Lincoln Project’s Stuart Stevens: Complete Collapse of Moral Authority in GOP | Amanpour and Company

now in New York the Trump machine finds that it's not in control in the courtroom which we were just talking about the judge presiding over Trump's hush money election interference case has fined him $99,000 for violating a gag order he also warned Trump could face jail time if he continues to defy the order by publicly criticizing expected trial Witnesses steuart Stevens a former Republican strategist admits that he's still coming to grips with today's GOP and it's embrace of a man facing 91 criminal charges and the grandall party's creeping authoritarian character as he explains with Walter isacson thank you Chris John and Stuart Stevens welcome back to the show great to see you Walter thanks you've been a Republican strategist most of your life work for George Bush Mitt Romney and then have been part of the anti-trump movement in the Republican party now you're watching him on trial in some ways he's running on the notion of grievance and persecution does this trial help him or hurt him well you know I mean I think the the sort of headline on this is um that Trump is still a viable candidate and he's on trial that in itself is extraordinary um look I think if you're one of the smart people running the Trump campaign and they do have Smart professionals now this isn't what your ideal scenario would have been but at the same time it's not disqualifying for Trump which it would be for any other candidate I can think of and what the essence of that is the Trump's uh campaign in particularly in this cycle is based on being a victim it's the grievance campaign I am your retribution um the Deep state is out to get us what better proof that the Deep state is out to get us and the Deep state has me on trial and you say these are really smart people running the campaign are they going to use this uh to help this uh politics of grievance yes they're going to use it to try to as a proof point you know if you have you have to get inside their heads Walter the the whole Trump thing so in their world Trump won the presidency the White House has been stolen and uh the only way that they can stop Trump who was the legally elected president they say from winning again is to put them in jail so this is just that process of the deep State trying to take away from you the voter your right to choose your president and they would say restore democracy it's it's sort of like the aliens built the pyramids once you understand that everything else makes a lot of sense you know the problem is aliens didn't build a pyramids um but that's how uh they see the world and this fits into that world viiew if Trump would not on trial if there had not been all of these indictments would he be in a stronger or a weaker position I think that the indictments helped him in the primary because it then became necessary to support Trump in the primary to prove that what the Democrats were saying and they uh put in the same Democrats in the Deep state are exactly the same um I don't think it is going to help him in the general election I think that there's something that is going to be disconcerting and wearing to people to see a potential president of the United States a former president of United States uh on trial in multiple jurisdictions but wait haven't people been saying this for a year or two that eventually wear down yeah yeah but the audience has been uh the audience that has been voting has been that primary audience and it was fascinating to see the split in the primary electorate that pretty much the threshold belief that if you voted for Trump you believe that he won the presidency last time and very few of Nikki Haley's voters uh believe that the majority of the country doesn't believe that so um I just think that uh you know I've compared the Trump candidacy to somebody walking around with a paper bag full of water I don't think it's going to leak but I think there's a very good chance chance it's going to go uh and when it goes it's going to be very hard to to to put the order back in the bag were you surprised that the Republican party not just a hardcore base but a majority of people in the primaries rallied around him that way oh Walter you know I had a a going on of business sale with any optimism in the Republican party I think that we've we've seen a complete collapse of any immoral authority of the party and and the people to blame are not Donald Trump Donald Trump is just being Donald Trump it's all of the people that you and I know and I helped elect a lot of them who uh before Trump they wouldn't have had lunch with Trump they wouldn't let Trump in their house they know that he's he's destructive to democracy they know he's not a conservative um they know that Putin helped elect him and yet they still support him why is that that is a profound question um and I asked myself that and that led me to write this book it was all a lie and and what the only conclusion I come to that makes any sense to me and I think makes any sense at all is that all of these things that we espoused as deep values Walter that the party held character counts strong on Soviet Union strong own Russia the deficit matters all of these things we said were values we're fact just marketing slogans so okay that's not the case then so character really doesn't count uh sure we'll support the candidate uh who supports Vladimir Putin and you know the largest war in Europe since World War II um I don't know how else to to come to a conclusion because people don't abandon deeply held beliefs in a couple of years and the party has just walked away from these um you know the the Republican party now doesn't really exist as a normal American political party and any kind of tradition it exists to defeat Democrats and you know that that's how cartels operate nobody asked OPEC what is your higher purpose you sell oil um and you know it's it's not like a fun thing to admit um and I've been a lot of sleepless nights trying to come to grips with it but the Republican party now is an autocratic movement and I think what you see in front of the Supreme Court where they're actually trying to make the case that a a president is is above the law um it's just further proof of that it's why they the conservative movement is in love with Victor orbon and Vladimir Putin there's a group of people in the Republican Party who have of course pushed back Liz Cheney most prominent among them even uh Senator Mitt Romney uh former vice president uh Mike Pence uh do you see the possibility that more and more Republicans like that will come forward between now and the election I don't think there's many Republicans like them um I think if Trump is convicted um it might make a difference with some you know what I think it's very interesting to look at say Chris Christie who was a former client of mine love the guy could not believe he endorsed Donald Trump in 2016 I I remember standing at Atlanta airport and seeing know CNN and literally tears came to my eyes it was like how is this person that I love doing this and I think he would say it was a mistake now which is good what he's going out there and saying now is what should have been said but when you listen to Chris Christie how do you come to any other conclusion but you have to support Joe Biden um same with Asa Hutchinson who ran in the Republican frary former governor of Arkansas another former client of mine a really good and decent human being and may not agree with his politics you have to support um Liz jeney has to support Biden uh mitt ROM will support Biden I think he will you think or he will I think those two definitely will do you think that Biden and Biden hadn't called them yet do you think Biden should reach out to all of them and create a Republicans for Biden committee sure when the time is right um you know if if a prominent Republican came to me and said I want to endorse uh Joe Biden my advice as wearing my political consultant hat would be that's great I would wait because if you do it now it's not going to mean as much as if you do it say during the Democratic Convention um and timing is pretty much everything in politics so um I I I hope this will happen if Trump is convicted it may make that uh entry ramp uh a little smoother um but really you don't need a conviction in any of these trials and know that Donald Trump should not be president so you know it's just I me think about auor the Republican party doesn't have room for a Cheney really a chain um what do you do with that um and there is no Republican party to go back to and people just have to come to grips with that there's a kind of false hope that somehow we can just look Beyond Trump and McConnell expressed a lot of this and a lot of these sort of gentry Republicans have held their nose and say well you know we're just going to be able to put Trump behind us no no the the party there is a need for a center-right conservative party in America that cannot be the Republican party as it's uh currently construed so wait what happens uh if there's a need for a center right party and the Republican party has abandoned that what do you see in down the road I think uh 2032 is the best hope that you could have a same center right party that will emerge you know pay is the best teacher in politics arguably maybe the only teacher and what needs to happen is Republicans need to lose and they need to lose again and again and then out of some sense of survival uh you could see a same party emerging you know a lot of this ultimately has to do with race vulture um we're a country that's headed to becoming a minority majority country if you're 16 years and under in America you uh the majority are non-white Trump's base is 85% white and it's that reality that drives so much of Republican party's efforts to change election laws and to sort of curate the election you talk about the politics of grievance and of anti-corporate anti-state feelings how does Robert F Kennedy Jr fit into this equation it's a great question I think it comes down to who uh RFK Jr is if come October an RFK Jr is defined as a crusading environmentalist lawyer that took on big corporations that guy's Gonna Hurt Joe Biden if RFK Jr is defined as this wacky conspiracy nut who has said that there is no safe vaccine which means he's basically the you know anti- polio vaccine candidate uh who believes this expressed these conspiracies about the CIA killing his father and how you know Prozac leaves the school shootings I think that guy will probably hurt Trump more but you know if it was up to me I would rather just have a straight race with no third party candidates it's a cleaner race you have to make it a choice between Trump and Biden and there are voters out there who don't like Trump who are uncomfortable with Biden if you give them any sort of socially accepted offramp my fear is that they'll take them um that was a great fallacy of a no labeled candidate and all the candidates they talked about definitely would have just helped elect Donald Trump um which maybe is one of the reasons that ultimate they didn't go forward um but you know in the Lincoln project we're out there defining Robert Kennedy for what he is a conspiracy nut who's Annie V um I think that's what needs to be done and I hope that's who he is in October the last few lines of your upad let me quote them to you you say we should not normalize how extraordinary it is that Mr Trump is still a viable candidate for president the Biden campaign will watch the spectal unfold asking how is this guy still in the race so let me ask you how is this guy still in the race it goes I think to a fundamental Hollow that existed within the Republican party that Trump brought the light but also the American electorate well you look at among Democrats Trump is is you know not getting a lot of support um but yes you you you would have to say uh he is appealing to a dark side of America and we've had other candidates who did that George Wallace did it we just didn't have him nominated by a major political party the Democratic party rejected George Wallace Republican party embraced it um you know I think that there has been by the establishment of the Republican party embracing trump it is given a permission structure for people who were troubled by a lot of trump to say well he couldn't he must not be that bad I think he's a little weird and all this but hey my Governor I know my Governor better my Senator they're normal humans they support Trump and that is the failure of the party not to stand up to Trump but look if you're going to ask me if Donald Trump wins this next race does it say something that's very very troubling about the future of democracy my answer overwhelmingly is yes you know it's difficult to talk about this without sounding alarmist and language is one of the issues that that you know we struggle with but I think if Donald Trump wins this election it will be the last election that we can recognize as a normal American election I know these people as bad as you think they are they are worse they want a different America and they're open about it when you really listen to them and that's why they Embrace Russia so much they look at Russia and they say Okay Russia no non-white people in power Putin says there's no gays in Russia there's no women in power elections are performative but not decisive that looks pretty good and they embrac that um so the idea you know America is rapidly changing non- colge educated uh White voters are the largest declining demographic in the country and they find it unsettling and troubling and they would like to stop that um and they will they are about the business of trying to change election so that they reduce the power of those who uh see a different America and that's the Electoral College facilitates that Biden Lo one by seven million votes but if 45,000 votes to chain Sands and uh just exactly the right places Trump would still win so I think it's a race about the future of America I think the cliche this is the most important race of our lifetime has never been more true steuart Stevens thank you so much for joining us again thank you Al [Music] [Music]

Channel: Amanpour and Company

Views: 241,328

Keywords: interview, CNN, PBS, Christiane Amanpour, world news, news anchor, news show, news, public affairs, late-night TV, journalist, Chief International Correspondent, Trump, GOP, Election, Trial

Id: 59XvHVs1SsI

Length: 17min 51sec (1071 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2024