BRIAN WILLIAMS (HOST): Steve, how corrosive is this both to your mood, to the party you were discussing when last we spoke to you, and to this just event-cum-spectacle? 

STEVE SCHMIDT: Look, the Republican Party's the third oldest political party in the world. It's one of this country's great institutions. It's one of globe's great institutions. It's devastating to the Republican Party, but this is corrosive to our civics. It's corrosive to our country. What we're going to see tonight is a disgrace, simple as that. If you're a parent who cares about civics, and you want to have informed children, you have a 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old, ideally, you would like them to be able to watch a presidential debate. You'd be advised as a parent to send the kids to the bedroom and turn the TVs off tonight, and that's saying something rather sad. 

I think also, Brian, what this exposes is a massive hypocrisy inside the Republican Party. Think about people like Jerry Falwell Jr. People who claim to be religious or evangelical leaders in the country who are apologists for this behavior. In this fusion of religion to political conservatism is a toxic element in our politics, and I think this hypocrisy is on display for all to see. I think Mike Pence, who is a very conservative former member of Congress, very conservative governor, but I think a good and decent man, and I think sincerely, espouses his beliefs when he says I'm a Christian, I'm a conservative, and I'm a Republican in that order. Well if that's true, how does Mike Pence stay on this ticket? Unless, that's the middle of the lineup, a career politician proceeds at all. 

So in the next days, Republicans who in their heart, believe that this is wrong, believe he is unfit, but have taken the route of saying look, he's a misogynist, and he's said racist things, and I don't think he's fit for the nuclear weapons -- nuclear football that the military aides carry behind the president, but I support the nominee of their party. I think they're fundamentally out of runway on this. And so what we're going to see here for 90 minutes later tonight is unlike anything that's ever been seen on a debate stage in a presidential election. And you just have to think back to Benjamin Franklin's answer to the woman who asked Dr. Franklin, what have you given us after the constitutional convention, and he said, “a republic, if you can keep it.” In the degradation of our civic life that comes from this campaign, I think it would make the founders roll over in their graves. 

Previously:

NBC's Steve Schmidt Excoriates GOP's “Intellectual Rot” For Empowering Donald Trump

The Reckoning Arrives For Trump, Fox News, And The GOP

Fox's Stirewalt: “Republicans Bought” Trump. “They're Going To Ride It All The Way Down”