Longtime political strategist Steve Schmidt scorched President Donald Trump over his explosive “Meet the Press” interview, warning that “deranged” Trump is a “degenerate” who is “in a state of decomposition and collapse.”

Schmidt, the co-founder of The Lincoln Project and a veteran Republican campaign operative who became a Democrat in 2020, pounded the president Monday during his podcast, “The Warning.”

He described Trump’s behavior during that NBC interview as “evidence of the sickness that descended over our land in these awful MAGA years.” He called it “not just important, but essential,” that America’s citizens see Trump’s performance, “and comprehend that the commander in chief, who holds in his hands the launch codes to thousands of nuclear weapons, is emotionally, psychologically, incontinent.”

Trump is a “bully and an old man decomposing who can barely stand up under the weight of his own power at the end of it,” Schmidt said. The president appeared to be struggling to stand and walk away after he abruptly canceled the remainder of his interview with NBC moderator Kristen Welker.

He is, Schmidt charged, a man who “lives in a gilded cocoon of fantasy and delusion, where no one ever tells him no.”

Schmidt said Trump’s interview “should frighten,” and “scare the s—— out of you,” and warned that he is obviously “unwell,” and a “sick, paranoid person.”

He also called Trump’s attacks on the credibility of America’s elections, “the greatest lie ever told in the history of the United States, over 250 years.” And he declared that “our elections are clean, and fair, and legitimate, and had been the envy of the world until Donald Trump came along.”

“What Donald Trump has proposed is that he will rule despite our approval, no matter what,” observed Schmidt. “And if ever there’s an election where the other side gets more votes than his side, it’s crooked. It’s stolen. And under this great and titanic lie, Donald Trump has injected a cancer into the American Republic.”

Warning that under Trump, times will get tougher, Schmidt said, “Because of that simple fact, this evil man that sits in the Oval Office is losing his popularity while maintaining his power. And thus, until that moment comes, when he no longer holds it, we, every one of us, eight billion people on Earth, will be in danger.”

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Responding to anger and outrage from Latter-day Saint leaders, veterans and elected officials, the Department of Defense backtracked on a new list of religious designations that cut the military’s recognized faiths by 180 religions — from 211 to just 31 — and stripped the “Christian” label from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The list, released on Friday, identified the 31 religions, citing 21 as Christian.

That list drew anger over the weekend from Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee, who said: “As of two days ago, the Pentagon recognizes every Christian faith in America as Christian.” He added: “Except one,” and said, “That’s not okay, and it needs to change—now.”

In a video, as CNN reported, Lee continued by saying: “I think it’s very unfortunate that the Pentagon has chosen to identify basically every faith group in America that professes faith in Jesus Christ as Christian with one exception: that is those belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

Lee called it “offensive, not just because that happens to be my faith and not just because it happens to be the faith of tens of thousands of US military personnel, but it’s also just repugnant to any sense of decency, any sense of our common heritage and our common belief that the government needs to not weigh in on doctrinal disputes between various religious denominations.”

Also over the weekend, Lee said he had called President Trump over the Pentagon’s list.

Just past noon on Monday, the Defense Department’s Rapid Response social media account on X posted a new, updated list, which removes the Christian category.

Defending the Pentagon, the post claimed that the “goal of this effort is to simplify a previously out-of-control ‘belief’ coding system that had ballooned to over 200 codes.”

“The Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates,” it declared, “but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks.”

Other congressional members of the LDS Church had “previously bashed the first list,” The Hill reported.

“The Pentagon’s decision to list The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apart from other Christian faiths is wrong and needs to be corrected,” U.S. Rep. Mike Kennedy (R-UT) wrote on X on Sunday.

Some remain dissatisfied.

“This list is still a problem,” wrote Hemant Mehta, who pens the Friendly Atheist on Substack. “It separates non-denominational Christians from evangelicals. It lumps together atheists and ‘Nones’ who believe in a higher power. It combines a bunch of smaller religions into ‘Other.’ The 2017 list was better. This is just ignorant.”

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Conservative columnist Bill Kristol wants the Senate confirmation of Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s stated nominee for U.S. attorney general, to become a referendum on the administration’s handling of the Epstein files — tying Blanche directly to the “coverup” he says Trump rewarded him for managing.

Writing at The Bulwark, Kristol calls Blanche “the prime orchestrator and key executor of the Trump administration’s Jeffrey Epstein coverup.” He argues that the senators’ vote on Blanche “should become” a vote on Epstein, and sees the confirmation process as “a chance to force a real public debate, with real Senate votes, on the Epstein coverup.”

Kristol points to Bondi’s testimony that Blanche “was leading the Epstein matter and the release of everything from the beginning” and supervised the “entire process” of how the files were handled.

He also calls Blanche “the most visible public defender of the coverup, and of the decision not to investigate or prosecute anyone else for crimes.”

Blanche has worked to bury the Epstein files, Kristol argues. While still deputy attorney general, he told Fox News, “And so I think that to the extent that the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward.”

Kristol says the “Epstein coverup should be part, a key part, of one thing going forward: It should be a key part of the upcoming debate on Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general. The Blanche confirmation fight can bring the Epstein coverup back into the spotlight this summer.”

In February, when Blanche was asked by Fox News’ Laura Ingraham whether there was “any chance that any of these individuals who partied with Epstein and engaged in relations with minors” would be prosecuted, Blanche responded, “I’ll never say no, and we will always investigate any evidence of misconduct, but as you know, it is not a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.”

“And some of these men may have done horrible things, and if we have evidence that allows us to prosecute them, you better believe we will,” Blanche continued. “But it’s also the kind of thing that the American people need to understand that it isn’t a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.”

Kristol latches on to that remark and repeats it, before writing that the DOJ “could now be following up on the testimony of scores of survivors to finally, properly investigate those crimes and their perpetrators. But Blanche’s Justice Department hasn’t even pretended to be seeking further evidence.”

He accuses Blanche’s DOJ of having “no interest at all in investigating or prosecuting the men who have done truly horrible things. After all, ‘it isn’t a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.'”

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