The two candidates, donald trump and former Vice President joe biden. To spread their message and turn the tide to battleground states, this election is rather unusual. They are squelching the campaign trail in rallies. Then there is the Lincoln Project, Political Action committee by influential republicans including attorney george conway, New Hampshire gop chair jennifer horn, republican political strategist retailing, and john weaver and our guest here today, rick wilson and Steve Schmidt. Republican pack founded by a bunch of republicans doesnt sound that unusual but unlike traditional republican packs the Lincoln Project is spending millions to defeat the republican president ial candidate and his supporters in the senate. Wilson and Steve Schmidt will give us an update on the state of the 2020 raising the Lincoln Project, rick got his start as a political strategist in the 1988 president ial campaign of george w. Bush, provided Strategic Counsel to political candidates, National Campaign committee and corporate association, editor at large for the daily beast and frequent analyst on cnn and msnbc and author of the 2018 number one New York Times bestselling book everything trump touches dies. Steve is a communications and Public Affairs treasure list and Political Affairs analyst for nbc news. He has served as a political strategist for george w. Bush, governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and senator john mccain. He calls himself a republican until june of 2018 when he renounced the Republican Party is fully the party of trump. Welcome to the National Press club. Good to be with you. Thank you for having us. So glad to have you. We were talking earlier before we started and steve was talking about intuition, i want to know between the two of you, when did you have the intuitional when did you realize you needed to create the Lincoln Project . We want to know who called you, who sent the first email, the first meme, what is the background . Going back to 2018, we kicked off an effort late in the 2018 cycle, to do it competently, kept talking and in december of 19, we were alarmed watching the democratic debates. There was a name that was infrequently heard and that name was trump. We think he is the first issue in the race, second issue in the race, tertiary issue in the race, the next 155 after that. We have a point of view that what the race is about is the worst president in the history of the country. That was before covid19. What we now know is donald trump lied to the country which he told on at least 120 different occasions which is the virus was a hoax, created by the democrats, it would just go away. It is without precedent, the most lethal lie in American History. If we had the same mortality rate in the United States germany did there would be 150,000 more americans alive today. The consequence of that lie has devastated the economy, broken 1 million dreams, shattered the American Dream for thousands of small businesses. Corrupted education for every kid in this country. And it has wrecked the american way of life. Grandparents cant see their grandkids being born, christenings and baptism and bar mitzvahs and first communions, not this year. Weddings, tailgates, football, proms, it is all gone, and it is because of donald trump. On top of it by the time we get to the end of covid19 it may be it kills one out of every 1500 black people in this country. That is a Staggering Number that speaks to the profound inequities that exist in our society from access to medical care to economic inequality, and trump is the biggest problem the country faces and the most easy one to fix, true about the 2016 election, whomever that election was about, the person who was losing the election, 99 of the election about trump until james comey made it about Hillary Clinton in the last weekend by 78,000 books across three states trump won. The point of view has always been it is about trump. Why didnt you do Something Back in 2016 . We all did. We all tried to approach it in ways, and slowly devour the second part of 2016, this was running against Hillary Clinton, almost demonic role in the republican political place and a lot of republicans we tried to reach who said i vote with you guys are vote against trump i cannot vote against hillary. The chaos bubble of all these Republican Voters became very large and increasingly problematic. It is a moment when the partys collapse was happening and it took us around the block a few times to recognize the degree to which the moral and political collapse of the party was occurring. These are people who said they believed in the constitution and the will of law and individual liberty and the fundamental predicates of america and what happened, that turned out to be a complete illusion, they eagerly jumped into this authoritarian personality cult of donald trump. I would add two things to that that i said over the 16 election. I was an analyst on msnbc on a network and i said two things in 16. First thing i said was the observation that in the 1930s fascism didnt rise because it was strong but because democracy was weak. The second thing i said was i thought there was a real black of imagination in the American Mind that the capacity for someone like donald trump sitting behind the resolute desk in the oval office to cause a profound tragedy and both of those things holds true. Both rick and i were unapologetically taught by trump for the duration of the 16 race and what is difference between today and then, you have a lot of republican senators and governors who werent saying it themselves but saying keep it up, add a boy, good job, that is important, couldnt agree more, one by one by one what we have watched for two years is the total capitulation to trump, and donna four year basis, it is important to understand what occurred. You can understand that through the Republican Convention. What you saw at the Republican Convention is the Third LargestPolitical Party the world, the democrats are first, the labour party the second, the story party the second, what you saw was the Party Platform become a statement of obedience and loyalty to trump, to be a republican in Good Standing requires faithfulness to a cult of personality. What did you see at that convention . You saw the convention breathtaking lying you had never seen at any convention, the use of taxpayer dollars and public property for political purposes, you saw the seizure of the symbols of the republic by trump who turned them into partisan totems and expressions of his authority. In essence declaring i am the truth, i am the law, i am the state. In that now we see with trump saying maybe we will have a peaceful transition of power and maybe we wont, without much pushback from people who call themselves conservatives. Lets talk about that, there is something going on in the senate right now. What is it you guys think is happening with the traditional republicans who have not spoken up, who have not spoken out against donald trump . In one word it is cowardice. These are people afraid of a new tweet, afraid of trumps face, afraid of fox news, that fear defines their whole character, whether is marco rubio or Josh Holliday or ted cruz, the one thing they care about is avoiding Donald Trumps either. They have sold themselves out, they can never be trusted or believed ever again. The response to the president , i am agnostic about a peaceful transition of power and the response to a president who turns anonymous federal forces on Peaceful Protesters is not a bible verse being tweeted out or elliptical statement, and men and women of integrity and honor, they would be defending the country and our freedoms and the constitution, they would be standing up against grant rampant abuse of executive power and they are not. They are too afraid, too sold out to do that. Host are we going to see a new justice put in place . Is that going to happen . We may well, we may well. Probably. I ran two Supreme Court confirmations when i was in the bush administration, Stephanie Cutter to be publicly supportive, the obama administration, there are consequences to president ial elections, the refusal to give a duly appointed nominee of an incoming president a hearing, we look at this moment right now, this is precisely what James Madison wrote about in federalist 10 when he talked about the danger of parties and fashions and authoritarianism and the question is republicans can go out and say we lied, screw you, we are in charge and putting it through, you can say that, you can say listen, we made a mistake, we now realize how important these nominees are so we have to you could say that. What you cant say as it is in the public good. That is what federalist 10 is about, the public good. Is endangered by factions that sales a sales and assaults minority rights and democrats represent a majority of the country by popular vote in a president ial election and the majority of the country by popular vote representation in the senate so this is a moment you look at the divisions in the country where we had moral or competent Political Leadership there would be an understanding this is a moment for restraint. That is what wisdom would dictate. We are not going to see that. As a tactical matter, derailing Supreme Court nomination, stopping it is not unlike robbing a train. If you want to go to the train robbery business, the first thing you got to figure out before you get to the train is how to stop the train. How to slow it down, how to get on the train and that is what democrats have to be thinking about. Slow it down. Slow it down, slow it down, slow it down. How should the democrats be perceiving the Lincoln Project . Is the Lincoln Project allied, allies of convenience, are there tips you have for the Democratic Party they should be taking from you . We are part of a Broad Coalition the views donald trump as an accidental threat to this country. We dont have to agree on every philosophical or political prior. We dont have to agree on every policy question. We often joke we would love to be back fighting about whether the marginal tax rate will be 38. 6 or 34. 9 . That would be a fantastic world to live in. We are here because we have a collective set of skills and abilities and experiences that are effective in moving voters in this country. We have identified, i wrote a book about it, democrats often fall into simple traps and often fall into simple mistakes and campaigns. We kept this race as a referendum on donald trump, not an argument about Climate Change or guns or abortion or anything else, the worst president in American History and it is a choice, the one four more years a do you want to make a change and do Something Else . We are happy to work with and alongside people, people who are behind us, we were ahead for a long time, a Broad Coalition, the most interesting thing isnt that people are tuning up and getting, and and objections to trump, i want to add, we view ourselves as a pro Democracy Organization and historically my view has been the republican and democratic parties are two of the most important institutions not just in our countrys history but World History for the advancement of Human Dignity and freedom. Which is why i never had and always hated when republicans call the Democratic Party the Democrat Party because it implies a level of disrespect for one of our greatest american institutions and the party should be called by its name which is the Democratic Party. That party, the Democratic Party, is the only Political Party out of the two major parties we have in this moment, the ideas and ideals of the country, to american democracy. Trump is an authoritarian ideology. We should make no mistake with its hostility to our freedoms, to the first amendment, to the election process and all of it. An organization that has several million followers, close to half 1 million donors, and substantial resources to fight back against trumpism. We mean that as a rooted ideology, something that wasnt four years ago, when republicans lose and biden will win, democrats will take the Senate Majority today at least, if republicans do lose what will happen to the party can be understood by observing what happens to the california party. As Political Parties shrink they are like white stars collapsing astronomically. They become smaller, the become denser and they become harder. The Republican Party as it shrinks, becoming more extreme. One of the things that is always analyzed, if that is a word in the press, is trump has 96 support in the Republican Party, true, however, that party is substantially smaller than it was your go, two years ago, three years ago. What will happen if trump loses, hes not going away, trumpism isnt going away, you will see a more extreme ideology, in that space for a long time, we are on the side of the Liberty Party in the country and second to that in 30 more seconds it seems to us as a matter of principle that we need to have a new Voting Rights act in this country, a new Civil Rights Act in this country, we have an election, fundamental ethics reform, fundamental Civil Service reform, Immigration Reform finally passed, we will be an organization that supports Vice President biden in all and any of these things. As an American Organization who understands we are in an hour of crisis and danger in this country because of trump and the cowardice of the Republican Party who refused to exercise their power to put a check on him from his indecency to his abuses of power. Is it time for a third party in the United States . We are not in the Party Building business, we are in the democracy business. We think largely the country, if you have the brought argument, or liberal Political Party, the idea of having a centerright party that believes in things that Republican Party claims it represented, we dont know what the end of this election cycle looks like but we are stuck with trumpism for a while, between nationalist populism, authoritarian and racially charged politics, and a party of economic liberty and individual freedom. What that looks like i dont know. Donald trump has fundamentally poisoned the brand of the Republican Party. May emerge as a Trumpian Party that looks like something we havent seen in our politics before, and even though people who used to say the bushes of been around too long or the kennedys have been around too long, they had a certain modesty about their public service, a certain degree, acting as parasites on the american body politics and it is very likely we will see the Republican Party and 2024 look at donald trump junior as the lead candidate for their nomination and that is a terrifying prospect if you are free market conservative, and individual liberty conservative. If you are part of the personality cult it sounds like a great idea. Is it time for a thirdparty . Cant say yes but i think the Republican Party has sold out to donald trump. We dont have a centerright party and the country anymore. We still have a centerleft party and the country and if that collapsed, we have this authoritarian nationalist party on the right, i will come back to something in a second and you have a centerleft party on the left, a socialist party versus that, then i dont know what happens. There could be an independent candidate that could win. The republican coalition, 25 , 27 if the country is amassed in a cult of personality, they will never accept the legitimacy of the outcome of the election, trump will never see the legitimacy of an