Now we want to go ahead and bring in Scripps News contributor and founder of the warning podcast and newsletter, Steve Schmidt.

Steve, thanks for being with us.

Before we get into some of our questions we have for you, wondering if you have any thoughts after listening to that.

Well, I mean, it was an astonishing performance, which all of Trump's public comments are at some level.

It was mountains of bombast and the tuperation piling on top of each other, making all manner of wild claims. The Chinese were

giving us billions. The Mexicans gave us 28,000 soldiers. In fact, the greatest orgy of government

spending in a four-year presidential term is the preface to a golden age of budget balance.

All of the things that he said taken together are a compilation of outright lies, dishonesty.

There's this real dissimetry between the jingoism of the crowd chanting USA

while he's defaming the country as a third world nation,

a country that stands ruined.

While at the same time, people from all over the world are trying to get in.

It's so fear-based.

And lastly, even 10 years ago, the speech, such as it was,

if you were just to evaluate it in English, you'd be like, that is incoherent. It's nonsensical. It's Borsch-belt insanity. What has happened? Is it a

political schick? Is it a performance theater? What is it? Because it's not coherent yet. You just saw someone win 15 out of

16 states and is on a record-breaking pace towards the Republican nomination. What you saw

tonight was world-class demagoguery. It's real. It's coming. And his opponent's party

doesn't have a real handle on what it is yet.

Steve, I-

245 days away. I want to pick up on what you just said, which is that the painting of this

country as being terrible. I want our audience

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