‘Blood will be spilled’: Steve Schmidt explains Trump's plan to get re-elected in 2020

President Donald Trump's assassination of Iranian General Qassim Suleimani was driven by his personal political motives as he seeks re-election after being impeached by the House of Representatives, a long-time Republican strategist charged on Monday.

Steve Schmidt was interviewed about the precarious situation in the Middle East by MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace. The two were featured in the hit 2012 HBO movie "Game Change" about the 2008 presidential election, with Sarah Paulson portraying Wallace and Woody Harrelson playing Schmidt.

"We're in a dangerous hour in this country," Schmidt said. "This was a major escalation by President Trump."

"What's predictable -- looking at the Ukraine issue, every issue is he, over and over again acts in his own political interests," he explained.

"Looking at impeachment, what he did, for sure, is survey the situation and understood that with this action, with this strike, that he would create a giant smokescreen that clouds and distracts around the issue of impeachment," he suggested.

"This is a political act that has endangered the country," Schmidt charged.

"And the result of this is a more dangerous world where Americans will be killed that otherwise would not have been killed," he predicted.

Schmidt did not pull any punches.

"And the consequences will be felt for many, many years and so we've moved to the consequences stages having an inept, selfish, boorish, incompetent president of the United States and blood will be spilled, American blood, because of it," he said.

"I'm just going to let that sink in," Wallace said. "A terrifying thought."

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