working for and with Republicans.

And I'm curious, because I'm trying to look forward now,

the specifics of what happens tonight,

or tomorrow, in the next few days,

we can't say right now.

We think we know what's gonna happen.

But let's look farther forward.

What does the Republican Party do now?

Because there are a lot of people like myself,

I'll be honest with you,

I must have said this a million times,

I don't get as angry at Donald Trump

because I look at him as,

I think a lot of people would agree,

a malignant narcissist,

is the term which is used a lot.

He's someone who has a condition,

probably needs to be treated.

The people I reserve my true anger for

are the enablers within the Republican Party

who have just gone along

and they've all been in lockstep.

And I'm sort of a history buff.

I'm hard-pressed to think of another president

that had the total zombie-like control

of his party Totally agree.

like Donald Trump.

No one breaks ranks.

They're all terrified of him.

So what happens?

How does the Republican Party move forward from this point?

Or do they not?

Is it going to be still Trump's party?

Look, this is my private pain, usually.

I mean, this party that justifiably gave the Bush family,

and you and I have talked about this before,

who I worked for, such a hard time.

Never hesitated to criticize them,

and that was healthy.

I'm not complaining about that.

I'm just saying I know the Republican Party

is capable of saying screw you

to a Republican president 'cause I saw it.

To see them be so subservient in the face of a man

who doesn't believe in anything they believe in.

And you can argue that the base of the party's

more where Trump is on foreign policy and trade.

That might be true.

But the Republican elected officials are not.

They believe the stuff that former Republicans

and former Republican nominees used to believe in.

So to have sort of capitulated on their own ideology,

and then to have capitulated on their own souls,

is, to me, the most dangerous dynamic

in the era of Trump.

Because what's happening right now

is that people around Trump

are saying it's over.

It's not clear to me that anyone has walked in

and told him that.

He may have figured it out 'cause he watches...

He's an incessant consumer of cable news.

And I think even on Fox News,

while some of the folks in the evenings,

they're cheering these really sort of illogical

and non-evened formed law suits.

I mean in one state they want the vote to keep going.

In another, they want it to stop.

In another, they want ballots stuck and not.

I mean, you know, they don't want one thing

across the country.

So the fact that so many people allow him

to really desecrate the presidency

is, to me, the irreparable piece of his tenure,

which looks like it'll only be four years.

But I don't think there is something on the other side.

It's, you know, how do you build that back?

If you're subservient--

You mean not something on the other side

for the Republicans?

Because that's my curiosity--

For these Republicans.

Right.

If you're, and I have friends,

people I went to college with

who we didn't agree on...

They're smart, they're very intelligent, well-read people

who really love their country.

Who, we didn't always see eye to eye

because they would vote Republican,

I would vote Democrat.

But we would have long conversations

and we shared a lot of values.

And now I think we've gotten to the point

where those people, those friends of mine,

have wanted no part of Trump or Trumpism.

So you wonder, how does the Republican Party,

how does it encapsulate,

of how can it be big enough, a big tent,

that holds reasonable people,

and people that believe in their hearts

that Joe Biden is a pedophile

and drinks the blood of children in Satanic rituals?

How do you do that?

I don't know that there's a party there.

Well, look, that's a QAnon conspiracy.

I didn't know what QAnon was until very recently.

I missed pronounced them.

I saw them on my teleprompter and called them like Quay-non.

Qua-non. (laughing)

Like Quaalude.

Look, I don't think...

It's oil and water, right?

QAnon is a toxin, and I don't think you can say

like, oh, I'll just swim with them.

So it is, they are mutually exclusive.

And what the party has become

doesn't have room for reasonable people.

I think the smart line of questioning that you're pursuing

is at this point, unknowable.

Because I think that winning campaigns

always over read their mandate.

And Senate Republicans will think they won this

because they didn't lose as many seats as they thought.

And even if Donald Trump is rejected,

I think they will misread what might've been

a lot of anxiety about shutdowns

and about maybe over...

I think Republicans have been conditioned to believe

that shutdowns and lock downs

and public health safety measures

are against the interest of our economic security.

And I think that is not what Joe Biden

has been saying,

but I think that's where that sort of toxic mix

of disinformation and misinformation

and painting all Democrats as Socialists

will make it difficult for him to lead the whole country.

Because I think half the country truly thinks

he want to shut people down and leave them in their homes.

That is not even the public health approach.

But I think that until you have a party

that understands that that dynamic,

worried about the economy, worried about the shutdowns,

had more to do with Republicans looking healthier

on Tuesday night in some of these Senate races

than even a lot of Republicans thought they might,

than any sort of mandate for Trump or Trumpism

or what they are doing.

I think they will continue down this path.

And I think flirting with QAnon

and playing footsie with white supremacists

is a dead end road.

It's a cul-de-sac.

There is no what's the GOP on the other side?

It has to, you know, sort of collapse,

and it might in the next cycle,

the cycle after that.

And then, you know, maybe something thoughtful

comes up on the other side.

Maybe it doesn't.

Maybe we have this sort of corrupt path

of the political, you know, machinery,

and maybe that's what Democrats have to figure out

how to contend with.

I don't see clearly what the future is

for the two party system.