"The Republican Party is an authoritarian movement." With Stuart Stevens.
The Bill Press Pod
BP Pods
4.7 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2023
⏱️ 38 minutes
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Summary
Stuart Stevens spent 30 years helping to elect Republicans at all levels of government as a top political strategist. In 2012 he was Mitt Romney's top political advisor. He is now a senior advisor for the Lincoln Project, a pro-democracy group made-up of Republicans, and former Republicans trying to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. And rescue the GOP from itself.
In 2020, he wrote a book, It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump. His main thesis was not that Donald Trump hijacked the Republican Party, but the Republican Party was waiting for someone like him for nearly 70 years. He says the only way the MAGA Republicans are going to be stopped, is to beat them at the ballot box over and over. Stevens has a new book coming out in October, The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy. You can pre-order it here.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good day, good friends, and welcome back to the Bill Press Pod with a very special guest today, |
| 0:13.1 | one of the most outspoken and courageous voices in American politics. |
| 0:18.4 | You know, John F. Kennedy wrote a wonderful book called Profiles in Courage |
| 0:22.5 | about senators who defied their party in defense of basic American values. Well, I think somebody |
| 0:29.8 | today needs to write a new book called Profiles and Courage about Republicans who dared |
| 0:35.5 | stand up and defy their party surrender to Donald Trump, |
| 0:40.3 | those who still stand strong and speak out today against MAGA Republicans. |
| 0:46.1 | And the first chapter of that book should be devoted to Stuart Stevens. |
| 0:51.2 | A long time top Republican strategist and ad maker and chief political advisor to Mitt Romney's |
| 0:57.5 | 2012 campaign, Stevens was one of the very first to stand up and say, Donald Trump's not a real |
| 1:04.2 | Republican. He's not even a real conservative. That was in 2016. Stevens joined the Lincoln Project, founded in 2019, by a group of moderate |
| 1:14.7 | Republicans, most of them former Republican strategists like himself, to oppose Donald Trump's |
| 1:21.7 | re-election, and in 2020, he published a powerful indictment of the Maga Republican Party called It Was All a Lie. |
| 1:31.1 | Today, Stuart Stevens is more engaged than ever in efforts to block Donald Trump from getting |
| 1:37.0 | back in the White House and in getting the Republican Party back on track. |
| 1:43.1 | Stuart Stevens, so good to connect with you and welcome, welcome to the Bill Press pod. |
| 1:48.7 | Bill Press, thank you for inviting me. |
| 1:50.6 | First time caller, long time fan. |
| 1:53.8 | You're very good, thank you. |
| 1:55.1 | Now, we know congratulations. |
| 1:57.3 | You've got the new book coming out next month, Stuart. But I want to talk to your first |
| 2:03.9 | a little bit about your last book, 2020, and the book, It Was All a Lie, how the Republican Party |
... |
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