Lincoln Project's Steve Schmidt: Capitol riot worse than 9/11 attacks, 'likely to kill a lot more Americans'

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Media top headlines July 8

CNN scolding critics of critical race theory, Parler cheering on Trump's lawsuit against Big Tech, and the Washington Post giving the White House 'Three Pinnochios' for claim Republicans want to defund the police round out today's top media headlines

Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt agreed with fellow disgruntled ex-Republican Matthew Dowd Wednesday that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was worse than the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed thousands of Americans and launched multiple wars.

Schmidt, a Republican-turned-Independent-turned-Democrat, echoed Dowd's brazen remarks this week that the riot was worse because it "continued to rip our country apart."

"He couldn't be more right," Schmidt said at a town hall for the Lincoln Project. "The 1/6 attack for the future of the country was a profoundly more dangerous event than the 9/11 attacks. And in the end, the 1/6 attacks are likely to kill a lot more Americans than were killed in the 9/11 attacks, which will include the casualties of the wars that lasted 20 years following.

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"We have had … political violence in this country, and I believe we're on the edge of another one, tragically. And we have to fight back against it at the ballot box."

Dowd's remarks drew derision this week for seemingly downplaying the horrific 9/11 attacks, where the loss of life marked the worst-ever foreign attack on U.S. soil. This week marked six months since the riot, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building during certification proceedings for President Biden's election victory.

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Schmidt has resumed a public role with the left-wing, anti-Trump Lincoln Project, a media favorite in 2020 that was beset by a series of humiliating scandals in 2021. He stepped down from the board of the group in February after a series of reports that he and others covered up sexual harassment allegations against co-founder John Weaver, engaged in self-dealing and other financial chicanery with liberal donor money, led a homophobic and toxic work environment, and ordered the release of co-founder Jennifer Horn's private messages with a reporter as she left the organization.

Schmidt was also derided for saying in February he would not open the Lincoln Project's financial books for audit until the Trump campaign and its affiliated super PACs did the same.

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Schmidt is well-known for his thundering, fearmongering style, at one point calling the Russia-Trump collusion narrative perhaps the "greatest crime in American history." His theatrics earned him an MSNBC contributor gig at one time. Schmidt was memorably banned from attending Sen. John McCain's funeral in 2018 after, as one McCain confidante put it, he "stabbed him in the back" during his role in the ill-fated 2008 presidential campaign.