Former Republican insider Steve Schmidt argued on Wednesday that President Donald Trump's biggest fear is someone who tries to hold him accountable — like CNN's Kaitlan Collins.
In his podcast and video series "The Warning," the co-founder of the anti-Trump organization, The Lincoln Project, compared Trump's "Trojan horse" move in Turkey, where he left journalists and his own aides as "bait on the chum plane" under a credible threat, to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II. He juxtaposed this with the moment FDR learned that a torpedo was fired at the USS Iowa, where he rushed to the rail to see it coming towards the ship.
"When he was aboard a presidential aircraft flying with Dwight Eisenhower sitting next to him shortly after giving him command of the D-Day operation with the hydraulics out on the airplane, FDR lit a cigarette, threw his head back and laughed at all of it," Schmidt said, citing a book from Rick Atkinson that describes the incident.
"He says we'll see how good those Army Air Corps pilots are and has a big laugh," Schmidt said. "That's what courage under fire looks like. That's what cool under fire looks like. But this man, intimidated by Kaitlan Collins, is no FDR. He's no Eisenhower. He's the weakest American president in history, with a yellow stain as wide as his ankles running down the middle of his back. This is a fearful man, and you see it all the time."
As Trump made his way off Air Force One with a catering cart, it revealed more about him "as an obese American fascist," Schmidt explained. And his reaction after the reports surfaced was telling.
"Look at this decaying geriatric sloth trying to make it up these stairs," Schmidt said. "Look at him coming down. Look at the bruising on his hand, the skin color, the preposterous wig. Decrepitude and decay etched all over his body and face. And we, the people, are his prisoners in a dungeon of rot and American decay."
"With Pete Hegseth and little Marco as bait and Donald Trump safe on his way back to the loving arms of Melania," Schmidt added, mocking Trump. "What a sick and demeaning moment, perhaps in all the history of the country, the lowest in the history of the degraded American presidency."