And we re the ones to do it. look, i think we have to face a reality here. this isn t 2016. this isn t a country which is basically comfortable but angry this is a country this which is battered, frightened, for the first time americans have a really deep sense that our best days are behind us, well, we are very intimidated by the scale of the chinese challenge. as i said, we have mental health problems on a scale we have never seen, largely compounded by the first public health decisions i think in modern history. all of which deserves to be explored. people want political leadership which is going to be serious, have an honest conversation and find a way to bring us together to actually fix these things. not just have more of this totally partisan bickering. i think kevin mccarthy with his whole notion of a commitment to america, and the kind of people he has been recruiting, i think he understands, this is a
Senator, but he won a big race, not lost a big race as he was going into this. lynn, i want to interrupt you there because i think it also raises a question, this is a political climate unlike anything we have ever seen before. absolutely. and the rules are different because the game has changed. steve, what lessons from 2016 do democrats really need to keep in mind as they mount a challenge against president trump a second time around? two things. number one, the lesson isn t 2016. the lesson is 2018. do you want to know what electoral success looks like? look at the house midterm elections. democrats were able to, number one, retain their base, and number two, got swing voters. they attracted swing voters, many of whom voted for donald trump in 2016. democrats need to retain their base and continue to attract swing voters. the second thing, forgive me, ea of all the criteria that the most to me is who will win.
Clinton, and that s the same with donald trump. half the country very supporting a president who is more trusting of vladimir putin and more positive of vladimir putin than barack obama or bill clinton. we ve become so self-absorbed one thing we forget at moments of national crisis like this where we really look to the president and to the administration to see how they are going react, how they are going speak to the american people, how the american people are going to react, other countries and their leaders are watching this. they are taking our measure. they are taking the measure of our leadership. and that is really dangerous. you know, the people who say, well, i just enjoy there can be no more excuses. this isn t 2016.
Falwell defending him despite the tape and other issues he raised. those who are pro life and pro family know hillary clinton are not with us and we can t go in that direction and that way. but that doesn t mean we have to follow another way that is also reckless and horrible. and i think what we re seeing right now is a divide in he h e evangelical christianity that isn t 2016 but is highlighted and shown by 2016. i think it s just leaving a wreckage of cynicism in its wake, and it s going to take us longer to recover from this year than it took us to recover from the scandals of the tv evangelists in the 1980s, i m afraid. to stand up and say we believe