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- [00:00]
Steve Schmidt
What I want everyone who's listening to know is you're not alone. You're not alone. And do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. There are things that are worth everything. You know, they say that fear and overcoming it just means that there's something more important than. Than the fear. And our freedom, our liberty is more important than being afraid.
- [00:43]
Lee McGowan
Hello, and welcome to the Politics Girl podcast. I'm your host, Lee McGowan. Let's get into it. Obviously, this past week was extremely terrible with our government executing Alex Preddy in the streets of Minneapolis and then blatantly lying to the public about it. So while I want to talk about this and where we are as a country, I also want to make sure we aren't feeling completely demoralized. I want to bring you the perspectives of different people who are approaching this moment in history in different ways. People who are trying to meet the moment, especially the ones who are actively fighting back against this lawless, fascist administration. So today I'm having Steve Schmidt on again to talk about what the Save America movement is doing right now, what his take on the world is, and what is on in this country. Steve is a former Republican operative, now an independent, who co founded the Lincoln Project as an opposition to Donald Trump and his leadership within the Republican Party while he parted ways with that organization in 2021. His new organization, the Save America Movement, is a PAC that has been specifically organized to oppose the actions in the leadership of his former party under this administration. As his movement says, this is not right versus left, it's right versus wrong. So without further ado, please welcome my guest political strategist, gifted communicator, and co founder of the Save America movement, Steve Schmidt. Welcome back, Steve.
- [02:01]
Steve Schmidt
Great to see you, Lee.
- [02:02]
Lee McGowan
Well, thanks for coming. I mean, it is a rough time to be a thinking, law abiding American. But last time you were here, you said that the only identity that was strong enough to defeat the MAGA identity was the American identity. And if we formed our opposition around that moral core, we just might win. Do you see that solidification of that happening right now of the American identity? Because I feel like something really shifted after the Alex Preddy murder.
- [02:34]
Steve Schmidt
I think that we are going to see an awakening and a level of activism that has not been seen for decades in America. The American people understand that we live in a country with a Constitution and that our rights do not come from Stephen Miller and Pam Bondi and Christy Noem and Greg Bevino or Tom Homan. They have been purchased with blood sacrifices, a Million Americans in our history have died so we could have this conversation today in freedom. There are 700 million Americans that have ever been. When the country gained its independence, there were a little more than 3 million of us. Half of us who have ever been are alive right now and our inheritance is being stolen from us by gangsters. And we have. Not from men, but however you think about it, out of the ether from God, from a creator, from a burning blueberry bush, whatever it may be, the freedom of speech, the freedom to be secure in your house. These rights do not come from men, do not come from women. They come from a higher power. That's what we believe as Americans. And what we saw this weekend was a double murder. We saw from many, many different angles. A 37 year old intensive care unit registered nurse who works with veterans murdered. We saw him shot down dead by the American ss And then came the murder of his character by the people that ordered his assassination. That gave the green light, that made it possible for the ICE thugs to believe they have immunity to kill at random because they feel like it and they don't. And they're not going to in the end come out of this okay. Those people, they're going to die in prison. They're going to die in prison with Derek Chauvin, with Jonathan Ross. Stephen Miller is going to go to prison. Kristi Noem is going to go to prison and there's going to be accountability for this. John Kennedy once posed a question. He said, what is the purpose of, of a political party if it does not serve a great national purpose? And so what is the point of the Democratic Party if it cannot look at these assaults on our liberty, on our Constitution, if it cannot diagnose this madness as the fascism it is and make it stop? And what we want to hear, hundreds of thousands of people want to hear, millions of Americans want to hear from the leaders of the Democratic Party is not bullshit. What we want to hear is somebody asking for sacrifice. Somebody calling the American people to arms and saying if it is necessary, we will shut the government down for 294 days and life will get hard. But we will have gone through worse as a country and we'll make a stand together. But we will not go gently into that good night under the weight of Stephen Miller's jackboot on our throats. No.
- [06:43]
Lee McGowan
Yeah. Now I hear you saying the Democrats, because I agree with you. The Democrats are the opposition party. They, they are not the party of the President. They are the ones that should be standing up all the Time being outraged, speaking on our behalf, which is the majority sentiment of the country. But listen, your former party could stop this madness anytime they want, right? All we need is a very small amount of them to join with the Democrats and we could defund ice. We could impeach the President, we can impeach Stephen Miller, we can impeach members of the Cabinet, we could impeach Supreme Court justices, then the Senate could vote to remove them. But we would need the Republicans to help us with that. Every horrible thing we are seeing, from the murder of the citizens at the hands of ICE agents to the kidnapping of children to the destruction of NATO, it could all grind to a halt if Republicans chose country over party. So why do you think they are not doing that?
- [07:36]
Steve Schmidt
Because they're disloyal and they sold out a long time ago. And there should be no expectations of Lindsey Graham. And this is very important for people to understand. And I left the Republican Party in 2018 and I left with a statement that got a lot of attention at the time and it was over this issue of immigration. Every single Republican. And I worked at the highest levels of Republican politics for a long time, Every single elected Republican, all of them, 100% of them, had the exact same position about Donald Trump that I have today. My position has been unchanging. Every single person I ever worked with that I have ever known, all of them got in line with this. They submitted to it. We also saw a political party get in line, the opposition party behind an obscenity in 2024, which was the idea that only Joe Biden could win. The idea that this unfit 82 year old man was the only person who could save the democracy. And here we are. So we have seen the politicians of both parties get in line to cover their asses. And it's appalling. Now, the Fascist party is of course, the much graver danger. But there were no expectations of the Americans and the British and the French in 1944 that the Germans were going to switch sides against themselves. MAGA is fully committed. And breaking MAGA requires iron will and determination and strength by fighting Democrats. The number one thing the Democrats should be doing right now is making demands, because MAGA does not have the votes and they should be making demands that ICE is unmasked, that there are independent investigations under special counsel statute to investigate these murders, that the propaganda stops the white supremacist recruitment, stops full disclosure of every masked ICE agent, who they are, where they came from, do they have criminal records. We must know these things. And Democrats should be going to those Republicans with a Titanic strategy that says, you know what? You guys are going down, and Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi are going to die in prison. What's going to happen to you? Everyone who got off the Titanic by midnight in a lifeboat went on to a long and happy life. The people that stayed later than that mostly got fished out of the North Atlantic, frozen solid for the next three months. A lot of them are buried in unmarked graves in Halifax for anyone who wants to go visit them. Toppling the Mike Johnson speakership, putting Thomas Massie in charge as speaker, going and finding the six most normal Republicans there and saying, you know what? Would you like to be the chair of the Commerce Committee for the year? What were your priorities when you got elected to Congress? Because we'll pass all your bullshit. You want a bridge, you want a new highway? We'll do the deal. But you need people who can cut that deal sitting across the table and in a position where they have the confidence to make a threat and make it seem like it's going to stick. But this abomination, this indecency, it has to be opposed with the full weight of power that is inherent in the legislative charters of the California legislature, the New York legislature, the governors, the legislators are all sovereign bodies, and they have the ability to obstruct this obscenity in a hundred different ways. And what we should insist, every one of us of our elected officials, we should drop the fanboy and fangirl stuff. It's for children, people who look at Chuck Schumer and relate to him like he's a version of Britney Spears, like they're fans. What we must demand is power be used at its full force to stop the abuse of power that is unrelentingly taking place in America.
- [12:56]
Lee McGowan
Yeah. And I think that's why people are so upset, because we hear a lot of people saying, what do you want them to do? They're out of power. They can't do anything. And we're like, as if we didn't just all watch Mitch McConnell shut the entire government down when he was out of power. Right. I think what we're. What we want them to do is act like an OPP opposition party to be doing a lot more damage, to throw a lot more sand into the gears of this agenda. Because they don't appear to be fighting. There are a handful of them who appear to be really fighting, but the rest of them seem to be living in some fantasy land where things are cordial and you can get things done by reaching across the aisle. Now you are suggesting there are some people we could reach across the aisle to pick the top six, pick the top 10 that might have a single brain cell left and say, look, work with us. When we get back into power, you can have all the things you want. This is real cooperation. You put up a video on the Save America movement socials encouraging Chuck Schumer to get the Democrats in line to have the balls to block ISIS funding. And I think at this point, because of the Alex Preddy murder, they will probably do that this week. But I, I think why did it have to take the death of another citizen to push them to this place? Because as I thought you put it really well, being nice isn't the American thing to do. When people try to take your liberty.
- [14:14]
Steve Schmidt
Being fierce is the American thing to do. Live free or die is the American thing to do. Give me liberty or give me death is the American thing to do. How dare these people? How fucking dare they? We watched a masked government agent shoot a man in the back 10 times. Why don't we know those men's names three days later? Why is the American media that corrupt? Why is it that soft? These are not clandestine agents. These are immigration cops. Unmask them. Identify them. The Save America movement, John, part of is going to unmask every one of these sons of bitches by the time this is through. And I'm going to put their faces onto the biggest building I can get a projector on in Manhattan. When Greg Bevino says there will be consequences for calling ice. Gestapo. Come and get me, Greg. Come and get me. I'll be unarmed. You want to kill me? Kill me. And then there'll be others lined up behind me. We will not tolerate this in this country. Stephen Miller has been allowed to co splay as if he is an open group of in Prague in 1938. Does he think he's Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague and a nurse, a 37 year old man, someone's son who helps a woman, legally armed, properly armed, be gunned down like an animal and then have his reputation smeared. And Stephen Miller's takeaway from that is that if we talk about it, we're not safe. Stephen Miller lives on a military base, but he's not going to live on that military base now forever, is he? All of these people will one day not have their security details and their motorcades. They won't have their government offices. There is no uber class of super citizen that holds a presidential appointment. They will Face justice, every last one of them. You have the American media that analyzes this video, and we have these lightweights on the Sunday shows who ask questions that, oh, it seems to be. Or maybe it shows. So we have seen the corruption we have seen step by step for 11 years where all of this led. Not a single question asked in 10 years time by a major American media organization of any type that got philosophically to what it is that Donald Trump believed until he sat down with three New York Times reporters about a month ago. And what he believes is that there are no restraints on his power. He doesn't believe in our American way of life. He doesn't believe in the Constitution. He believes in nothing. And so he threatens war with Denmark. He threatens war with Canada. He destabilizes our alliances and pushes the world closer to what 80 years of statesmen and women in America understood would be the last war humanity ever fought. That's where we are. And it's outrageous.
- [17:58]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, it's completely outrageous. I mean, that's the thing that I wanted to talk to you about, is that we just. We just had Davos, which I think counterbalances what we're looking at here at home very clearly, you know. And I heard you talking about how Mark Carney, who is the Canadian Prime Minister's speech, though he didn't name him, Mark Carney was very clearly repudiating Trump. And you called it both spectacular and beautiful. And I couldn't agree with you more, because it's like, here is a person who is saying, the world is not the way you thought it was. The world is not the way we want it to be, and we have to stop pretending. So tell me why you think what he said and where he said it mattered. Are you thinking you might need to refresh your wardrobe? Maybe you got some new things for the holidays, but now you're thinking, oh, now that I have this, I really need this. Well, Quint has you covered. From soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts for easy dressing up to everyday denim. Their wardrobe essentials are crafted to last six season through season. I spent the holidays in their maxi burgundy silk skirt and matching cashmere sweater. I cannot recommend that combination enough because you look really pulled together. But also, it was super easy. Maybe you're going into February thinking you need a new coat. I would check out Quince's Italian wool coats. They're beautifully tailored, soft to the touch, and built for years. And not just one season. Fashion influencers are currently raving about Quince's oversized leather jackets. It gives you that super cool girl look, but without breaking the bank, you will see the quality in the stitching, the fit, the fabrics and everything from Quince is made from premium materials in ethical, trusted factories and then priced far below what other luxury brands charge. So refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Don't wait. Go to quince.com politicsgirl for free shipping on your order and 365 days of returns. And for my Canadian friends and family it is now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N c e.com politicsgirl to get free shipping and 365 days of returns. Quince.com politicsgirl okay, so I have found that you have to be extremely careful trying to fix the lines around your mouth because most people who try to handle this problem with fillers and things like that end up looking worse. Which is so disappointing because you know, they only wanted to look better. Which is why I was psyched when I found the OS1 Lip Max mask. I am genuinely impressed with this product and I'm not alone. 78% saw an improved fullness in their lips after four weeks, 81% of people saw decreased fine lines around their mouth and 94% agreed that their lips stayed hydrated for longer after 12 weeks. For me, I really noticed that difference with the fine lines around my lips as I've gotten older. It's one of those things I found that I'm most self conscious about. I hate them and I think it makes me look like I'm a thousand years old or like a permanent lifetime smoker, which of course I never was. Now os1 is known for their cult favorites like os1 body, os1 face, os1 eye. But I can honestly tell you I am obsessed with OS1 lip. Just so you know, every formula of OS1 is certified safe for sensitive skin dermatologist, tested free from over 1500 irritating ingredients and awarded the National Eczema's Association Seal of Acceptance. So you know you're going to get powerful results without irritation or harsh side effects. Born from over 10 years of longevity research, OneSkin's OS1 peptide is proven to target the cells that cause the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age. And for a limited time, Oneskin is making it even easier to stay consistent with 15% off when you use the Code Politics girl at oneskin co politicsgirl that's 15% off with the code politicsgirl. And after you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support the show and tell them we sent you. I literally just ordered two more of their lip masks. One for me and one as a gift. That's OneSkin Co PoliticsGirl. So tell me why you think what he said and where he said it mattered.
- [22:06]
Steve Schmidt
The world we live in was saved from an evil that defies both imagination and description for a lot of people. But Tomorrow is the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
- [22:26]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, that's the day this pod drops.
- [22:28]
Steve Schmidt
The Canadian Prime Minister is the heir to a legacy that if you go to the American cemetery above Normandy beach, there are the shields of three nations that fought together to save the world. There is the American shield, the British shield, and the Canadian shield. The Canadians are architects, through blood sacrifice of the world we live in. And as powerful as the United States was, we were not powerful enough to invade Europe by ourselves. The British and the Canadians had three of the beaches. We had two. The world we lived in, architected by an American president talking late in the evening 82 years ago to Mackenzie King, Franklin Roosevelt said this world, this new world order he envisioned coming from the terrible ashes of global war that killed 80 million people. He said that it wouldn't last forever, but that he hoped that it would endure for as long as everybody who was still alive on the day the war was won was still alive. And so the Canadian prime minister, on the back end of that order that is collapsing, he came to eulogize it, and Canada helped create it. And the Canadian prime minister was there with an American president at its birth. Trump's speech at his inaugural repudiated the Atlantic Charter. And what Mark Carney spoke to was a world unbound by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, principally architected by Eleanor Roosevelt, that it was a world beyond the UN Charter, a world beyond the Atlantic Charter, a world beyond the NATO Charter. And he talked in that speech that he wrote himself that it is a poorer world. It is a world where we will all collectively have less, and there is no people that will suffer more have less than our children and our grandchildren. And lest anybody think that they're hypnotized by Trump's stupidity into that, we're some powerful nation. We're a nation that was defeated by the Maqtada El Mater militia, Al Sadr militia, by the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Good news for everybody. The Germans have their version of the SEAL teams, and so do the British, and so do the French, and so do the Danes, and so do the Norwegians. You know what happened when the United States participated earlier in this year in a winter exercise with NATO? The Finnish troops, the reservists, were told to take it easy on them because it was so bad for the Americans morale. We'll lose this war that Trump is instigating, and it would be fought on US Soil. It would instigate a civil war. But even before we got there, economic ruination would come when all these countries dumped their treasury bills. Because our debt, our obesity, our softness, our national decline is financed despite it all by a combination of our adversaries and our allies, from China to Britain to Canada to France, because they believe in the future of America. But they're going to stop believing in the future of America because they see that the American people have stopped believing in the future of America. And the evidence of that is Trump. So poverty, war, misery, murder in the streets. There are pictures that defy belief that have been published, like the secret photographs published of the Nazi death camps. We now have photos from inside an ICE concentration camp. And what it shows is horror in our name. The private prison contractors, the businessmen, Tim Cook going to the White House, watching the Melania movie. And the position of the Democratic Party upon this ending cannot be. Well, okay, we'll go back to. We'll go back to normal. We have in America is an accumulation of power in too few hands. These companies need to be broken up. Facebook needs to be broken up. That the Pennsylvania senator's wife is now the president of Facebook, who was the friend of Ivanka Trump and Melania. Corruption at an epic scale. Amazon, Big ag, the big banks. This country needs an FDR badly. And in the misery that's going to come from Donald Trump and this second term is going to take us 20 years to dig out of. But let nobody say they didn't see it coming. The evidence wasn't there that nobody knew. Everybody knew and everybody saw and everybody made their choice.
- [27:55]
Lee McGowan
Yeah. And it's questionable why everybody doesn't care why. They think they're just going to get by in this new world that's being created that basically serves eight people. And the rest of us can go die in a hole for all they care. Bill Clinton made a formal statement yesterday about what's going on, saying in part, that over the course of a lifetime, we face only a few moments where the decisions we make and the actions we take will shape our history for years to come. And this is one of them. If we give our freedoms away after 250 years we might never get them back. And I was really glad that he wrote that. I was sorry that George Bush and Obama didn't sign on to it, because I really do think that we need our leaders that people can still recognize getting together to offer an alternative universe, an alternative narrative to the current president and his people. Why do you think there is no obvious opposition leader emerging here? And maybe you do think there's an obvious opposition leader. But I will say, like, along with Mark Carney at Davos, you were very complimentary of Governor Gavin Newsom, who you referred to another leader who is meeting the moment. So I'd love your take on him as well, because I know he can be a completely polarizing figure, but he's one of those people I find myself perpetually behind because he feels like he's living in the real world and he seems. Seems prepared to meet the moment how it is, rather than how he wishes it was.
- [29:16]
Steve Schmidt
You are a leader of the opposition, Lee. When you go on cnn, many more people see that online than watched it on television. You're a leader of the opposition. We are all leaders of the opposition. And what we're waiting for in the country is for a national leader to emerge to bring the country together. A presidential campaign in normal times was the greatest, hardest nonlethal competition on planet Earth. It's a brutal experience. And the character test that people go through is a brutal one in these times. What we hope this process produces is an fdr. It's an Abraham Lincoln. And so I think that there are three governors that I look at in the Democratic Party that to me, stand head and shoulders above the rest from an ability to communicate intellectually. And they're all white men. One is Josh Shapiro, one is J.B. pritzker, and one is Gavin Newsom. And here's the deal. I don't know which of them or if any of them will be the nominee, but let's pretend that one of the three is going to be the next Democratic president. Surely they will need the support of the other two to maybe be vice president or to be Secretary of State, or to be Secretary of Defense. It will take a great many people to go and clean this disaster up. Does a Democratic president have the wisdom to appoint a Jack Smith to be the Attorney general, a Liz Cheney to be the deputy attorney general? Fierce people who will apply the full power of the law to hold to account these usurpations of our rights, our liberties, and the assault against the Constitution. Will they measure up? Now? I want to tell you so Very specifically, what I want to see happen after this. Beshear, the governor of Kentucky is the head of Democratic Governors Association. I want to see him close to call a meeting of the Democratic governors. The Democratic governors must meet. And of course, they should invite the governor of Vermont, a Republican. There's a couple normal Republican governors. They should be invited. They should make a joint statement. They should come back to their states and convene their legislatures in emergency special session. They should open up grand jury investigations. They should open up legislative investigations. They should use their subpoena power to investigate everything from the corrupt mergers and deals which California and New York have substantial standing to do, to the ICE atrocities happening in the state. They should sign interstate compacts with one another. California and New York should take the lead. The smaller states should join the WTO in a compact with California and New York. The states should use every power they have to obstruct, to slow the spending of money, turning over tax receipts. Every lawful strategy that's possible to hinder the federal government is what is necessary. From jurors who go into a jury, nullify the grand jury. Indictments being sought by Jeanine Pirro, by Pam Bondi, that are corrupt, that are an assault on the justice system, nullify it. Every American has power. And together we have incredible power. We have economic power. Let me also say this. This will pass. The states that hold the economic power in this country are blue states. States like Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi are poor and backwards. And I appreciate the Lincolnian sentiment of with malice towards none and charity towards all. But there was a story about rice farmers in Mississippi in the Times or the Wall Street Journal this weekend. And one farmer was talking about being on the verge of losing it all because of Trump's policies, but he's unconcerned because there's a $12 billion bailout coming their way. You know what? No more. When this ends and the flood comes to Mississippi and the storm comes to Texas and the hurricane comes to Louisiana, you all can figure it out. And what I want to see is a Democratic Party that sends a message, a brutal message. You want to vote for these people who slander a murdered man in Minnesota? You want to stand up and support the most indecent group of gangsters in American history. You want to break the bonds of our affection in our union in the name of Trump, going to pay the price. And it won't be a forever price, but it's going to be a tough price. And you're going to learn a lesson about the cost of attacking your fellow Americans about sending armed thugs to terrorize the people in their states. Going to learn a tough lesson because California in New York in New Jersey and Massachusetts in Minnesota and Illinois hold the power in this country economically, not the old Confederate states that are the wellspring of this insanity.
- [35:48]
Lee McGowan
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You can get the Irestore elite and the Illumina face mask bundle at an exclusive deal when you use the code. Politicsgirl@irestore.com that's politicsgirl irestore.com Please support the show and tell them we sent you. If they ask, give your hair and skin the upgrade they deserve so you can feel confident and refreshed. Irestore.com CODE Politics Girl I think that when people are talking online about like I can't wait for the Nuremberg trials, what they're asking for is accountability. They're saying, we know that this is wrong, we know that this is bad. And I think the idea of making the states live with the choices of their leadership is something we have never done because Democrats are always like, but then the people who are blue in the red states, they're going to suffer too. And you're like, here's the thing, you Can't. I know as a parent of a teenager, you, at some point you have to stop protecting them from themselves and allow them to reap the consequences of their actions. And it's a very hard thing to watch, and it's a very hard thing to do. And you want to protect them, but you can't. And I think if the Democrats get back into power, we need people who are not afraid to hold people accountable. I think one of the problems we're dealing with right now is that we never actually held a lot of the people in the south accountable for the Confederacy in the first place. Canada deals with that. They never really held the French part of their country accountable for the crisis that they had had. To this day, the French part of the country has their license plates that says they still hate the English part of the country. It's sometimes if you win, you have to do what Germany did after the 30s and really hold people accountable and say, never again. We're not going to do it. And we're going to hold everyone here up to the standard in which they have allowed it to be. And I think that is something that we are not familiar with doing. But I think that if we see this now, it really has to be not only for us so it doesn't happen to us again, but to show the rest of the world who no longer trusts us, nor should they. Why would we be a good trading partner if we could just do this to them every four years? Why would we be a good security partner if we can just bail on NATO after 80 years and say that these people never came to help us when NATO was the only people who have ever come to help America? The Only time Article 5 has ever been done was to come and help us after 9, 11. So this, this sort of disgusting behavior we're showing on the world stage, if we can get the leadership and we can reverse this track and we can go a different direction? We also have to prove to the world that we will never do this again and that we will hold these people accountable and that things will change and they can be relying on us. Americans can rely on their own constitutional rights. The world can rely on our allyship. And I think that that's going to need to be proven right across the board.
- [42:08]
Steve Schmidt
We are an unsteady and an unstable country. China is a more stable country than the United States. And that was the point made by Prime Minister Mark Carney is United States is not a stable country. Donald Trump is functionally destroy NATO. One of the consequences of that will be nuclear proliferation in Europe. And the more countries that have nuclear weapons, the more dangerous the world we live in is. And so from the very first second that there's a Democratic president before he even speaks, very first piece of paper he should sign is sealing Cash Patel's office of firing him 10 seconds into the to the presidency. And these things are important. Every desecrated brick at the White House has to be restored. The entire city of Warsaw was destroyed. There was nothing. And if you go to Warsaw, it doesn't look like anything ever happened there. The White House will be be restored. The Oval Office will be restored. The Trump letters will be chipped off the Kennedy center by 12:30. The Qatari plane that he thinks he's going to get to keep is going to be seized by a detachment of Marines dumped into the ocean. J.D. vance's security detail will be cut. Not at the six month line instantaneously. They all will. Every single one of these people will spend the rest of their lives being investigated and afraid to go outside. That's what their future holds. Carolyn Levitt is 28 years old. Try to imagine what her life's going to be like when she is our age.
- [44:02]
Lee McGowan
No, don't threaten me with a good time.
- [44:04]
Steve Schmidt
We're going to sweep these people from power in these 26 elections and then what I hope happens and you're going to have a big say in this. And I really hope you and others will not come out and say this was a victory for the Democratic Party in 26. It was a victory for the American people in the 250th year of our independence. And then the Democrats. I don't want old men and old ladies who can't talk. As chairman of the committees, I want AOC sitting in charge of a committee. I want people who will hold these people to account. And in 2028, the campaign is an audition for a leader that will have to measure up against FDR and Lincoln. We have had nonstop failed presidencies in the 21st century and the best president was Obama of the group. But here's the deal. After eight years of Barack Obama, who won the election, we have to get out of the washing machine of the past. The Obama presidency that led to Trump, it's over. The Biden debacle, It's over. George W. Bush, the architect of all of this disaster. One of the worst presidencies in American history. Disaster. From Iraq to the economy to the creation of homeland security. The security state has to be disassembled. Homeland security which was fundamentally John McCain's idea. And it was a stupid one. Came in a moment of panic after 9, 11. And has it made the country safer? It's a knife to the carotid of the American people. It needs to go away. The militarized cops. That this obscenity has been allowed to fester, that all the surplus military equipment was sold to every deputy sheriff in the country. Bullshit. The idea that we have an Attorney General of the United States going on television and saying, our country was found. Founded for law enforcement. Country was founded for freedom. The dignity of the human being fetishizing this. The police state, stormtroopers appearing from behind every bush with a license to kill and fly your blue line American flag, which, by the way, is a desecration. There is no blue stripe on the American flag. It's a desecrated flag is what that is. And it's appalling.
- [46:54]
Lee McGowan
Yeah. I mean, you wrote what comes next is either decay and collapse or reform and renewal. That in some sense, that has always been the cycle of democracies, and it's the cycle that will always be until there is an event that forever, you know, breaks our resilience. But you said that the magnitude of the abuses and offenses against liberty and law and rights that were gonna happen under the Trump presidency would shock the American people. And that we had a real lack of imagination of what was coming. And I think now we can see what's coming. And the question is, what do we do about it? If we ever wanna get out of.
- [47:34]
Steve Schmidt
This mess, I want every person who's hearing, you know, you see an ICE agent, you film them, right? You have an absolute right to film them. Filming them is not impeding them. Save America movement has cameras on these guys on a constant basis. Do not be afraid. We have innocent people being killed. And what I want people who are watching this through a screen to appreciate is that going out on the street with a whistle to bear witness to this is something that can take your life. Right? You could lose your life. Alex Preddy lost his life. Renee Goode lost her life. Like Medgar Evers lost his life, like Martin Luther King lost his life. Like Schwarmer, Cheney and Goodman lost their lives. Like a million Americans lost their lives. And when a young man named Nathan Hale was hung by the British at the beginning, he famously said, I request regret that I have but one life to give for my country. When an American is gunned down by this regime, 10 more will stand up and take their place. And we will remember their names. Their names are now carved in a patriotic panthenon. They are giants in the American story. They are marble figures. And we will not forget ever what happened. But each time it happens. And it will happen again. And maybe next time they'll kill three of us or they'll kill 150 of us, or maybe they'll try to kill 35,000 of us like what just happened in Iran. Stephen Miller has used Nazi rhetoric for years. He's made threats against the American people for years. They called an innocent man a terrorist, who was murdered by their men on their orders, just like the Nazis did. But the Jews weren't terrorists, and the gypsies weren't terrorists. And the gays weren't terrorists and the dissidents weren't terrorists. The terrorists were the people in power. And we believe in something. Believe that all men are created equal, endowed by a creator with inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Alex Preddy had a right to his life. Renee Goodman had a right to her life. Her daughter had a right to her mother's life. And millions of us demand of those of us who wish to raise their hand and take a constitutional oath in our name, serving us that they make a stand. We don't begrudge the privileges that come from being a member of Congress, from being a senator. Enjoy them, but fight. And laying down on the tracks in the face of this evil bearing down is not acceptable morally, politically, or as an American. It is not acceptable. And the organization that I'm a part of, it's a few months old. We'll be closing in on a million donors very soon. We have ads on in Copenhagen. We have ads aimed at lifting the morale of the people of Minnesota for tomorrow morning. And we have ads calling on Chuck Schumer to finally stand up and stop appeasing. This evil cannot be appeased and must be confronted.
- [51:37]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. I feel deeply emotional hearing someone reflect back to me what I feel in my heart every day. And I just want to have you tell people the best way to follow your work to help the Save America movement, to be doing this active work of fighting back instead of just wringing our hands in silence or scrolling on our phones. What can we do to help your movement? What can we do to move things forward?
- [52:02]
Steve Schmidt
The saveamericamovement.org you can find us there. You can find the Save America movement on substack. You can follow me on substack at the warning. And all of the social media channels. And what I want everyone who's listening to know is you're not alone. You're not alone. And do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. There are things that are worth everything. You know, they say that fear and overcoming it just means that there's something more important than the fear. And our freedom or liberty is more important than being afraid. And what I want everybody to understand as we kind of sign off is this. Martin Luther King, on the edge of his death, offered a prophetic vision of the future of our country. And it gives you a choice. You either must believe in what it is that he saw, or you have the choice to reject it. I choose to believe it. And in that speech, Martin Luther King starts and he remembers a letter he received from a young white girl after he had been stabbed with the knife, barely missing his aorta. And he recounts that letter. The young girl says, Dr. King, I'm so happy that you were not killed. And Martin Luther King jokes and he shares the happiness. And he makes the point that if he had died, he would not have been with them, obviously that night. He talks in that speech about if God gave him the ability to surveil all, all times in all places, taking him on a trip, where would he want to go? And he says that he would want to go to ancient Egypt and see God's people delivered from Pharaoh's oppression. He said he'd keep on moving to Rome and then to Greece to see Aristotle and Plato, and he'd move on to see Philadelphia. But he said he'd keep on moving because there was no time like the time he was born into that he'd rather live in. Because if he had been born in another time, or if he had stayed there, he would not have been in Montgomery, he would not have been in Selma. And then he comes towards the end of the speech to this point where he says as a 39 year old man, that he'd like to have a long life. He says longevity has its purpose. He adds that none of that matters to him now because he's been taken to a place, to the mountaintop. And from the mountaintop, Martin Luther King tells us, on the edge of death, that he has seen the promised land. He's seen the shining city on the hill, he's seen the just America. And he tells us he may not get there with us. Like all prophets, he cannot tell the time when the prophecy will ring true. He just tells us that it is true. And you know what? We may not get there. You and I and our children may not get there. Maybe their children will not get there, but maybe their children will. And that place, I believe with every fiber of my being, exists. It's over the rise of the mountaintop that we're climbing up towards. Always. 200 years ago this July 4th, within hours of each other, the American people learned that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had both died. And this was received as a confirmation of something very deep, something very true. And we have to wait this year for those signs that are all around us, that the people who have carried the name that means so much to a lot of us American, they've seen it before. When it was pitch black and all was lost and all seemed hopeless, great acts of courage accumulated to save America. And what was so will be true once again. We the people will not lose our country to these fascists. We will not. And we will not because of the courage of people like you, Lee McGowan. So next time you're up on that show with Scott Jennings, let him hear you roar. Give it to him good.
- [57:18]
Lee McGowan
Will do. Will do. Glad to be in the fight with you, Steve.
- [57:22]
Steve Schmidt
And with you. Goodbye.
- [57:25]
Lee McGowan
Goodbye. So that was Steve Schmidt reminding us that our inheritance is being stolen from us by gangsters. That our rights don't come from the president or his administration. They come from the blood spilled by every American who fought for our right to life and liberty. That we are in a moment of great crisis. But it is an awakening of activism in us that has not been seen in generations. Steve makes it clear that we don't need a win for the Democratic Party. We need a victory for the American people. And then we have to hold those who would strip us of everything to account. I want to thank Steve for joining us today and you for caring enough about democracy to be here. Now go check out the saveamericamovement.org and get in the fight. Until next week. PG out. Before you go, I don't know if you've noticed, but left wing and progressive creators like myself who share the truth and facts are truly getting drowned out by right wing propaganda and lies. The mainstream media is barely hanging on. TikTok is gone and it is becoming harder and harder to find anything that isn't billionaire backed propaganda at this point. So if you respect what I am doing here, if you learn something from my podcasts or rants, if you would like to get this podcast ad free delivered directly to your inbox along with my kitchen rants, then please consider becoming a member of Politics Girl Premium by going to politicsgirl.com and signing up. If you if you are already a premium member of this podcast, thank you for your support. And if you're not a member, please consider becoming a patron of my work. If you want real knowledge in a world of lies, it's essential to support those of us out here still trying to bring them to you. There is a link to sign up in the bio of this episode, but also@politicsgirl.com and as always, please like and share these podcasts so we can grow our audience, because the more people who have access to this kind of information, the better. As always, thank you for your time and support. The Politics Girl podcast is written and performed by me, Lee McGowan, and produced and edited by Happy Warrior Entertainment. All rights reserved.