Tag: Steve Schmidt

‘It’s a crime. So is insurrection’: Steve Schmidt slams anti-vax Republican’s ‘BS’ support of not vaccinating military

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Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt blasted U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) for announcing he supports members of the United States military who are threatening to “quit” if they are required to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

“The Army has directed commands to prepare to administer mandatory COVID-19 vaccines as early as Sept. 1, pending full Food and Drug Administration licensure,” Army Times reported late last week.

“I’ve been contacted by members of our voluntary military who say they will quit if the COVID vaccine is mandated,” said Congressman Massie, who has degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has suggested he is a science expert while calling climate change “pseudo science.” Continue reading.

Lincoln Project’s Steve Schmidt: Trump’s ‘fascist’ movement ‘must be crushed’ and ‘annihilated’

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Although the Lincoln Project’s Steve Schmidt is decidedly conservative, the former Republican strategist has found himself siding with liberals and conservatives when it comes to denouncing Trumpism as an existential threat to democracy in the United States. And when Schmidt appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on January 15, he stressed that the U.S. is at a crossroads and must choose constitutional democracy over fascism and authoritarianism.

Schmidt’s comments came at a time when millions of Americans are still in shock over the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building and Washington, D.C. is on high alert in the days leading up to the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden — who Schmidt and others in the Lincoln Project, a right-wing Never Trump group, supported in 2020’s presidential election. Schmidt praised Rep. Liz Cheney, a right-wing Republican and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, for supporting the impeachment of President Donald Trump and slammed House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as a coward for lacking the courage to thoroughly repudiate Trumpism.

“Before we can talk about reconciliation, we have to talk about accountability,” Schmidt told “Morning Joe” hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough — a former GOP congressman and fellow Never Trump conservative. Scarborough has described Trump as a “fascist” many times, and Schmidt wholeheartedly agrees with that description of the outgoing president. Continue reading.

Steve Schmidt Unloads On The White House For Covering Up Trump’s Declining Health

Former GOP strategist Steve Schmidt ripped the White House on Tuesday for running a massive cover-up of Donald Trump’s declining physical and mental health.

During an interview with MSNBC’s Ari Melber, Schmidt said the president’s health is clearly deteriorating before our eyes, pointing out that Trump “routinely slurs” and is “often confused.”

“The enfeeblement of the president is something we’re all watching happen before our eyes,” Schmidt said. “The Donald Trump of 2020 is a different Donald Trump than he was in 2016.” Continue reading.

We’ve never backed a Democrat for president. But Trump must be defeated.

Washington Post logoThis November, Americans will cast their most consequential votes since Abraham Lincoln’s reelection in 1864. We confront a constellation of crises: a public health emergency not seen in a century, an economic collapse set to rival the Great Depression, and a world where American leadership is absent and dangers rise in the vacuum.

Today, the United States is beset with a president who was unprepared for the burden of the presidency and who has made plain his deficits in leadership, management, intelligence and morality.

When we founded the Lincoln Project, we did so with a clear mission: to defeat President Trump in November. Publicly supporting a Democratic nominee for president is a first for all of us. We are in extraordinary times, and we have chosen to put country over party — and former vice president Joe Biden is the candidate who we believe will do the same. Continue reading.

George Conway, Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson burn Trump and the GOP to the ground in scathing joint op-ed

AlterNet logoFour prominent conservatives, including the husband of White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, called for the defeat of President Donald Trump.

George Conway, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson published an op-ed for the New York Times rebuking Trump as unfit to serve, and they shamed the Republican Party for replacing conservatism “with an empty faith led by a bogus prophet.”

“This president’s actions are possible only with the craven acquiescence of congressional Republicans,” the four men wrote. “They have done no less than abdicate their Article I responsibilities.”

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A GOP strategist abandons his party and calls for the election of Democrats

The following article by Dan Balz was posted on the Washington Post website June 20, 2018:

High profile GOP strategist Steve Schmidt left the Republican Party on June 20 in protest to the Trump administration’s controversial “zero tolerance” policy. (Elyse Samuels/The Washington Post)

For three decades, Steve Schmidt has played at the highest levels of Republican politics, as a top strategist in presidential campaigns and as an adviser to other GOP candidates. He has also been one of the most vociferous critics of President Trump. On Wednesday, he made that opposition even more emphatic, renouncing his party affiliation and urging Americans to vote for Democrats in the November elections.

“Trump’s election did not spell doom for the Republican Party,” Schmidt said by telephone Wednesday while traveling. “The reality is that our Founders always predicted that one day there would be a president like Trump, and that’s why they designed the system of government the way they designed it. What they never imagined is the utter abdication of a co-equal branch of government, which we’re seeing now. . . . The definition of conservatism now is the requirement of complete and utter obedience to the leader.” Continue reading “A GOP strategist abandons his party and calls for the election of Democrats”