President Trump's impact on the Republican Party will be studied for decades to come. History will look not only at who joined the GOP in the Trump era, but also who left it. Steve Schmidt is among the latter. For decades a communications strategist working for President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, Schmidt now denounces the party he once loved. He's a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, a political action committee formed in 2019 by a group of Republicans determined to defeat Trump in the 2020 election. He joins Michel Martin to explain what's next for the project and for the Party -- and to discuss the struggle to preserve American democracy.

Originally aired on December 8, 2020.

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Amanpour and Company features wide-ranging, in-depth conversations with global thought leaders and cultural influencers on the issues and trends impacting the world each day, from politics, business and technology to arts, science and sports. Christiane Amanpour leads the conversation on global and domestic news from London with contributions by prominent journalists Walter Isaacson, Michel Martin, Alicia Menendez and Hari Sreenivasan from the Tisch WNET Studios at Lincoln Center in New York City.

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