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Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal co-author, Tony Schwartz, warned that the president’s relentless deceitful attacks on the integrity of the 2020 elections and wanton spreading of conspiracy theories will have a dangerous, long-lasting impact on the nation’s democracy.

Speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night, Schwartz’s comments came on the heels of Trump’s latest iteration in what are now-daily baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and broadsides against state election officials who dare to acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden’s win.

“You have said before the president’s quote ‘loyalty’ is to his own survival,” Cooper noted. “How much do you believe his own survival is now tied to his grip on the Republican Party? I mean, does he need them for the next four years? They, I assume, think that they need his, not his largesse — his support certainly?”

“That’s clear,” Schwartz agreed. “The Republicans have decided that, and this is just another descent that we have watched over the past four years, speaking of shamelessness, where they have made the decision that it simply — to the degree that what they care about is their own survival, it won’t happen if they don’t go along with him.”

“That includes the willingness to let democracy go,” he added. “I don’t,

and I don’t think most people think, that this threat to democracy is somehow over the day Trump goes out of office. He has taught his children well, and they have recognized that they are no longer bound by the truth. And as I said probably to you multiple times before, it’s a huge advantage when you don’t have — when you don’t feel you have to tell the truth.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

Tags: 2020 Election, Anderson Cooper, democracy, Donald Trump, election integrity, lying, Republican Party, Tony Schwartz