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The Jim Acosta Show
Rep. Jim Himes on "Big Beautful" Bill and Steve Schmidt on Trump's "shakedown" of Ukraine.
01:08:51
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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
All right. Welcome everybody. It is Wednesday on the Jim Acosta show. And as you can see right there on screen is Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut. I'll be talking to him in just a few moments. But you know, one of the things we're obviously going to be talking about is this House Republican budget bill. We're going to be talking about Ukraine. And then a little later on in the program, I'm going to be talking to former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt. He's got some thoughts on Elon Musk and everything that's taking place right now in the nation's capital. But I did want to start off with a phrase that I think most folks have heard before, and that is elections have consequences. But in this case, it might not be the consequences you think I'm talking about. Yes, there, there may be consequences for Democrats in this new Trump administration. There's no question about it. That's what Trump and Elon Musk might prefer. But I'm talking about consequences for potentially millions of people in the MAGA movement, millions of Republicans who voted for Donald Trump in the last election, who may be impacted by Trump's quest for what he's calling a big, beautiful budget bill. This bill may leave people on Medicaid, that is health care for the poor or food stamps, out in the cold. And I want to talk about this now with Democratic Congressman Jim Himes. Congressman, I'm sure you're, you were there up on the Hill when this vote went through. The House Republicans passed this, it seems like, by a one vote majority here. And what it's talking about proposing at this point is what, four and a half trillion dollars in tax breaks, $2 trillion in spending cuts. And a huge portion of that may come from the Medicaid program, health care for the poor. I know you voted against it, but what are your thoughts on this bill right now?
- [01:41]
Jim Himes
Yeah, that's right, Jim. And by the way, Medicaid is not just health care for the poor. Yes, it's a lot of lower income people get their health insurance from Medicaid. But but it's also grandma, you know, it's an awful lot of people's grandmas because when grandma runs out of assets, but she needs to stay in that assisted living facility or in a nursing home, it is Medicaid that takes up the slack. So Medicaid is actually in addition to health insurance for poor people, it's also the single biggest, you know, long term care program. And so, you know, my Republican friends had better stand by because if they do what they say they're going to do, not only are they throwing a lot of vulnerable people off their healthcare, but, you know, a lot of people better get ready for grandma to come back and live in the basement because that's a big, big what Medicaid does. And you outlined it exactly right. You know, they want to extend the original Trump tax cuts. And remember what those were? Those were the federal corporate tax rate going from 28% to 15%. These were tax cuts that, by the way, that, that mainly benefited the wealthiest people in this country. And to do that without absolutely exploding the deficit, they need to find these cuts. And I mean, it's just, it's mind boggling in the sense that these cuts are going to come from those programs which help, just as you put it, if the theory is, and I think the theory is pretty accurate, that, you know, people with some degree of economic distress got sick of Joe Biden, got sick of the culture wars and just said, you know what, eggs are too expensive and I can't retire, so I'm voting for Donald Trump. Guess what? Those are the people that are going to get hit by the cuts that are being contemplated.
- [03:12]
Jim Acosta
Well, yeah. And Congressman, I can tell you from being at a lot of Trump rallies over the years, I mean, I used to comment on this from time to time out on the campaign trail that a lot of folks you see at Trump rallies you might describe as Democrats 10 or 15 years ago. And they're folks who may come from backgrounds where they need to be on Medicaid, where grandma is on Medicare, where perhaps some folks in their family may be relying on food stamp assistance from the federal government. And I think a lot of people are unaware outside the Beltway that a key component of the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare, that provides health care access is funded by that federal money that pours into Medicaid. The Medicaid expansion that was a part of Obamacare, what, back in 2014 when Obamacare was expanded. And so that, I mean, not only might you cut into Medicaid in this budget process, but Obamacare as well.
- [04:08]
Jim Himes
Yeah, absolutely. And again, the interesting thing about this is that it really is going to hurt the red states the most. So if you talk to my, forget about Connecticut, Massachusetts, those areas where I come from, where, you know, the state's tax base is going to support probably keeping up the level of service. Talk to people from Kansas or Iowa or Nebraska or South Dakota, they will tell you that access is a huge problem to healthcare. Right. So you have to drive for three hours to get to a hospital. And that hospital only survives because of Medicaid and Medicare. And so, you know, it is going to be these red states where community health centers, because community health centers rely on Medicaid probably for half their revenue, sometimes more than half, and hospitals are just going to close. So what's happening right now, Jim? I heard it in the members gym this morning. What's happening right now is that my Republicans, terrified as they are by crossing Donald Trump and that's why they passed the bill last night. Donald Trump was on the phone with a whole bunch.
- [05:06]
Steve Schmidt
Right.
- [05:07]
Jim Himes
You know, at 8:00 last night saying you vote for this thing or else eventually what they're telling themselves right now is that, yeah, you know what it's all going to be, it's going to be waste, fraud and abuse. Now, of course, every federal program has some waste, fraud and abuse, but what is it, 5, 6, 7%, maybe tops. What these guys are going to discover because the hospital associations are walking around the hill right now, what they're going to discover is that what they think is waste, fraud and abuse is their hospital closing down. And all of a sudden Mike Johnson's task, as it should, gets a lot harder.
- [05:38]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, I think that that is, and that's been a salient issue for Democrats in past elections. Right. The issue of health care, once you start bringing that up, even Republicans, moderate Republicans and maybe even some conservative Republicans start paying attention because you're starting to talk about policies that hit them, where, where it hurts, where it could potentially hurt. And I'm just, I mean, I'm just curious, Congressman, because, you know, there are some folks who feel like, well, Democrats have been back on their heels since the November elections. Do you feel that this type of issue might start getting people's attention? You're starting to see some of that with the Doge cuts and Elon Musk that have been impacting the federal government. Might a health care discussion also start getting folks, you know, thinking about listening to Democrats again a bit more?
- [06:27]
Jim Himes
Yeah, I, no, no question. And I've been saying for a long time, you know, because you're right, Jim, the conversation is, you know, with us here on the Hill and with our activists is how come you guys aren't doing more? What's going on, who's the leader and everything. The reality is, and I think Jim Carville made this point, you know, and you listen to Jim Carville on issues of politics. He made this point, which is, I'll use my words, you Know, to some extent, and I hate to say it, but to some extent people are going to need to get a taste of the dish that they ordered at the restaurant on election day. Right? And we can raise all kinds of hell about what Medicaid is or, you know, USAID and why it's important that, you know, people aren't starving in Sudan. But until the American people actually see how these, you know, what Elon Musk doing ballet with a chainsaw and firing people willy nilly, that doesn't come for free. And people are going to need to experience that. And you know what, I've been in politics long enough to know and you know this too, if the American people hate one thing, it's the government sending good stuff to very, very wealthy people and denying less wealthy people stuff. And by the way, policy wise, that is all that we have seen since January 20th. You know, stuff getting taken from people who are hurting and given to Elon Musk and his buddies.
- [07:37]
Jim Acosta
And Congressman, I'm sure you saw this, that Elon Musk, speaking of Elon Musk was apparently at the cabinet meeting today over at the White House. I mean, again, he's not, he's not a cabinet secretary. So I guess my question is what is he doing there and what do you make of his role? You and I haven't spoken for a while, but what do you make of his role in the government right now? What's going on in your view?
- [08:01]
Jim Himes
Well, look, he's obviously the sort of, you know, junior varsity president, right. And it's, you know, super clear that the cabinet secretaries fear him because he spends a lot of time with Donald Trump. You know, Donald Trump is, you know, unlike most cabinet secretaries, Donald Trump really admires Elon Musk because Elon Musk is the wealthiest man in the world. You know, that deep in his heart, you know, Donald Trump has a plan to get wealthier than, than, than Elon Musk. But, you know, he really admires this guy. That is going to come to an end, though. And we saw that tension develop this week already because the cabinet secretaries are by and large in place. And Elon Musk sends some mad email saying, tell me the five things you did or I'm going to fire you. And cabinet secretaries are saying, what am I, chopped liver? You know, so you're already starting to see that friction there. But it's going to get ugly because look, I, let's give Elon Musk his due. And I think it's important to give him his due. He transformed the space Launch business, He transformed the electric vehicle business, he transformed the, the starlink, the, you know, satellite comms business. But to, you know, but government is a totally different beast when you're trying to build an electric vehicle. When you make a mistake, you don't hurt lots of farmers. You don't hurt the faa, which is keeping us safe from air crashes. Right now, he's breaking stuff that is going to hurt the American people. And the fact that he's the richest man on the planet and he's doing that to the American people, that is not going to wear well.
- [09:22]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, I mean, just because you're great at electric cars and spaceships and that sort of thing doesn't mean you're good at cutting government. And I, you know, one of the questions that I had over the weekend is when these, these emails were going out to people. I mean, you're talking about emails going to federal workers at the nih. List of five things that you've done in the past week. I mean, I can imagine some of them saying, well, I worked on a cure for cancer. And apparently some of these emails went over to people at the Secret Service. And those guys would say, well, I, I spent the weekend protecting the President's life. I mean, some of this just sounds like amateur hour. And it, it just, I can understand why some of these cabinet secretaries and agency heads would say, what, what is this stuff?
- [10:00]
Jim Himes
Yeah. And what makes me crazy about this is that I'll be the first to say, as a Democrat, it makes me crazy. It takes me six or seven years or more to get a bridge built, a crappy little bridge in Connecticut. Right. Because there's just. The system is so calcified. So I'll be the first to say that we are still living with a 19th century regulatory apparatus, that we have policies and procedures and processes that prevent us from delivering to the American people. But you know what you do to solve that? You go deep. You go deep and you show some political courage and you say, we're going to fix this. We're going to actually start delivering for the American people. You know how you don't do that is by firing an entire generation of probationary FBI agents. Right. Or whatever it may be. You know, when you do that, you actually break the system. And, you know, I understand that there are a lot of Americans who signed up to, quote, unquote, break the system. But remember, that system keeps salmonella out of your meat. It keeps aircraft from colliding in midair. The, the system is pretty important. So if If Elon Musk and Donald Trump had said, hey, Himes and Democrats, will you work with us to create a 21st century government? I would have been the first to raise my hand. But instead, look, the guy danced around with a chainsaw. That's what he's doing.
- [11:09]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, he dances around with a chainsaw and, you know, that might work at some big corporate retreat, you know, at the Four Seasons, wherever, and that sort of thing. But I mean, honestly, I, you know, it just seems, it just seems a little goofy to me. And it makes me wonder, you know, at some point, does Donald Trump say, okay, enough of this? But I don't know, I mean, it almost sounds as though he's delegated the presidency to Elon Musk. And does that worry you at all? Because, I mean, the rest of the world is watching this.
- [11:39]
Jim Himes
Yeah, of course it does. And again, this was my point about giving him his due. He's very good at disrupting industries. But government is a very different beast. And if you get it wrong in government, it's not that your company goes bankrupt. You hurt a lot of people. And, you know, perceptions matter. Jim, let me give you an example on how perceptions matter. You know, Kirsten Sinema, who is a very interesting senator, she's no longer a senator. One of the reasons she's no longer a senator. You may remember this moment when the vote came on raising the minimum wage in the Senate and voted no on that. And then she did this little performance art, a little curtsy. Here's a United States.
- [12:16]
Jim Acosta
I remember that.
- [12:16]
Jim Himes
Yeah, she's sort of, you know, spiking the football, if I may mix my metaphors around, actually not raising the minimum wage. You know, that's the kind of symbolic perception that really sticks with people in a big way. And that visual of, you know, Elon Musk, richest man in the world in his dark glasses and some ketamine haze waving around a chainsaw that is going to come back to haunt my Republican friends.
- [12:42]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, it might not look good in an ad in 2026. There's no question about it. And, you know, I did want to ask you about Ukraine a little bit because I know you're on the Intel Committee and you deal with these issues on a regular basis. And I know that you might not be able to delve into too many details on this, but the New York Times reporting about this draft agreement calling for Ukraine to hand over to the U.S. revenue from natural resources, this rare mineral, earth mineral material that they have there in Ukraine in exchange for this Vague security guarantee. There was a separate story in the New York Times where it said the explicit demand for Ukraine's mineral wealth while the country is in dire straits has the, quote, feel of a protection racket, said one political scientist at Columbia University. And then another person over at the Council on Foreign Relations, Stephen Cook, said, quote, the new security guarantee is essentially a shakedown. This has been on my mind for the last couple of weeks, this rare earth quest that Trump has been on in Ukraine. What are your thoughts on that? And, and what, what does this look like to you when you see this kind of an agreement?
- [13:51]
Jim Himes
Look, I, you know, I've said this before. It's, it's a Sopranos episode, right? You know, like the President is going to send Richard Grinnell and Mikey Walnuts to go collect, you know, from, from Ukraine. It just, I mean, it makes me want to throw up, candidly. Right? Let me tell a story that, you know, this story. But NATO's been around for a couple generations, right? And NATO is this joint defense agreement where we agree that an attack on one is an attack on other, on all of us, right? Article five, which says that we'll help each other out, has been invoked precisely once in a couple of generations. That's when we invoked it on 9 11, when we were attacking with thousands of dead Americans in lower Manhattan and the Pentagon, the United states invoked Article 5 and said, Help us, help us. We've been attacked. You know what? Britain and France and Norway and Belgium didn't say, yeah, yeah, maybe we'll help you. But, you know, you got those gold reserves at Fort Knox. We'd be sort of interested in those gold reserves. And, oh, you got coal in Pennsylvania Senate. I mean, you just, you can't make this stuff up. It is mafia stuff. And it will come back to haunt us, right, in two ways. Number one, Putin is dancing another chainsaw and champagne jig right now because he couldn't imagine that the US President would be servicing his interests right now. And so he's going to get ambitious, right? You know, hey, it didn't work out too bad in Ukraine. What about, what about the Baltics? What about Poland? What about Moldova? Why stop now? And that's when things get really, really serious for us. And by the way, our allies, who are pretty important to us, I can tell you this because I'm the ranking member of intelligence. We stop terrorist attacks every month because the British share information with us or the Australians share information. You know what they don't do? They don't share information and say hey, we're sending you a little bill for this, a little vig off the top, if you don't mind. Right, right. You know, this whole thing is going to, apart from what it says about who we are now as Americans, is going to make us a lot less safe.
- [15:39]
Steve Schmidt
Yeah.
- [15:40]
Jim Acosta
I mean, it sounds. Is this Donald Trump or Don Corleone? I mean, that's the question that I have, because, I mean, it sounds like he's saying, it's a nice country you have there, Zelensky. It'd be ashamed if something happened to it. And the protection racket analogy, I think is pretty dead on. It's like, well, if you don't pay the. Pay the mob boss that makes his rounds in the neighborhood the next week or the next day, a bunch of guys break in and bust up the joint. You know, it's just, and it just makes me wonder. It just sounds very depressing because it seems as though Zelenskyy is in a position where he. This is an offer he can't refuse.
- [16:16]
Jim Himes
Look, what we know about Donald Trump, because we've now watched two presidencies, is that he is obsessed with strength. And he believes that strength is best expressed in getting something out of it. Right. So, you know, a strength that shares with countries that need that strength, as you do in an alliance, is not at all interesting to him unless he gets something. You know, look at his proposal for Gaza. Somehow we're going to clear out 2 million people and we're going to build a lot of beautiful hotels. It's going to be. You think he's thinking that, you know, unless he uses his strength to get something, he doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand it. And unfortunately, this is going to resonate. It's going to resonate for years to come.
- [16:58]
Jim Acosta
And I appreciate you giving me all this time because. And I almost feel like you're. You're hosting the show a little bit because you're teeing me up on topics here. But, you know, I, I don't know, you mentioned Gaza. I don't know if you saw this, but Trump put out this video on Truth Social, an AI created video of him sipping cocktails with a topless Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza. And it shows Elon Musk. He's not waving a chainsaw, he's eating baba ganoush or something. I don't know what's going on there, but it's like, do you. What is going. I mean, we know he spends too much time on the Internet, but like, some of this Just sounds like crackpot stuff. And I just wonder what your view is on Trump's plans for Gaza. Is it just trolling? Do you take it seriously? What is it? Because this is one of the more baffling things to me. He says, well, the US Is going to take over Gaza, but we're not going to put boots on the ground. That right there doesn't make any sense.
- [17:58]
Jim Himes
One of the challenges for me, I'd like to believe I'm sort of a pretty serious national security, foreign policy guy, is, you know, do I address the madness? Right? You know, Canada being the 51st state, we're going to invade Panama and take the, we're going to take Greenland. Gaza is going to be a four seasons. Do I address it? Because of course, on the one hand, it's absurd. It's completely absurd. And, and it's just painful. Right? Because we used to be a good and serious country. People used to look up to us around the world, and they may not have liked what we did in Nicaragua or El Salvador or whatever it is, but they looked up to us. Now we're just some crazy reality show with nuclear weapons, which is a sort of a scary thing. But, you know, that video was particularly horrible because, of course, there's still hostages in Gaza living in tunnels in the most appalling conditions, including some American hostages. Right. You know, I actually believe the war is going to restart there. So we're going to see children dying again. Right. And Israeli IDF soldiers, young men dying in Gaza. And look, it just, it sort of tells you all you need to know about Donald Trump, that that is the reality in Gaza. And yet he puts this video out there that he thinks is a good idea.
- [19:10]
Jim Acosta
Well, Congressman Himes, I appreciate the time. I've probably taken up so much time that your staff is going to say, no more, Jim Himes. You're never, he's never coming back on again. But, no, really appreciate the time and appreciate your staff setting this up. And I understand this was your very first sub stack interview, so we sure was. Yeah, we sort of made social media history or new media history. I don't know what the hell this is, but it's a great to talk to and engage with newsmakers like yourself. So really appreciate the conversation.
- [19:36]
Jim Himes
Thanks so much. I always enjoyed going on your show in the, in the old, old world, and I'm going to enjoy it in the new world.
- [19:42]
Jim Acosta
Sounds good. All right, good to talk to you, Congressman. Really appreciate it. All right, thanks. All right, that's Congressman Jim Himes, and he Wasn't holding back. You know, that was, that was a very interesting interview because I, I think it speaks to what we're doing right now on Substack. Yes, the congressman was in his congressional office and yes, he looked like he was dressed to be up on the Hill and do his thing and be a lawmaker and all that kind of stuff. But I feel like he sort of let his hair down a little bit in offering his opinions on some of this. And I thought it was very interesting what he was saying and how outspoken he was about the situation in Ukraine. And the more I think about that situation, I mean, he took the words right out of my mouth. I was also going to make a mafia comparison. And, and I see somebody commenting in the chat that I, we, the congressman and I didn't give get to talk about the, the chat function here, but somebody was just asking, oh, I think I missed most of it. Don't forget, folks, somebody's just chiming in right now. It'll be a video. Don't forget, folks, after we do these live sub stack interviews, they get recorded onto my sub stack page and then you can go back and watch it. So you can watch this entire show in its entirety after it's over. There might be a few minutes where I've got to dress it up and put a couple of graphics and that kind of thing and explainers as to what we were talking about during the program. But don't forget, if you're new to Substack, yes, you might think, oh, I can only read articles or watch live interviews. Not exactly. You can also watch these videos later. So if you missed the beginning of it, you want to go back and watch, feel free to do that. But I really thought the congressman's comments on Ukraine were dead on. And you know, it is worrisome and I, I suppose Zelensky may feel like he's, it is an offer he can't refuse. Not to sound like the Godfather, but I mean, it is right out of the Godfather. And that is dispiriting to me, and I hate to use a word like dispiriting because it may not measure up to the moment, but I just feel awful for him. I feel awful for President Zelensky that he has to hand over part of his country's precious natural resources in exchange for security. It should be about what is right and what is wrong. And what is right is helping the people Ukraine defend themselves. That is what the United States has been doing for the last few years, up until Trump returned to the White House. That is what most of Europe has been doing over the last few years. This is common misnomer that you hear in social media, conservative media all the time, that the Europeans aren't stepping up to the plate. They have stepped up to the plate. They know exactly what this means for the rest of Europe if Ukraine falls, if Zelensky is unsuccessful. And so to see the United States of America put Ukraine in this kind of position, it just makes me feel as though, are we still the good guys? And I'm a patriotic American. I always think of the United States as being the good guys. I always think we're on the right side of history, that we should be on the right side of history. Obviously, the earlier days of our history, that might suggest otherwise. There's no question about it. But, I mean, I think in the post World War I, or at least post World War II era, by and large, yes, you can take the Iraq War out of that equation. Yes, you can take Vietnam out of that equation, by and large, I think most Americans have always wanted to be the good guys, have always wanted to be on the right side of history. And maybe I'm getting a bit of a history lesson here, and perhaps that isn't always the case. And presidents, well, let's just be honest about this. This president apparently has made the choice to not be on the right side of history, has apparently made the choice to be with the Russians and do what the Russians would do, do what Putin would do, which is to try to put a weaker country over the barrel and extract concessions. And I see somebody chiming in right now, embarrassed for our country. It is embarrassing. It's embarrassing for the United States. And Jim Himes is absolutely right. Remember what took place on 9 11. And for the younger folks who are watching and may watch this later, they may not realize this NATO was there for the United States after 911 because that is what NATO required. That was the treaty that the member nations of NATO signed onto all for one and one for all, essentially. And I think it's an open question as to what Donald Trump would do if you, if Putin gets his way in Ukraine and decides he's going to go somewhere else with this, what the hell happens? What the hell happens? I know it has a lot of Europeans very worried about what happens next. And I'm, I'm, I'm scheduled to have Steve Schmidt on the program. I'm going to go to him. I'm going to try to go to him and start to go to him right now. But as we're getting him set up. I think we're going to do is just keep talking here and hopefully he'll, he'll pop up here in just a few moments. I saw somebody mentioning the, the almost at Elon Musk. Somebody mentioned the Jeff Bezos tweet about the Washington Post. Yes, I was planning on talking about that. I'm going to talk about that in a few moments. I also think it's worth mentioning and I think Steve Schmidt might be coming in there areas. Steve, right there. Good to see you.
- [25:31]
Steve Schmidt
Good to see you.
- [25:33]
Jim Acosta
I, I don't know if you've been watching it. Maybe you were just getting settled in and so on, but I had a great conversation with Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut a little while ago and he was talking about this Don Corleone Soprano style situation with the US And Ukraine. I know you and I could think of 10 different ways to take the conversation now, but I wonder if you wanted to start there or what's on your mind. The Ukraine thing to me is particularly disturbing in that it does look like a shakedown. And how is the United States of America in the business of a shakedown right now?
- [26:05]
Steve Schmidt
I think that Donald Trump, one thing that critics and people around him can agree on, and people around him will say this, and I have no doubt that some of them have said this to you off the record, which is the only thing you really need to know about Donald Trump to understand him is to read the art of the deal. And if you read the art of the deal, Trump has a negotiating position that is basically, I'm going to walk into a room, I'm going to put a finger in your chest and tell you to go fuck yourself. Now that works until it doesn't work, there is a diminishing return. But it has worked for Donald Trump for a very long time. And the great mystery about its working is that though he's written it down that this is what I do when he does it, no one understands that that's what he's doing. Now what he's doing is repellent. It's offensive strikes at the heart of the ideals and the values of the Atlantic Alliance. I was in Berlin last week. There is, there is, there is tremendous, tremendous unsettlement. But even though it is crude, even though it is disgraceful, it is true that the best protection for Ukraine for a durable peace is for there to be American investment in Ukraine.
- [28:00]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [28:01]
Steve Schmidt
And so Donald Trump does not care about the fact that when World War II ended and the world's leaders came to the United States, came to the United nations conference from the ashes of war. They didn't go to marbled columned buildings. They went to a grove of redwoods outside of San Francisco in Muir woods, and they laid a plaque down there in memory to a President of the United States who conceived the world we live in substantially out of his imagination. And they called him. This gathering, first time ever in human history, 46 leaders of what they called the United nations in victory at the end of a war where slavery was defeated. That's what fascism was. Slavery. It's a dogma of slavery. They stood there and they honored an American president, and they called that man an apostle of peace. And so what Trump is doing in Ukraine and is forcing an end to a war. And the question is, will the peace that is coming be the prelude to a European war? And there is a reality, there is a reality that has been postponed in the progress of human history that has been faster, more profound, has lifted more people by the billions, out of poverty, out of subsistence living, out of. Out of the last 80 years.
- [30:04]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Steve Schmidt
Right. The question is now, is. Is all of it to be undone.
- [30:10]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Steve Schmidt
By a war in Europe. And the momentum of history is that every century has been deadlier than the last.
- [30:21]
Jim Acosta
That's right.
- [30:21]
Steve Schmidt
And the 20th century was the deadliest of all. But then, because of the wisdom of this system that Donald Trump is attacking, the killing stopped and the progress began.
- [30:41]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [30:42]
Steve Schmidt
And so here we sit at a profound moment in the. In the history of the world that calls on us not just to stop what's happening, but now to start imagining what comes next, the next iteration of a world order. Because the people who want to smash it don't have a vision to replace it with anything other than power.
- [31:12]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [31:14]
Steve Schmidt
Rich people.
- [31:15]
Jim Acosta
Right. A mafia type system for the world. And the thing that I get worried about, and I know you were just in Munich, so please share any other lessons that you. You got from that. But I was just having a conversation with one of our major diplomatic partners here in the US through one of their ambassadors. And they're just. They're just very, very worried about what comes next. And they're just. They just are of the mindset that Donald Trump just could not give a damn as to what kind of China is broken at this point. And this goes way beyond the quid pro quo of the, of the. The scandal that led to Trump's first impeachment. You know? You know, can you do me a favor? We'll give you the weapons if you can get me some dirt on Joe Biden and his son, this goes way beyond that, because I could see a scenario, Steve, where they go into this agreement with the Ukrainians for the rare earth minerals, and Zelensky still loses his country and Putin gets Ukraine and we get the rare earth minerals and, and what, what the hell does that make us? It just makes us the bad guy in all this. And it results in the, in the European war that you're talking about. And it just for, for what? You know, I don't get it. What is Trump getting out of this? That he looks like the master deal maker from Art of the Deal. It sounds like the art of the steel.
- [32:38]
Steve Schmidt
I think we, and by we, the American people, 49.9% of the vote. And I, I can explain in brutal terms how that came to be, but we have elected the lowest man amongst us to lead us, and there's going to be a terrible consequence and this has to be stopped. It. It will be stopped. But, but I want to, but I want to go deeper in this because we have 7,000 people listening to us. And, and I want to step outside the complexity. I think so much of the mainstream media just doesn't share with the American people what I want everybody to understand. When I was in Germany, we had these discussions with German parliamentarians. I said something to them which was, the British have said, we will go to Ukraine. We will send half the British Army. British army only has 72,000 men.
- [33:43]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [33:44]
Steve Schmidt
So the British army have stripped their defense to nothing. Right. So the British taxpayer gets benefits, health care that you don't get. No one in America gets what a German citizen gets. No one in America gets six weeks of paid guaranteed vacation.
- [34:02]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. Well, they may take Medicaid away.
- [34:06]
Steve Schmidt
Right. Nobody gets, nobody gets the benefits because we pay for the defense. Now, the British army says, the British Prime Minister says we'll send half the British army to Ukraine, but they can't get there unless we fly them. Then the British Prime Minister says, we'll only do it if America guarantees if we're attacked by a superior Russian force, that the United States will enter the war. Now, Ukraine does not have a draft that calls up their 18 to 26 year olds to fight. Right. The draft age is 26. So does this sit right with anybody? That the offer is on the table that United States citizens, our kids, 18 and 19 years old, will go do something that 18, 19 year olds in Ukraine are not being asked to do? Right. To put themselves in harm's way?
- [35:12]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [35:12]
Steve Schmidt
No and so. So there is a reality about this moment. This war began with a series of events in 2008, when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and the world did nothing. In 2014, he invaded the Crimea and the world did nothing. In 2022, he invaded the Ukraine. And. And the world did little. And the reality is there is no plan that exists in reality that the Russian army will be pushed backwards. They can study stopped from moving forward. Russia is a country that took 40 million casualties in World War II. So the danger of this war is profound. The leader of the president, United States does not know history. He's arrogant, he's an imbecile, he's ignorant. And so the dangers are magnified when the German chancellor, new chancellor, goes on television responding to Trump's provocations by saying, we must become independent from the United States. My question to the German chancellor would be, we have 58 military bases in Germany. What are you talking about? So I have a better idea. How about Governor J.B. pritzker invites the Chancellor of Germany to the town where Abraham Lincoln practiced law and invite him to speak before the Illinois legislature. One of the things I said to the Germans was, when is the last time a European leader has come to the interior of the United States and said thank you to the people who defend their countries and their freedom? Can you imagine the reception of the president of Poland or the Chancellor of Germany or the president of France at the Iowa State Fair at Texas? But I think drives indifference. Yeah, here we are.
- [37:17]
Jim Acosta
I know. I agree with that. I think Emmanuel Macron has done some good in that regard. He visited New Orleans a couple years ago with Biden, and I do think he does some of that. But you're right, many of the other European allies don't come close to doing enough of that. And, you know, the thing that depresses me about all of this Ukraine stuff, and we can move on to talk about other subjects, feel free. But, you know, the thing that depresses me is, you know, when I was doing my old show, from time to time, I would have, for example, Ukrainian fighter pilots. Moonfist, Moon Fish and Juice were two of the guys that I had on my program, and they were just tremendously inspiring young men. There was another woman, Andrea, who was a part of the Ukrainian special forces, and she came on the program dressed in her dress uniform. She brought me a metal coin that was made out of a destroyed Russian tank. And she said, I brought this all the way from Ukraine to give to you as a symbol to the American people. This is what we are doing. This is what we are playing or paying, I should say, with our blood and our treasure. And I just think to throw them overboard. It is just back to what you were saying before, Steve. There does feel like there will be a tremendous price that is paid for that kind of betrayal when you have real, I mean, just absolute inspiring bravery, the kind of bravery that we've inspired in wars past, and it's just right there in front of our eyes and we're just going to throw it away. That, to me, that's. That's what I can't. That's the part of it I can't get over. That's the part of it I can't get over the human element of this.
- [38:59]
Steve Schmidt
The. I think. I think that one of the things that when we look at this situation, we process it. We go back in our history to when the Arabella sails into what is the. The harbor in front of Provincetown now with the pilgrims and the adventurers on it. And it was a long and miserable journey. And if you think about that, you know, we got. We got 8,000 people listening to us. You know, we, a lot of us have kids, Right. When you're on a long plane, flight or car ride, what do you want to do when you get there? Right? You want, you want to get the vehicle. They, they didn't get off the ship. They signed a document of mutuality of cooperation. It was called the Mayflower Compact. And, yeah, like that. History changed. The feudal age ended. Now there is a brutalism in what Elon Musk is doing to what I call. And I'd encourage all of you to think about as civil servants. But, but.
- [40:24]
Jim Acosta
And we should talk about.
- [40:25]
Steve Schmidt
They are, they are being treated like insects.
- [40:29]
Jim Acosta
Well, and just today it was reported that they're going to give the people at USAID 15 minutes to go get their stuff. I don't know if you saw that. I mean, come on.
- [40:38]
Steve Schmidt
And here. Herein lies the great failure to communicate. Right. In the words of Cool Hand Luke with Elon Musk, which is.
- [40:49]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [40:50]
Steve Schmidt
That these people do not work for Elon. They work for us.
- [40:55]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [40:56]
Steve Schmidt
And so.
- [40:57]
Jim Acosta
And he's at the Cabinet meeting today, even though he doesn't hold a cabinet position.
- [41:02]
Steve Schmidt
And let me just say, as someone who's done a lot of political campaigns. Right. I want everybody on this to understand three things. The country is under an unconstitutional assault that is real and very, very dangerous. Two, Donald Trump's power is illusory in many respects. We don't live in a Top down society where two guys are in a cockpit pushing buttons, though. He wishes you to believe that. Right. Because there are 100,000 elected governments in the United States. And the third thing, right, that, that, that, that I am right about is this. And trust me, he, Trump is already past his apogee. He's free falling. Most people, because they haven't spent their lives studying political campaigns in the trajectory of this and public opinion research, are going to see this a little bit later, but his numbers are collapsing.
- [42:18]
Jim Acosta
Yes.
- [42:19]
Steve Schmidt
And next month in the spring, there are going to be hundreds of thousands of people across the country on the streets. And then Donald Trump will escalate the situation and he will deploy the American military to do traditionally domestic law enforcement activities. And then more people will come onto the streets.
- [42:49]
Jim Acosta
Well, this is the scenario that I worry about more than anything. And I, I wonder if they've primed the pump to some extent by, with these, with the pardons of the January 6th rioters and insurrectionists. I mean, you know, they're there sort of, sort of an intimidation force. They were over at the Priorities or Principals first summit, I should say, over the weekend, screaming at Michael Fanone and a bomb threat was sent in. And then over at cpac, you've got Steve Bannon. He says he wasn't doing a Nazi salute. Well, I don't know what the hell he was doing.
- [43:18]
Steve Schmidt
He was doing a Nazi salute.
- [43:20]
Jim Acosta
I mean, give me me a goddamn break here. I mean, Steve, I know you work on a lot of Republican campaigns, but this, this ain't a pretty picture that we're looking at right now. And what we've seen over the last 72, I mean, it's just, it's a little bit breathtaking, I have to say.
- [43:36]
Steve Schmidt
Donald Trump has the legal authority to swear in every January six criminal as a U.S. marshal. The, the, the American people will have to, because of the reality that an election was lost on really fundamental questions of honesty to the most prolific liar in American history and one of the greatest media failures in history. The American people will have to be the bedrock of an opposition. And so right now there's two distinct questions, like what's going to happen and what should the platform be in 2028. Right. Is a fundamentally different question about what has to happen now. What has to happen now is an assertion of no right. And I see some people talking about martial law and all of this. What I want to say is you are protected by the U.S. constitution. You are protected by the First Amendment right. You have a right to peaceful assembly, you have a right to speech. You have a right to conscience. Right. What I want to, what I want to understand about the corruption of one of the world's richest men, Jeff Bezos, who's destroyed the Washington Post. Okay.
- [45:04]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [45:04]
Steve Schmidt
If you take a glass against the wall and you wreck CNN and you turn all of these glorious television networks into versions of Fox News, you smash that glass against the wall. Because of the genius of the First Amendment, each shard of glass planted in an American soil will grow. The First Amendment does not create NBC News. The First Amendment gives a right to speech. That's what created NBC News. Right. And so. Right. So, so there's going to be a right to speech that's unimpeded. There's going to be a right to protest. And, and I think at the end of the day, the, the United States military will not raise its weapons against the American people.
- [46:03]
Jim Acosta
Bingo. I, that's. That, to me, is that, to me, is going to be the turning point in all of this, because I, I strongly believe, and we saw this with Mark Milley during the, you know, run up to January 6th. You saw it with, you know, people inside the Defense Department who were just saying, you know what, Donald Trump, you lost the election. Get the hell out of here. I do think what you're talking about, Steve, it can be boiled down to this people power. And we're already starting to see it happen. It's not happening in the media. It's not happening in the mainstream media. It's not happening up on Capitol Hill. It's not coming from the political or pundit class. It is happening organically in a way that you and I have not seen in some time. I was talking about this with Joe Walsh the other day. These little events that folks are having, these little meetings, powwows, whatnot, whatever you want to call it outside of state capitals and so on. Looks like the beginning of the Tea Party. And, and that might be the wrong analogy because there were, there were, there were elements of the Tea Party that were obviously driven by racism, and a lot of it was astroturf stuff that was, you know, the Koch brothers and so on. But something interesting is happening right now where people are saying no, and we're going to lead the lawmakers, we're going to lead the media. They, they have the choice to follow, but they don't have to if they don't want to. We're still going to be here. And I, that's what I think I've been able to, I don't know, witness, absorb. Over these last few weeks, it just seems to me you're seeing the beginnings of people power. And I don't. The United States military is no match for that. Donald Trump is no match for that. Elon Musk is no match for that. The national news media, they can go cover it, but they're just no match for that. And we're starting to see that. I just, it just seems to be happening.
- [47:52]
Steve Schmidt
I think that I did a. I had a conversation with Beto O'Rourke last night and we talked about some of this stuff. But I want to say this because this is what will happen, right? Like, put a pen in it. This is going to happen. I want to look into the. To the future beyond the next news cycle. The forces of liberty in this country, the opposition to this, will win. We will, we will prevail. Yeah, we will prevail. And, and, and all of this will be repudiated by the American people.
- [48:36]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [48:36]
Steve Schmidt
Now the job of the Democratic Party is going to be politically to reassemble FDR's coalition, the John Kennedy coalition, a majority American coalition. Correct. And they're going to have to offer to the American people. Right. Whatever it may be called. But, but a New Deal. Right. And so I want to explain something about what's going to happen to Elon Musk, who has definitely decided in the most predatory of ways that this is his moment and he's fucking going for it.
- [49:19]
Jim Acosta
Oh, yeah, he's definitely going for it.
- [49:20]
Steve Schmidt
And so I want to explain the consequences, right, to Mark. To Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. And some of you may say, this is crazy. And we're on a sub stack live. And these are the most powerful people in the world to control the flow of information. And I get that. And I don't give a fuck if he's worth 800 billion or a trillion dollars. He's not going to go to Mars. But the United States is. And I want to say this to Mark Zuckerberg and to Jeff Bezos and Elon. You will lose your companies, you will lose your empires, every fucking one of you, because your empires, your Dutchies, are a threat to the liberty of the American people. And Franklin Roosevelt talked about this in 1936. The inventive genius of mankind compels the creation of new kingdoms. And these companies became too big, too powerful, too controlling. And when balance and harmony is restored, we're going to break them into pieces and that will unleash a next wave of competition. And so Democratic parties have to find its way not to just the best Democrats in our history, but the Americans. Right. Teddy Roosevelt. Right. Teddy Roosevelt, right. Had a point of view on the antecedents to these guys, and that's what we're going to do to them. Right? So the price of the capitulation, the price of going for it is that we now have to reckon with the threat in the aftermath of the cleanup. But this will be cleaned up and the American people are not going to cashier the United States. The greatest idea in the history of human civilization on the eve of the country's 250th anniversary for a whack job like Donald Trump. No way. And let me just say this, too. When I was in Germany, this is really important. I said this to some Germans. Is there a. I said, do you recognize the difference culturally between a German and a Frenchman and a Greek? And they said, of course. I said, where is Donald Trump from?
- [52:13]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [52:13]
Steve Schmidt
I said, is he from the middle of the United States? I said, no. I said, is he from the West Coast? No. Is he from the South? No, he's from Queens. So you talked about gangsterism as somebody who grew up in North Jersey, grew up in this culture. You've driven around in a car, and I know we have some people from New York and North Jersey. We communicate by telling each other on the road to go fuck yourself with middle fingers and everything else. And the fuck you, fuck you, go fuck yourself cycles a very, very fast one in that part. In that. In that part of the country. So Donald Trump acts like he's driving in New York when he's driving in Iowa. And no one in Iowa knows how to deal with it, but people in New Jersey and people in Staten island know how to deal with it culturally. And so my suggestion is, right, that you really gotta toughen up, right? And the assertion of no to Trump in the style of, say, Emmanuel Macron, and you know this, right. Which is that how extraordinary it is and how high the stakes must be for a French president to be speaking in English to an American audience in the United States. Science, the interpreter, because he had, because he has such, such incredibly important things to say. But, but listen, the, the American people are a tsunami, an unstoppable, an unstoppable force. Want to live in it. Want to live. Want to be an insect. Want to be a serf, right? There's a, there's old Reverend Niebuhr in, in Germany in the famous quote, first they came for, and then they came for. First they came for the government worker and it came for you. You have, you have five minutes on a daily basis to justify what you did last. How does that kind of fit in with our sense of, of, of, of, of the pursuit of happiness? The concept that there's dignity in labor, that there's dignity in work. Right. That it's an important part of human potential. So what I would say to all these people is no, let's reject this.
- [54:32]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, no, and I, I, I, I 100% agree with what you're saying. And, and, and one of the things that a lot of the, and I've said this before on the show and I'm going to say it again. A lot of this is just amateur hour. You know, when Elon Musk sends out these emails and it says, well, explain what you did over the last five days. And, and it just, it just speaks to a level of bush leaguery that he, he has brought to the equation. And that, that is impressive when it's put next to Donald Trump's amateurism. I mean, you don't realize that there are people who are air traffic controllers who kept friggin planes up in the air like that. Is that supposed to be in the guy's email to the FAA that that's what I did over the last. Or the people at the NIH who are working on a cure for cancer or working on bird flu at the cdc? I mean, it just sort of the amateurism and the stupidity, the sheer stupidity that Elon Musk seems to be bringing to this doge effort to me is it's kind of staggering and it calls into question. I mean, there are a lot of folks who say that Elon Musk is a lot of myth making and not as much substance as folks might think. And some of this experience that we're all going through right now sort of speaks to that. I mean, it is kind of extraordinary. And the other thing Steve, I wanted to talk to you about, you did bring up the Jeff Bezos thing over at the Washington Post, or I think you were sort of alluding to it, he put out this tweet today saying, well, if we're going to have opinions that are, you know, that are contrary to free markets and contrary to personal liberties, they don't belong in the paper anymore. I mean that to me, you know, to have the Washington Post put through the meat grinder like this again by one of these aspiring oligarchs that we have in this country, I do think you're right. They are telegraphing in their own individual strange ways how they probably won't be on the scene. I think you're right about that. In like 10 years they just won't be on the scene. And they're. And the bending of the knee, the sending the millions of dollars to the inaugural fund and so on. It just seems like the shameful final chapters that are going to be written about some of these bozos. He's a. Despicable is too strong a word.
- [56:58]
Steve Schmidt
He's a. He's a despicable. He's a despicable man. I mean it. You know, his, his fiance and him parading around the world. She looks like a space alien on their 500 million dollar yacht. Whatever the wedding caused, it is obscene. They are both together in obscenity. And I promise you, whatever dinner there was on the night that the Graham family transacted the sale of the Post, can you imagine the promises and the Commitments and all of the bullshit that was said by Jeff Bezos? And he destroyed it. Wrecked him, right? One of the.
- [57:41]
Jim Acosta
Steve. I cried when. I cried when they sold the Washington Redskins. And, and to me, you know, this is just, this is right up there. As a, I'm a native of the Washington D.C. this is right up there.
- [57:51]
Steve Schmidt
You know, let me. Henry, Henry Ford was a Nazi. Hitler. Hitler had a picture of him on his desk. These are, these are contemptible men. And, and let me, and let me just say I'm no, I'm no economist, but I'm going to tell you exactly what's going to happen, right? Is it, is it like, like a race car going around the track, right, with the, with the pedal, right, glued to the floor? Have you ever seen the movie, like Ford vs Ferrari, the car is going to blow up. And, and when it does, and when it does, right, the people will be hurt, as always, as ever. Or America's working, working people, right? And, and so, and I want to, and I want to say something. There's a dogma inside. The Democratic Party is brutal, right? It's part of all this woke insanity which holds that the black guy in America, the white guy and the Hispanic guy don't have anything in common because of their racial differences.
- [58:57]
Jim Acosta
Oh, I hate that. Yeah.
- [58:58]
Steve Schmidt
I said, I don't know. You know, when I drive by on a highway work site, right, I see the main three types of American dudes, right? Black guy, Hispanic guy and white guy. They seem to have a lot in common. They're working together. They go out to beers together on Thursday. But I want to say to everybody who sees the world on racial terms and right. That people of different races in this country, regardless of our shared citizenship and history, have nothing in common. We're all going to suffer. We're all going to suffer. Right. We will all feel the consequences of what's coming in. The question of degree is the unknown right now. And so stopping this as soon as possible means arresting the progress in the courts and electing a Democratic House to assert the Article 1 authorities of the Congress, which means Congress controls the purse. And so the American Constitution is being assaulted, but it's strong. Right. And there's a law of unintended consequences. Everybody in this moment focused on the White House Correspondents association being defenestrated by Trump. The American people are not going to react well to the freak show assembled around Trump from OAN and Newsmax to do Dear Leader questions and is going to have the exact opposite.
- [60:35]
Jim Acosta
I say that. That's why I say, Steve, I say let. And I've said this before, and some of my friends in the press don't agree with it. If the press, if the mainstream press, the networks and so on were to say, we're not going to go into your damn dog and pony show photo opportunities in the Oval Office, if you're going to screw with the White House Correspondent association, then that's just the way it's going to be. Then fine. If Trump says fine, we're not going to do that. We're going to have OAN and Newsmax and so on. Let the American people see the aspiring autocrats surrounded by his state, whatever you want to call it. And, and it's just let that, let that clown show play itself out. Why I, I just, why people don't see that, I don't understand. But it may happen organically. It may happen here in the few weeks ahead of us because, you know, they're just, they're going from one thing to the next. In my experience covering Donald Trump is that when you bend the knee, when you show weakness, he wants to go further. He wants to keep poking and prodding and see where the other pressure points are. And he's just doing that right now, trying to kick people out of the White House press pool. It just speaks to. You can't. You can't. You're that ruffled and thrown off by questions about Medicaid and Ukraine and these sorts of things. You don't belong there. You don't belong behind the Resolute desk. And maybe fundamentally, Steve, that's what this boils down to, this conversation you and I are having. What it boils down to, you know, he's the accidental president, once again found a way to crack the code and get back in there once again.
- [62:10]
Steve Schmidt
Well, I think it's just not up to it. I think. I think that there's nothing more. I, you know, I. I don't. It's very important that people understand what happened. Right. Jen Psaki went out and said, well, let me tell you what happened. Millions of people didn't show up because a. It was a mistake. Kamala Harris was campaigning with Liz Cheney. I say, okay, I don't think that's what happened. But if you believe that's what happened, what you believe, since Liz Cheney didn't start campaigning with Kamala Harris to about 10 days before the end of the campaign, is that Kamala Harris, until 10 days before the end of the campaign, was winning the race. And I don't think that's true either. So I'm gonna tell you what happened, right? I'm gonna tell. We got 10,000.
- [63:07]
Jim Acosta
I was gonna say we should save this for another conversation so we can get another 10,000 people watching. The second time I got.
- [63:12]
Steve Schmidt
I'm gonna tell you what happened.
- [63:16]
Jim Acosta
Giving it all away in one episode.
- [63:19]
Steve Schmidt
I have to everybody. Adult life requires us to hold in our heads multiple contradictory thoughts at the same time.
- [63:30]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [63:30]
Steve Schmidt
Donald Trump is the most prolific liar in American history. It's not even close. Times a hundred million. He's also the most honest president we've ever had. He is exactly what he appears to be. And the authenticity allows a liar to appear as honest when competing against a dishonest party. So you know why Donald Trump wasn't prosecuted in the immediate aftermath of January 6th? It's because Joe Biden needed a prop. He needed Voldemort. He needed the guy that he could say, I have to break my pledge to serve one term because only I, Joe Biden, can beat this guy. And so Donald Trump wasn't dealt with. He was curated. And then the Democratic Party and the great gaslighting of 2024.
- [64:34]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [64:35]
Steve Schmidt
Lost this election on questions of honesty around the border, around the economy, and around Biden's fundamental fitness. And the American people knew these things, but they knew, for whatever reason, the Democrats wouldn't tell them the truth because there was something more important to them than. And that was Biden's ego or retaining power. But whatever it may have been, the brutal judgment of history weigh very heavily. And this is Biden's legacy. This is what he did to the country. This is what Steve Ruschetti did. This is what he did. This is what Mike Donilan did. When Mike Donilan says that it's crazy that the Democrats threw Joe Biden overboard. Yeah, Joe Biden did this. Joe Biden did this.
- [65:33]
Jim Acosta
No, there's no question about it. And, And I. I do want to put a pin in this discussion. I hope we can do this about once a week, because. Because I think we should start peeling these layers of the onion back. And I do think as much as people might have affection for Joe Biden, maybe not as many now as they once did that or that once did. I mean, the. The. The fact that he told the American people he was going to be a bridge to a new generation of Democrats, to a new leadership class of Democrats, and then didn't do it to me, that was when he was laying the kindling for his. His own.
- [66:09]
Steve Schmidt
In.
- [66:09]
Jim Acosta
His own. In his party's destruction, ultimately in the 2024 election. And it was in the irony of all ironies, in a sort of Shakespearean, Greek tragedy kind of way, it was Donald Trump who came back to burn it all down. And now we're all living with the collective consequences of that. And I do think I want to put the pin in this, because I do want to continue to have this conversation. It's a necessary conversation for the American people. It's a necessary conversation for the Democratic Party. And I think there's a lot of. There are a lot of people in the Democratic Party right now who just want to go for a walk, you know, not deal with this. But it's got to be done. You got to deal with it. You got to deal with it, you know, But, Steve, this was a great conversation. Great to talk to you. I love the fact that we hit on the. The concept of people power, because people are down in the dumps right now. And I've said it once, I'll say it again. What worries me more? I mean, I'm not worried about Trump derangement syndrome. I'm always telling people I'm worried about Trump depression syndrome. And if you get down in the dumps to the point where you think, well, we can't fix this, and then nothing can be done, well, I'm just not built that way. I'm not cut that way. I don't. I'm not a raise the white flag kind of guy. I'm a damn the torpedoes kind of guy. That's. That's just how I am. But maybe that's why we're gonna have good conversations in the days to come.
- [67:28]
Steve Schmidt
No doubt. Good to be with you, Jim Acosta.
- [67:31]
Jim Acosta
All right. Good to see you, Steve. Steve Schmidt, thanks so much. Great to see you, sir. Appreciate it. Great stuff. All right. Bye.
- [67:38]
Steve Schmidt
Bye.
- [67:38]
Jim Acosta
Bye. And I love how we, we say goodbye on, on Substack. It's sort of like you just had a conversation with an old buddy and it's like, okay, well, you know, good to talk to you. See you later. It's not, let's go to a commercial break or whatever I used to do. It's time for a tease. Coming up, weather and sports and all of that. I do, I do want to thank everybody for watching. Wow, we got over 10,000 views. Thank everybody for their chat comments. They're great. That's right. No white flags, as somebody was just saying there a few moments ago. And it's and I hope folks don't think poorly of me, it's hard to match wits with Steve Schmidt. He is, he was absolutely on fire and is absolutely, he's just a, he's kind of a poet in the way he pulls all of these different streams and so many different thoughts and pulls them together in a real compelling way. And so I hope to have Steve on as much as possible. He did a great job today. And my thanks to Jim Himes as well, the congressman from Connecticut who was, I think, letting his hair down. I don't know if anybody saw this, but if you missed the beginning of the show, it's going to go up as a recording. You'll get to watch it later on. But thanks everybody for watching. Reporting still reporting. I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you next time. Take care.