I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from I Heart Radio.

In February 2020, none other than Bill Crystal tweeted, we are all Democrats now.

From one of the nation's leading conservatives, it was yet another sign of the chasm between

moderate Republicans and Trump loyalists.

Crystal earned his political stripes, serving in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

Then as founder and editor of the Weekly Standard for more than two decades, he argued for

hawkish foreign policy, lower taxes, and against universal health care.

After the January 6th insurrection, Crystal says our democracy is facing an internal crisis.

It's all enough to make him regret Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss.

We would be much better off, but just reckless disregard for science and denial of truth and

demagoguery of Trump.

That's unmatched to my view, really by a major party nominee of either party in modern times.

And bad enough that you got the nomination, I thought that would do real damage to the country.

But then winning the election in 2016, which obviously that damage is by no means over or

even beginning to be over, I think, the degree to which having a really reckless demagoguery

is authoritarian demagoguery president for four years, that takes a while to recover

from.

You know, New Yorkers always knew Trump.

Yes.

Trump was a vacuous, I mean, vapid non-entity in New York.

And people wouldn't do business with him.

Well, I mean, I think in New York society, which I don't put myself in New York society,

...