Stuart Stevens on the Republican Party: “It Was All a Lie”

STUART STEVENS, FORMER REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, first, it’s great to be here. Thank you. I believe that the Republican Party was based on a series of principles. You could disagree about this issue or that issue. So, what were those principles? Character counts, personal responsibility, strong on Russia, the deficit matters, fiscal sanity, pro legal immigration. Ronald Reagan announced in front of the Statue of Liberty, signed legislation that made everyone in the country for 1983 legal. But now, with Donald Trump, it’s not that we have drifted away from those, it’s that we’re against all of them, where the character doesn’t count. The anti-free trade party, where Putin’s (INAUDIBLE). And I just don’t think that people change deeply held beliefs in a matter of a few years. I think the only answer is that they weren’t deeply held.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Which is the lie, Stuart, and where do you think your responsibility in that comes? Because I described it as a bit of a mea culpa, your book, because I think you’re coming out to speak because you feel implicated, as well.

STEVENS: I do. I wanted to write a book that wasn’t blaming them, but really looked at my own involvement. If I believed and was drawn to the Republican Party on a principle of personal responsibility, it seems the logical place to start to restore that is to be personally responsible. You know, I think, in many ways, I represented the worst of the American political system. I cared about campaigns. I cared about winning. I didn’t care about the results of that. Now, that was my job. I wasn’t a policy guy. I didn’t go into government. But still I think I should have thought more about it. The interesting thing that just really strikes me here is, it’s a collective failure of the Republican Party, not to stand up to President Trump and to allow the party to become comfortable with a white grievance mentality or sensibility, that now epitomizes Donald Trump and the Republican Party.