Political strategist Steve Schmidt is scorching President Donald Trump, contrasting him with President Barack Obama amid Thursday’s opening of the Obama Presidential Center.

“America has a dignity crisis, and it begins at the top,” Schmidt writes of Trump on his Substack, The Warning.

Schmidt calls Trump “an amalgam of vice piled so high it has become a mountain of degeneracy. He’s arrogant without accomplishment, ignorant without curiosity, cruel without purpose, corrupt without shame, erratic without discipline and emotional without restraint.”

He described Trump as someone who lacks self-control, emotional intelligence, and integrity — all while being a “chronic liar,” a “convicted felon,” and a “loser.”

“The greatest danger,” Schmidt explained, “is that millions looked at him and concluded he was worthy of the office Washington held, Lincoln ennobled and Roosevelt transformed into an engine of democratic purpose.”

But Thursday, on “Chicago’s South Side, beneath an American flag surrounded by living presidents from both political parties, something rare happened,” said Schmidt: “America remembered itself.”

He called the opening of the Obama Presidential Center “an act of national memory” and “a reminder that character once mattered, that dignity once occupied the center of American public life, and that there remains an American tradition worth defending.”

Schmidt praised former First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech as “the finest speech of the day because it was not fundamentally about politics” but “about character.”

“She spoke movingly of the love, support and shared journey that carried their family through extraordinary years of public life,” said Schmidt. “It was a tribute rooted not in power, but in decency.”

“Then,” Schmidt continued, “Barack Obama stood before the country and spoke of something that once seemed ordinary because it was: respect.”

Obama said that the exhibits in his presidential center “focus not just on policies, but on the shared values that make democracy possible, a belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people, and that no one is above the law or beneath its protection, a belief in checks and balances in our government and an accountability that comes with an independent judiciary and a robust, free press.”

Donald Trump, Schmidt said, by contrast, “stands outside that American circle.”

“He isn’t merely controversial. He’s profoundly un-American,” and “embodies precisely the type of man the founders feared — a man who mistakes appetite for strength, personal grievance for public purpose and power for virtue.”

But he also delivered a warning — and a roadmap.

“America’s revival will never begin with a stronger man,” Schmidt said. “It will begin with better citizens. It will begin when dignity is once again admired instead of mocked. It will begin when character once again outweighs celebrity. It will begin when Americans decide that virtue is not quaint — it is essential.”

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At the height of the chaos amid President Donald Trump’s rollout of his controversial “Liberation Day” tariffs last year, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick reportedly expressed concern.

The president attacked Lutnick directly, according to Politico, using a vulgar epithet that is slang for a woman’s genitalia.

Politico reports it obtained a copy of the upcoming book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

“I remember when you were thirty-five, you were a killer,” Trump said to Lutnick, according to the book, Politico reports. “And now, you’ve got your beautiful wife, and your big house, and you’re just soft. And you’re a p——. You know what you are? You’re a p——.”

Politico notes that once billions of dollars in tariffs started to roll in and the global financial crisis concerns subsided, Lutnick changed his tune.

The commerce secretary would later tell the president that he had become Trump’s “twenty-five-billion-dollar-a-month p——.”

The White House did not directly deny the report. Instead, it issued a statement saying, “The President has always sought the best and brightest individuals for his Administration, and Secretary Lutnick and President Trump continue to work closely together to deliver trillions of dollars in investments for the American people.”

The Commerce Department declined to respond to Politico’s request for comment.

President Trump has a history of using vulgar epithets, even in public — something most previous presidents have refrained from doing.

In February 2016, Trump used that same offensive slur at a campaign rally in New Hampshire.

Trump’s “reiteration of a vulgarity shouted by a female supporter in the Verizon Center… was likely the first time in American history that a major presidential candidate used a phrase widely considered obscene in a televised rally, let alone used the word to refer to his nearest competitor for public office,” The Guardian reported.

The woman in the audience had reportedly shouted that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Trump’s primary opponent, was a “p——.”

“You know what she just said?” Trump said. “Shout it out, because I don’t want to say it.”

“You’re not allowed to say that,” he continued. “I never expect to hear that from you again.”

Trump then told the audience, “She said he’s a p——.”

The Guardian called “the use of the phrase ‘p——’ on air and onstage” a “dramatic change.”

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Federal workers for the U.S. Department of the Interior are being directed to wear pins promoting the president’s public-private partnership created to celebrate America’s 250th birthday — instead of the congressionally mandated group that was created to organize the events.

According to Mother Jones, National Park Service employees have been ordered to wear the pins, under threat of “professional reprimands.”

“When I asked if I would receive any disciplinary action if I chose not to wear the pin, I was told, ‘Yes,’” one person told Mother Jones. “I chose not to continue the conversation after that.”

Mother Jones reports that the “establishment of Freedom 250 has allowed Trump to more easily plan events that double as campaign rallies, to privately raise funds from corporations seeking influence with the administration, and to avoid disclosing exactly how much all this is costing US taxpayers.”

“Consequently,” says Mother Jones, “NPS employees say that wearing Freedom 250 pins amounts to a partisan declaration, akin to donning a MAGA hat, or worse.”

Democrats have called the Trump-created Freedom 250 organization a dark money group, Mother Jones noted, warning that it has no congressional oversight and has been accused of being used to buy access to the president.

Trump has announced that Freedom 250’s July 4 celebration on the National Mall would feature a “Trump rally.” Sunday’s White House UFC cage fight, which also celebrated President Trump’s 80th birthday, was organized by the president’s Freedom 250 group.

In a February statement, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-CA) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Democrats “called out Republicans for allowing Trump to hijack America’s 250th Birthday celebration to sell access, hide his donors, and rewrite history — turning the country’s founding anniversary into a party exclusively for billionaires and a platform for Christian Nationalism.”

NBC News reports that the bipartisan America250 “is the nonprofit supporting the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which was established 10 years ago through an act of Congress and is led by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and private citizens,” while Freedom 250 “was established by the Trump administration as a public-private partnership by which to fund and plan events celebrating this summer’s historic anniversary.”

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance serve as chair and vice chair for the Freedom 250 group.

America250 lists its corporate sponsors while Freedom 250 only indicates certain “strategic partners.”

“Knowing the difference between the congressionally-mandated group and Trump/Project 2025’s personal, political grift-machine, the little lapel pin takes on the historical weight of a collaborator’s badge,” one NPS employee told Mother Jones. “Some within my division have taken to calling it the ‘Vichy Pin.’”

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