, Florida, Florida, Florida, I think Florida is is incredibly important for a couple of reasons. Um. First, Trump's made clear in a way that is completely alien to every other president, right like democracy requires someone being willing to lose, being willing to say we hear the voters get you next time. Trump Trump has inferred time and time again that unless he wins, the election is illegitimate. And there are a thousand bad things that I can think of off the top of my head, right that that flowed from that from violence in the streets uh to chaotic paralyzed government, a constitutional crisis. We should pay attention on Roger Stone, clown and criminal though he may be communicating to Donald Trump through the television, which is how you communicate to Donald Trump about seizing absolute power in the country. So Florida, right, Florida makes it very hard if Biden wins decisively there for Trump to make the legitimacy claim, because it means he's gonna lose big all over the country and it could be an early night. Nobody wants to see this election go on for weeks and months. So when you look at Florida right now, Trump is overperforming with Hispanic voters, and he is underperforming at a historical level with senior voters. And so Mike Bloomberg is gonna spend a hundred million dollar US in Florida. I think Donald Trump's in a lot of trouble there. If the election were tomorrow, he would lose. But Republican state, Republican governor. The COVID crisis has been a disaster there. The governor's a D S c has rival Trump's. But um, it will it will be a it will be a state that bears watching. Um And if Biden wins it. It's all over early on election, right. Why are Hispanics still trending towards Donald Trump? In Florida you have a lot of um human population obviously, but also Venezuelan uh South American that is triggered by the socialism message, which hasn't been rebutted effectively by the Democrats of the Biden campaign, you know, in the in the state now the way to go after those voters. I think he's on a corruption message, right. You know, they didn't necessarily leave their countries to come to America because of the politics of the government, whether it was you know, right of center Colombia, UM socialist, Venezuela, communist Cuba. Why they left was because of the corruption. It's just endemic to all of those systems. And you know, the ability to focus on Trump's corruption and you know that they see that quality coming to American life, right, would would be an effective message there. Who else is this socialism message resonating with that has not been effectively rebutted by the Biden administration, that somehow Biden presidency would be co opted by the extreme left. I think that there's a a a broad, a deep It extremely sophisticated multi layered propaganda UH network UM that includes Fox News, includes talk radio, includes Facebook chat sites, includes O. A. N and Alex Jones. And if you if you listen to the to the accumulation of it all, UM, you think America's cities or burning right now? That New York City, UM looks like something from Escape from New York, the movie in the late nine seventies. That that America's cities are burning, that chaos is at hands, that UM, socialism, Antifa, all of these things are about to descend upon America. And and there is there is a far too large number you know that that buys into it. I mean, look, we're we're going to see our first members of Congress who are a Cuban on conspiracy theorists, right, this is this is a conspiracy theory built around the fact that much of the governing class of the country or cannibalistic pedophiles, and Donald Trump is working secretly with the military to break up the ring and it's a global phenomenon. Is the genie out of the bottle, Steve. When it comes to that kind of false information getting perpetuated by all these people that you cited, it might be. Look, you have you have an Oregon you have reports of right wing militia setting up roadside checkpoints and just had to be rebuked by the sheriff's office. You see these cami, these these Hawaiian shirt clad boogaloo boys right storming state capitals. We ye. The reality is is that all of that is a minority of the country. And I wish those people well, I do. I wish them no harm. But we can't be ruled over by them, is what the is. What the point is is the the country has been pitched into a unbelievably precipitous decline over a over a short period of time, and it's being propelled by all of the pathogens that I just described, the combination of unreasonableness, outright insanity, opting out of out of reality, opting out of opting out now, and it's it's it's bad. Let's talk about another key demographic group that each candidate is fighting for. We're talking about white suburban women. Now. Trump won white women in two thousand and sixteen against Hillary Clinton by nine I mean a lot of trouble now with white women. Explain that, Well, what white suburban women the the issue more than any other issue that that has peeled them off of him is his embrace of all of the racial animals and going back to George Floyd, to the embrace of the Confederate flag, that that demographic in his country is just repelled by it. And so he is in a lot of trouble in the in the suburbs, and everybody is affected by by COVID. You know, I don't I don't say lightly that the American way of life has ended, but it but it has right, Like I mean, you can't go and be with a parent and end of life decision. The grandparents can't go to see the birth of their grandkids, weddings, birthdays or mitzvah's communions, tailgates, football, and the list goes on all over the and and none of it, none of it had a big more with political strategists and Lincoln Project co founder Steve Schmidt. Right after this, let's talk about the law and order message. That is the old chestnut that Republicans often return return to in campaigns. The Trump administration is using it. It's not very effective, or is it. Well, it's it has not been It has not been effective, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't have the potential to be in in certain places that that message is aimed, if you want to break it down demographically at non college educated white male voters, particularly in the rust Belt states. But each time he delivers that message, he hurts himself with college educated, suburban women voters, particularly in the in in the sun Belt states, right in Florida, in Arizona. So he's in a death spiral, so to speak, because the message they've decided to communicate, the fear based message on the crime, is pulling share from them with one demographic, you know, with slight to marginal gains in a in another. But you look, if it is, it is jarring to watch some primetime Fox News right the depiction of what's happening in the in the in the country is this dystopian healthscape positioning Trump as the defender of Western civilization. Um, it's remarkable. It doesn't appear to be persuading people. Um. But you know for that for that Trump base, you know, does it maintain their intensity? Sure it does? Um. You know, has Trump effectively been able to use these issues to distract from having to answer questions about COVID? He absolutely has um. And but that's what it's about, right, It's about It's about a failure. It's literally the greatest failure in American history, COVID. And he wants to do anything he can to try to make the race about something else. And and here's the reality of the of the two thousand and sixteen elections. The the person who was losing that race was the person that the race was about. And for of the race, Donald Trump was losing because it was about him, and James Comey made it about Hillary Clinton in the last week and Donald Trump won by seventy eight thousand votes across three states. He's going to try to do everything he can to make the race about something other than what it is about. And what it's about is the biggest failure in American history. Sitting behind the Resolute desk, you believe the Democrats have not been effective enough in refuting the socialism argument. What about the law and order our commits, Steve Half, The Democrats have been strong enough saying that most of the protests have been peaceful, but they do not tolerate some of the crime. I think the stakes are so enormously high in the selection, so enormously high. Um, I think the country is on the line, and so therefore anything that bets Trump's campaign is a bad thing. And so when you look at the civil rights leaders of the nineteen sixties, John Lewis, Martin, Luther King, they were two things, and we only remember the one or talk about the one right. They were profoundly important moral figures. They imbued this movement with justice and righteousness, and it was fueled by the morality of non violence. And what what it what had proved is the dignity of the movement and the justice right that it was, that it was striving, that it was striving to achieve. The second part is they were really smart political strategists. They were really smart. They moved public opinion to their side. So like, let's look at Portland's right. Here's an idea, get away from the federal courthouse. Deny oxygen to the federal stormtroopers, unbadged math, no ideas, be smart in the tactics there. There there should be no tolerance for looting, for disorder, for villions in cities. And you see, the mayor of Portland's is every bit the incompetent right that the mayor of New York is that the governor of Florida is right. We've seen some profoundly incompetent political leadership, most of it in the Republican Party, but some of it in the Democratic Party. And Democratic leaders should absolutely make clear right that the burning and looting of a city for any is intolerable. Intolerable, let's talk about blue colored voters. Listen to this quote by a thirty year old electrician in Ohio from an article on the Economists quote, He's done a great job. He's got everyone back to work. I'm pretty much for him. Another pipe fitter added, he shoots his mouth off, but at least that shows he's honest. What's your reaction into those statements? Um? I think the Democratic Party has a has a cultural problem. I was asked at a dinner with a lot of Democrats to what would what would my advice be for this for this election, and that I answered it like this. I said, imagine that there's a building going up in New York City, though there's a rural example for this also, and that building is eighty stories high and there's hundreds of people working on it. First Democratic candidate for president walks by the building and they just don't notice anyone there, like the people that are working on it are just invisible to them. Um, they would fall into the category of what FDR talked about is the invisible man, the forgotten man. The second Democratic candidate walks by the site and sees the men and women working on it, sees tattoos, see cigarette smoking, and sees the ploricals it says, none of these people will be out in East Hampton this summer, thank god. UM just doesn't care for them. Third candidate walks by that building site and what they see is the dignity of labor. What they what they see are people doing hard jobs, dangerous jobs, necessary jobs, doing things whether it's wiring and welding eight d feet in the air, that they couldn't do themselves in a million years. I mean, that's the Democratic Party that Harry Truman and John Kennedy and Bobby Kenny and Bill Clinton would have would have recognized, right. And and there is a there is elitism right in condescension, right that flows from the elites of this country towards the working class people in this country. In the eyes of a lot of working class people, and one of the vessels one of the institutions, right that that does that to them or the Democratic parties politicians, you know, when people are laz about manufacturing jobs, all of these things. You know, Trump speaks in a language um that resonates with with some of them. During the campaign in two thousand and sixteen, Donald Trumps that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still support him. In many ways. That's a very few statement, isn't it. Look thirty three thirty four of the country wherever, wherever you want to peg the number, no problem, I mean, you you have. I mean Trump's demagoguery is spectacular. But the trend line existed before before Trump and in an election has become a type of war, type of battle where the vote right is is cast for a lot of people in this country to inflict harm on their other enemy tribes. And that's what it is now. You look at some of the cultural stuff. I mean, look, we know when Trump goes out and you know, says stand up for the flag, you know, and embraces the cops and the and the fireman in the way that he does. Now, all of it is demagoguic. In the extreme right because he is depicting this civil war literally in the country where the cities are burning, where he's shown such hostility to the democratic cities, the Democratic States, And you know, there there's a market for it, and you know one should no one should be naive about how that market came to be. I mean, look, we got there's a multi billion dollar industry in this country that exists to piss people off and to turn them against each other. Ask to you about the impact on Bob Woodward's book, Jeffrey Goldberg's article in the Atlantic about calling people who served in the military suckers and losers, Michael Cohen's book, Mary Trump's book. There's a whole industry of people who are who are coming out and speaking out against President Trump. Will those things move the needle at all? Or will they make his supporters dig their heels in even more? There are small slices of undecided voters, and there are Republican voters who know how badly he's failed that that I have to make a decision to vote for Joe Biden. Right that they are, and we we know this on our targeting and our and our research. So when so, the military is the most respected institution in the country. Do I think that will hurt him. I think that that will hurt him. I think that people know. Number one, that he said it. It sounds like the type of thing Trump would say. He's basically said that type of stuff publicly before. It's a perfect annunciation of the Trumpian philosophy. So yeah, and I think it's a I think it's a disgrace, right, And I do think that hurts it, um the all of it. Right. There's been some criticism of of Bob Woodward about how could you have this and not let the country no. Look, I mean some journalists report on television, some right for magazines, so him, right for monthly magazines, and some right books. And and what's the argument, right that it wasn't obvious that Donald Trump was lying, that he was delusional, that in fact, the snake oil cures and the advice to Jack lysshol were probably not good ones. Right there, there's nothing that we didn't already know right that that Woodward has revealed. But four right, the the only open question was was it the case that Trump just wouldn't absorb information or was it, as we now know, he did absorb the information He knew. It's the it's the greatest misjudgment, malfeasance, literally in the history of the country. There's there's nothing, there's nothing even close. There's nothing even close. Stay tuned for more of my conversation with Lincoln Project co founder Steve Schmidt. Steve, much of this election will really depend on turnout. We saw the highest historic turnout levels for the two thousand eighteen mid terms. Are people sufficiently fired up, in your view, to actually go out and vote or send in their mail in ballots? Um? You look, I think all of the polling shows that there's a lot of intensity in the race on you know, on on both sides. I think that you know, Trump's barkcore supporters, UM will be excited to vote for him. And I think that there's incredible intensity around the attitude of people who want him out, who want to remove from power. UM. Now, I think that one thing that's that's just up in the air. You know, you look at some of the poll numbers and you look, you know, Republicans rely on mail and voting, right and Trump has turned off millions of people to mail in voting, while the parties are spending tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars. The Republican Party included trying to get people to do mail in voting. So I don't know what that looks like, right I don't know what the impact that is when you when you look at like states for like right now, you see Democratic advantages on mail and bat mail in balloting returns, absolute ballot requests that are just in the numbers or staggered. So what does the COVID election look like? I don't know. Um, you know, I I think that um you know, I think everybody should take seriously, Um you know, the ability of a pathetic Trump, governors, secretaries of state, you know, in Trump's name, to interfere on election day all over the country. I think this could be a very chaotic election. Bred Sicario was saying the other day that there's a real divide that exists between Democrats and Republicans, that Republicans are going to go more likely than not in person voting Democrats mail in ballots. So on election night it could appear that Donald Trumps won because the mail in ballots had yet have yet to be counted. That is a scenario that could that could happen and it's not a great scenario. Why well, because Trump will claim has signaled that he'll claim that that these mail in ballots are fraudulent, and that as his lead evaporates, that result is thus illegitimate. And you, if you really want to stay up at night quaking and fear about American democracy, read up on how much license electors have under the Constitution to do as they will as as the Electoral College gets ready to meet. Um. We we have we have had in this country peaceful transition to power since it's never been in question, right, Um. George the Third asked what Washington would do, and when he was told that Washington intended to go home to Virginia in retirement and to give up power, George the Third said, and that will make him the greatest man of this age. This is the most fundamentally American aspect of our democracy is that no person is above the system. And so you have for the first time someone who is lighting a fire around the idea of the legitimacy of an election for president of the United States in the United States of America. It's astonishing. And and that and that no one, that no one in the Republican Party takes to the floor of the Senate and House and condemned this. It's outrage. How does it look for both Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham who have been stalwarts supporters of the president, they're both up for reelection. Yeah, I mean, look, you know, Mitch McConnell is likely to win. You know, Amy McGrath is a is a good candidate on paper, but just is not is not caught on out there um against McConnell. Lizzy Grahamson is in trouble in South Carolina. Um. You know, he is in a two point race, but under under fifty Um, I think that Jamie Harrison could beat Lindsey Graham. Um. You know, I I think that Lindsay is so vulnerable on the character questions, the just it's his conduct is disgraceful and you know, and and egregiously so and like at a at an Olympic gold medal level. And there's there's a lot of competition, you know, in the disgrace Olympics, right, that surrounds that surrounds the Donald Trump era. But I think Republicans are on track to lose the majority um in the Senate. And you'll see losses in the House races, and the realities is the party from a total number of seats state legislatures, everything else has been decimated in the Trump erea. And it's important to remember this is a redistricting year. So the Republican year is going to have implications for Republicans for the next you know, for the next ten years. But but I think like one thing that people really don't understand so much is that you know, what happens when Republicans lose, and they lose and they lose power, right, and people say, well Trump will be gone and right, things will start snap back to normal. That's not what's gonna happen when when a political party is not a consumer product. Right, It's not like you have a new cola beverage and say, God, that sucks, No one likes it, right, so we'll we'll get rid of that, put a new one out. Political parties are almost like astronomical objects, like a like a star apsing. As the star collapses, it shrinks. As it shrinks, it gets more dense. As it gets more dense, it gets hotter. Right, So the Republican Party is shrinking, right as it loses power and Trump isn't gonna go away. Trump is Um will be here to stay. You'll have a very early start to the next presidential campaign cycle right away, right in, in in, and the party is just gonna get crazier. It will get crazier, and and it will be led by the presidential candidates and by the media figures, right who will have the most power because they'll be out of power in the government. And Um, we're we're we're in for. We're in for years and years and years of of an extremism in our in our politics, fomented by what will be the rent mint of of Trump's support basis as it as it becomes, whatever it's going to become in these next years, you'd be a little more sp I mean, you're kind of talking theoretically. Can you kind of give me examples so you're saying that Fox News Trump, I mean, give me, give me examples so people can really understand what you're saying. You know, the most important figure in the Republican Party, right if the Senate loses its majority, Trump loses the White House is gonna be Tucker Carlson, Right, it will be It would be Tucker Carlston. It will be Laura Ingram, it will be Mark Leven Right, they will be the leaders, right because they have media platforms right of this noxious movement. Tom Cotton, Nicky Haley, the governor of South Dakota will all be will all be candidates. Mike Pence will will be a candidate. Um and and the more kid, the fight is gonna be over, right, who is the biggest trump Ist in the in the race, who carries on the legacy And and that legacy right will be built on the illusion that the election was stored, right, so that there will be a mythology right that exists around the start of the next election about the stolen election, that that Trump is the leader. I mean Trump. Trump's not gonna do with George W. Bush and Barack Obama did right, he will he will be ever present in an American life. He's not. He's not going gently into any any retirement. And so you know, all of this stuff that that's out there now, right, that's been encouraged, the all these white supremacist and white nationalist groups, all of the racial animals, the demo, it's it's all stripped there. He's just plainly evident to see that there's a there's a movement in this there's a political party in this country. One of them doesn't doesn't exist to make the union more perfect anymore, doesn't exist to advance policies under an intellectual framework. It exists to be obedient and loyal to Trump. That's what the platform is and what will become of Donald Trump himself if in fact he's defeated. I don't I have I have no idea. You know, he may be prosecuted, um in various jurisdictions. If you read accounts of the investigations that are underway, from tax fraud to charitable fraud, right to to what have you. But but he will. He will be the leader of a faction that's about thirty five percent of the of the country. Um M. And he will. He will be a huge figure in the in the politics and the life of the nation. Will be a destabilizing, a date destabilizing force. Um he may. He may well decide to set up his own Trump media network. Who knows, um, But but but he's not going anywhere, that's for sure. Is there a chance that the Republican Party will reconstitute itself with people whose ideology is more closely aligned with say yours or yours was, You can't have a modern political party. I don't believe any longer and accommodate within that coalition people like me, with people like Mike Pence who believe if you have a gay teenager, what you should do is take them, torture them, and pray away the game. I get some moral it's wrong on on issue after issue, the racial animus that we've seen unleash. They can't. There's no compromise. Those elements have to have to go, have to be have to be defeated, have to be put back underground. What it's a political party that's not committed to American democracy? Sure, where is the outrage over with Donald Trump, the commander in chief of the American military, what he said about the men and women, some of whom right now are in harm's way? Where is the out or are people who died right absolutely like but Susan Collins Corey guard there all these people, So let me understand this. They they all knew how deadly COVID was, and it's clear now they all knew that Trump knew how deadly it was, and yet they watched him go out day after day after day, lie to the American people, politicized common sense preventative measures like mask wearing. They watched this insanity play out for months, as the death toll rose and rose and rose, and they did nothing nothing. What Why didn't one of them march down to the Oval office and say stop it? What are you doing? Well? Why didn't one person on the White House f hundred thousand people dying say what the fun is going on here? Why? Nobody? Nobody? And then Susan Collins premise of a reelection bit is give me six more years so I can watch your back. I'll fight for you. Oh my god, I mean the the collapse of this institution into a cesspool of just immorality, indecency, malice. But but it's also fundamentally become undemocratic. Trump assault institutions, the rule of law. It's a threat to American liberty and everybody should wake up to that. You know, It's like, what do you say to to a Trump supporter, you know, in a in a somewhere in the in the country. But I'll say is wake up, wake up? You think this man cares about you, your family, about the country. We listened to his words, look at his actions. He's wrecked the country in four years. If I stood here on the day that he was elected, and I was pretty pessimistic, and I sat there and I told you that as we were coming into about two months out from the we'd have two hundred thousand dead people, shattered economy, American way of life basically done. Americans can't leave the country. Would you would you would have been You would have looked at me and thought I should be locked up. I mean, the the performance here is so far out of bounds of anything that we've ever seen in the entire scope of history of this country. It's never been an act of incompetence that that's even a remotely close to to what Donald Trump has done, not even remotely close. Is there any scenario, Steve, where you could see Donald Trump getting re elected? Sure, Look, we're living in the middle of historic and momentous events, and some of those events have not played out yet before the before the election. Right now, it looks like Donald Trump is going to be defeated. Um, that's the trajectory of the of the election. But could that change? Um? It could? I think these debates are going to be monumentally important, and you know, Joe Biden's gonna have to make the case. He has to take the presidency from Trump. He has to lead a broad coalition of people in this country, and he has to communicate that we can do better than this, that this is, that this is an outrageous, an outlandish situation that our country is in. Do you have faith that Joe Biden is strong enough to do that. I do. I've been really encouraged by his performance over the last couple of weeks. I think I think he is genuinely outraged and offended, first over Trump's desecrations of his duty with regard to the military, but also with regard to what we're going to hear on all of these Woodward tapes as they're as they're released and we get to all the revelations. And I think that when he and I think that Joe Biden understands from his comments in the last couple of weeks, that he has to confront Trump's vile character and the lethality of his incompetence in unsparing terms, in unsparing terms, and finally, what do you see unfolding on November three? Um, just from a strategist point of view, and from a turnout and votes being counted, etcetera. You know, sometime in early October four years ago, I said it looked like Hillary Clinton was on track to get four electoral votes, and she was, Um. I think if there was one scenario right now that you know, I think is the most likely scenario, I think it's that Joe Biden will have a decisive victory on election night, and that a lot of the scenarios that are the worst case scenarios are not going to play out, but they have to be prepared for and we have to consider the unthinkable when it comes to Donald Trump, right, questions about the legitimacy of the election are profoundly important. I mean, our our democratic our democratic history is not an entitlement to a democratic future. It's not, it's not. This is this goes to the heart of the idea of the country. We picked the leaders. Government works for us. We tell the government what to do. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Right to vote, which has been expanded that franchise over the course of our history. To everybody, this is this is, this is on the line. And when when a president says the things that he says, he should be taken at his word. You don't think it's the possibility that he will claim victory on election night because mail in ballots, the majority of which will be then in Democratic voters, won't have been counted. I know for sure that he will look out for himself and not the country. I don't. I don't know. Is it possible that Acting Deputy Secretary Chad Wolf, on a report of voter fraud, deploys Homeland Security agents to seize ballot boxes? I think that's possible. Do do I think that there are a hundred thousand federal forces around polling booths with long guns? I think that's possible. Uh? Do I do? I think that Donald Trump would try to cheat? Absolutely? Would he try to steal the election? Will Will he do everything he can to cause as much chaos as a hedge against the defeat. Will he acknowledge the will of the voters? He will not. Will he do what Richard Nixon did in nineteen sixty when he could have challenged John Kennedy's victory? He will not. Will he do what al Gore did when al Gore told his team not to attack the Supreme Court, he will not. And so this this election is between two very different men. Only one of them believes in the democratic institutions and history of the of the country. It's important to understand that does it for my conversation with Steve Schmidt, who is the co founder of the Lincoln Project, and one thing is for sure, he is very passionate and is very worried about the future of our country. I hope you enjoyed this episode if you can enjoy an episode like this of Next Question, and I look forward to sharing our new podcast series beginning October one, called Turnout, all about Voting in America. Thanks again for listening. Until next time, I'm Katie Curic. Next Question with Katie Kuric is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Curic Media. The executive producers are Katie Kurk, Courtney Litz, and Tyler Klang. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Our show producer is Bethan Macaluso. The associate producers are Emily Pinto and Derek Clements. Editing by Derrek Clements, Dylan Fagin, and Lowell Berlante, Mixing by Dylan Fagan. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser. For more information on today's episode, go to Katie Couric dot com and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Katie Currik. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.