On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s Deadline, Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign manager, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was “literally the only serious national leader the country has.”

Schmidt said, “It was a really remarkable moment by Nancy Pelosi. And you look at the constellation of our national leadership. I think she’s proven over this period of the Trump era she’s literally the only serious national leader the country has.”

He continued, “And I disagree with her on many, many issues, but her understanding that she’s duty-bound here, constitutionally obligated to prosecute this matter because the president is so far above the line on this issue of high crimes and misdemeanors.”

He added, “If withholding aid from an ally who is in a war with the Russians to get dirt on your political opponent, to launch a criminal investigation against the U.S. citizen if that doesn’t meet the threshold, the question I would have is what conceivably could? And so we are about to go through a tumultuous period in this country. It’s not been brought about by the Democrats. It’s been brought about by the conspiracy, by the illegal conduct of this president. And so the bill is coming due for the election of Donald Trump. Winston Churchill once observed in a democracy, we get the government we deserve. And so Donald Trump was lawfully elected president. We’ve had years of chaos now. Now we are going to see a testing of our system. And we are going to see the wholesale corruption of the party that we served for a long time on full display as they gas-light the American people, as they lie to the American people, as they engage in the cover-up of this conduct.”

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