Republican strategist and campaign veteran Steve Schmidt, who two days before the 2016 U.S. presidential election told then-candidate Donald Trump to prepare a concession speech, said Monday night that the move of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem is an attempt to "stave off a disastrous midterm election" through incitement of his base.



Schmidt called Trump ignorant and said, "there will be blood on his hands" for destabilizing the Middle East.



From MSNBC's All In with host Chris Hayes:













STEVE SCHMIDT: Everything we will do from now until the midterms to stave off a disastrous midterm election defeat is try to intensify support in his base through policies of incitement.



This is not about making the Middle East more secure. It's not about making the United States more secure. It's not about making sure that we don't have yet another generation of American kids in Middle Eastern wars. It's all about Donald Trump being able to score a point, ephemeral as it may be in the news cycle and to position himself for the midterm elections.



It's clear as day that he has no sense of history. He's completely ignorant of the religions in the region. Do you think he could tell you the origins of the Sunni-Shia schism? I suspect not. He knows nothing about anything. He's bumbling around and he destabilized with this rash move the Middle East and as I said when he announced the move to the embassy there will be blood on his hands not because he pulled the trigger but because he destabilized the region without having any clue about what he was doing and that goes for Jared Kushner as well.