Sen. Eric Schmidt (D-Missouri) joins Glenn Beck to discuss his takeaways from the Trump/Zelensky summit, and to talk about his new book, "The Last Line of Defense: How to Beat the Left in Court."
00:05:08.280This was really kind of a bipartisan effort of what are the things that, you know, rationally or reasonably you can do to protect elections.
00:05:14.040One was to severely limit the ability to have mail-in ballots.
00:05:18.760In fact, in Missouri, in order to do that, you have to sign an affidavit.
00:05:22.740Typically, it's somebody with disabilities.
00:05:24.660It's only a caregiver or a parent or, you know, a son or a sibling or a daughter can even help with that.
00:05:32.860I think what President Trump's getting at, and I actually talk about it in the book, The Last Line of Defense, it's a chapter, because we took on Mark Elias in Missouri during COVID times.
00:05:41.200He tried to upend these laws across the country that protected the integrity of elections.
00:05:46.160And he was successful in certain places.
00:08:08.120They would do all the things that they did in one fell swoop to aggregate power and exercise it ruthlessly.
00:08:13.700Here's the good news, though, that in 2024, in November, I think the fever broke.
00:08:19.460We lived through this fever dream of sort of the woke left.
00:08:22.600And it's hard to, you know, I think people forget how to, what a grip the woke left had on this country.
00:08:27.960And it's honestly, Glenn, it's one of the reasons why I wrote the book Last Mind Defense that's available on Amazon now is because during those dark days, President Trump was out of office, right?
00:08:38.400It kind of fell, and you talked to some of the Republican AGs, it sort of fell to this relatively unknown group of people.
00:08:44.980I happen to be one of them that fought back.
00:08:47.840And so you've got to remember, take the DeLorean back in time here.
00:08:51.220This was a time of lockdowns, compulsory COVID shots, deliberately open borders, DEI struggle sessions, ESG requirements in a censorship enterprise so vast that the Biden administration created.
00:09:05.900It's the biggest affront to the First Amendment in American history.
00:09:08.180So what I decided to do in that moment, I mean, I didn't think that was going to be my role, but my role ended up being trying to hold the line until the Calvary came, and the Calvary came in November.
00:09:17.300So we fought vaccine mandate to the Supreme Court.
00:20:45.600So all sides were off their best behavior and all was kind of sweetness and light.
00:20:50.660But the more consequential thing was that President Trump said, you know,
00:20:55.520understand that the Europeans want to defend Europe against Putin.
00:21:01.280And if push comes to shove, America will help them do it.
00:21:05.940Now, that's a very big change from President Trump's previous position.
00:21:10.540It may not amount to very much in the short or medium term, but nevertheless, it was a change of mood music.
00:21:18.080Now, we'll see how President Putin responds to what's being offered.
00:21:22.020I would have thought that President Putin would not be very keen on NATO stroke, the Europeans being involved in the military defense of Ukraine at all.
00:21:38.840He made it very clear that he won't put up with that.
00:21:41.900So I would be surprised if he were to actually, you know, be enthusiastic about this kind of deal.
00:21:47.840But we'll see. It's obviously a high-stakes poker game, isn't it?
00:21:55.200So it's weird that you would say this because I didn't catch the downbeat, but you may be right on that.
00:22:03.160Did you – is it just American wishful thinking in a way that –
00:22:08.840I've never seen a president or really any world leader like this call for a meeting like this and get everybody to sit around the desk exactly like, you know, a principal calling, you know, the teachers in and having a sit-down with all of them.
00:22:28.620And the image that I came away with is that America is leading again, but not in the way where we are, you know, threatening bombs and everything else.
00:22:44.560But we're just – we're being the facilitator in a way of making this happen and bringing people together that I don't think would have ever come together, you know, for anybody else.
00:22:55.840I just don't think it would have happened.
00:22:56.960Is that wishful thinking on the American side?
00:24:17.240But the more important thing is, you know, what is President Trump going to do about President Putin and his attempt to destroy the integrity of Ukraine?
00:24:30.180Does President Trump now believe that it is in America's interests for President Putin to be pushed back?
00:24:39.520Or does he still think that it's nothing to do with America, and if Europe wants to do this, well, that's Europe's affair, and it can jolly well get on with it?
00:24:48.140It seems as if there's been a bit of a change, but I don't know.
00:24:53.440But this is the question of, you know, when Putin basically turns around and says to President Trump, you know, you can go and shove your peace deal, as he may do.
00:25:05.180What is President Trump going to do then?
00:25:06.800That's what matters to me, not this spectacle of all these pathetic Prime Ministers and Presidents.
00:25:15.860You know, it's funny that you would say this, because I read this slightly different in that I think President Trump was changing the systems that had been set up since World War II.
00:25:31.140And when he was saying, you know, NATO, you know, I don't know if NATO really matters anymore, and, you know, you can do whatever you want.
00:25:39.220I think that was to tell Europe, we're not paying the bill anymore, and we're not going to be the first to rush in and be the world's policeman anymore.
00:25:52.060And when they started to carry their own bags, I think that's – he was doing that to get them to carry some of the weight in their own bags.
00:26:01.240And he does believe in a world order that, you know, that we help each other out on our allies.
00:26:07.100So I think it's not as much of a change as it's a completion of strategy.
00:26:15.960I think we're entirely right that he was trying to gee up the reculcitrant Europeans to stop just riding on America's coattails.
00:26:28.860And I think he's entirely right to do that.
00:26:30.520I think, you know, for decades, the Europeans have just relied upon America being there to support them militarily and in the defense of the free world without feeling that they have to step up to the plate themselves.
00:26:47.040And I think I personally entirely agree with him.
00:26:52.560But, obviously, you know much more about American politics and culture than I do.
00:26:57.220But it seemed to me that when he became – when he was elected, re-elected as president, he was surrounded, as he still is, by a number of people who I would call real isolationists.
00:27:12.860Who really do believe that what goes on in Europe is of no concern to America.
00:27:18.120It's not in America's interest to get involved.
00:27:19.960The last thing they want is to expend blood and treasure on anywhere in Europe because it has nothing to do with them.
00:27:24.960And this troubled me because I think that this kind of isolationism in America has a long tail, a long historical tail.
00:27:37.080And I think that, you know, yes, America has got to put its own interests first.
00:27:42.240But it is in America's interests to refrain Putin.
00:27:47.440To put his mother way, if Putin were to take over Ukraine, I'm absolutely certain that he would see that as the gateway to make further incursions into the old Soviet Union empire.
00:28:08.360Because this man, Putin, believes that he's a kind of reincarnation of Peter the Great.
00:28:14.540He believes in the restoration of the old Russian empire.
00:28:18.960And if America, if America's isolationists really do believe, if they really do believe that if that were to happen, a resurgent Russian empire run by a man like Putin and the Communist Party would be of no, would not put America in greater danger than it now is.
00:28:43.820They must be living in now cooking land.
00:28:46.140And that's what I think President Trump was kind of leaning towards in his earlier weeks or months.
00:28:52.780I will tell you, I will tell you, Mellie, I'm going to give a monologue here in just a minute if I have time today about America first.
00:29:03.520I think that's a misreading of what Donald Trump was moving towards.
00:29:09.780I think you're right, he is surrounded by isolationists, but I think he was going for something different because he does believe America needs to play a leadership role.
00:29:22.260And that, you know, that means you're actually engaged in things.
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00:29:32.420I want to give you the two things that I think are the two messages that we should take from all of this.
00:29:48.380America is truly once again in charge.
00:30:58.840If they're lucky, they'll solve one thing.
00:31:02.720He has gone in six different times now.
00:31:05.820And not all of them are, you know, we're all having our fingers crossed that the Middle East and Iran is at least peaceful for a little while.
00:31:30.080He stopped Pakistan and India from having a nuclear war.
00:31:37.340He is bringing peace to the world like I've never seen before.
00:31:43.300And again, as I said, maybe for the first time in my lifetime, America is the global leader.
00:31:50.120And I think I say that because, well, I mean, Ronald Reagan was the global leader in the 1980s.
00:32:01.340That's the last time that I think that would even be close.
00:32:05.560But Ronald Reagan still had his detractors and they never came to the table.
00:32:11.940You know, Ronald Reagan, his power came from just the political prowess that he had here in America and his just strength of will that he just wouldn't give up.
00:32:27.540And then he also had Margaret Thatcher and the Pope on his side.
00:32:30.440This president really has not had anybody on his side, nobody on his side.
00:32:36.620But you'll notice they're no longer taking him on and calling him a thug, a clown, a dictator, or anything else.
00:32:42.900They're not calling him any of those things.
00:32:45.860At least the world leaders, the European leaders, are no longer saying those things.
00:32:49.960They're taking him seriously because he's actually getting things done.
00:32:55.360So, A, America is in the leadership role.
00:32:59.000Now, why is that one worth really standing back and admiring for a minute?
00:33:11.280Because every president, every president has tried to reverse that.
00:33:17.380Every president has been working on this new global coalition.
00:33:22.680You notice he's not talking about, that's what you hear from every president.
00:33:28.980We're cobbling together all these states of the willing, all of these people who are coming together and they're willing to stand together.