The twist to this story is that Steve Schmidt is the one of the founders the Words Matter podcast, so he walked off his OWN PODCAST.
What a lame ass punk:
Anti-Trump strategist and pundit Steve Schmidt is feeling the heat from all sides since his client, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, announced on 60 Minutes that he might run for president as an independent. The reaction from Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans was overwhelmingly negative, putting Schmidt on the defensive and costing him his MSNBC punditry perch as long as he is advising Schultz on entering the race in 2020.
Anybody who has watched Schmidt on MSNBC, or saw the portrayal of him in the 2012 HBO movie Game Change, knows that he operates on a pretty short fuse. Just how short, his two longtime friends and podcast partners, Adam Levine and Elise Jordan, found out when they sat down last Tuesday to interview him on their show Words Matter about Schultz’ just announced potential presidential bid and Schmidt’s role as the chief adviser to the Starbucks founder in it.
Jordan, an alum of the George W. Bush White House and the Rand Paul presidential campaign, outlined the ground rules that everything would be on the record, and that Schmidt would be treated no differently than any other guest even though he was a founder of Words Matter, along with Jordan and Levine, another Bush veteran and media pro who’d worked with NBC superstar Tim Russert. Things were tense. Schmidt had said that he wouldn’t be involved in any presidential campaign, but that he would be leading a 501c4 dedicated to building a third party movement funded by Schultz, “movement” being the key word in their mind. He gave no heads-up to Jordan and Levine about Schultz’s announcement.
Schmidt railed at having to defend himself on his podcast with a stream of curses a source present in the studio said consumed six minutes. Told that listeners were castigating him for joining an effort that could help re-elect President Trump and that he owed them answers, Schmidt finally settled down enough to take about 30 minutes to answer questions from Jordan, normally his co-host, and Levine, the executive producer.
………
That prompts Levine to ask the question that evidently hits a nerve. “Will Derek Jeter or another athlete not hit another home run because they’re going to get taxed at 70? What’s the economic behavior that he thinks is anti-growth, other than his own pocket?”
“This is bullshit,” Schmidt exclaims. “I’m not doing this.”
“Steve, you’ve got to answer the questions,” Levine says.
“I’m not,” and with that Schmidt slams down his headset and abruptly ends the interview. He threatened legal action against the studio if the interview airs, according to a source involved in the discussion. When his legal threat failed, he offered to buy the recording, according to the source. The studio refused.
This man is a candy-ass pissant, but he gave us Sarah Palin, so this is no surprise.