I'm David Plough and I'm Steve Schmitt and this is Battleground, the podcast from the recount and I heart radio.

So Steve the sadness, the anger, the disbelief, I know I feel it, my family feels it.

I think literally billions of people around the world probably feel it.

What's that been like for you?

I mean how do you compare this to other moments that you've either witnessed or an American history

in terms of its impact on you?

I, the saddest day of my life, right, from an event that wasn't inside of my family was the Newtown Massacre.

And so incomprehensibly sad after it.

I know the President Obama felt the same way, I know you felt the same way about that.

I haven't felt so sad about anything since that day is watching that, watching the Capitol building of the United States.

Falling with hordes, with mobs waving, nagging flags, storming it, vandalizing it, looting the offices.

It's an attack on the people, the people of the United States, it's our house, government of the people by the people for the people and when it was done and it was over, you saw it seven United States senators and more than half the Republican conference led by its own a critic leader Kevin McCarty vote to desertify the election and throw out in essence millions and millions of black votes.

So the person who lost the election could remain in power, I suppose, in perpetuity or until his ego was sated.

So we're just at a very, very dangerous moment, but we've talked about this for many, many, many months now and I think this was hardly unpredictable.

The investigation about what happened, how the Capitol fell, how it was breached, the evident double standards and hypocrisies that bring up issues of racial justice into this debate, what would have happened if that was 5,000 Black Lives Matter protesters and we both know the answer to that.

Hundreds of deaths, you know that hundreds of deaths.

Hundreds of deaths and we as a country and a lot of trouble were in a very dangerous moment in the history of our country with someone who is delusional and stable and fit your remains in command of the world's most powerful nuclear weapons arsenal of this hour.

Well, Stephen, I couldn't think about anybody better to talk to this week than presidential historian Michael Bacheloss, who will hopefully help us put some of these last few days into perspective.

But before we get into it with Michael, I'm not sure I personally yet have come the grips with the significance of what happened this week, but as I wrestle with it, Steve, the one thing I am really disturbed about we're talking on Friday, Lindsey Graham and some members of the House Republicans now are saying we just got to kind of move on here.

We want to unify the country. Joe Biden's got to tell all the Democrats to stand down.

And my view is if next month, next year, next decade, we're still not focused on Trump's role in this, Mark Meadows role in this Josh Holley's role in this Ted Cruz's role in this Kevin McCarthy's role in this we failed as a country.

The other thing that Steve that strikes me is if it hadn't been for the violence, this would have kind of gone where most folks are saying, well, the Republicans are just doing their thing and they're kind of coutowing a Trump and yeah, a bunch of them did vote to, you know, overturn the election, but they're, you know, ha ha ha.

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