STEVE SCHMIDT: Our country is resilient and our institutions are strong, but we should make no mistake that Donald Trump is not just degrading his office with his lack of rectitude and probity, his attacks on the widow of a fallen Green Beret, gold star parents and a hundred other examples.

When we stand, maybe, at the precipice of a moment where a Fox News demand can find its way to the appointment of a special counsel to investigate a conspiracy theory, where it becomes commonplace maybe in this country, to investigate your defeated political opponent, it's a giant leap forward towards banana republicanism. It is dangerous.

When you hear his assaults on the concepts of the freedom of the press, the First Amendment, when you see Nazis marching in Charlottesville and he talks about the “good people” among them -- all of these things are not normal. They're not healthy. And lastly, there's no democracy anywhere where you see the level of lying like you see out of this administration.

Previously:

How Steve Bannon and Sean Hannity's ginned-up Hillary Clinton uranium story became a congressional investigation

White nationalists cheer Trump for assigning blame to “both sides” for Charlottesville violence

Fox & Friends: All the bad reports on Trump's interactions with Gold Star families are just spin