Michael Steele: Gum Up the Works

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
I'm delighted to be here with the former chair of the Republican National Committee. He's host of the Michael Steele podcast distributed right here by the Bulwark.
He's co-host of The Weeknd on MSNBC. He was Lieutenant Governor of Maryland.
It's Michael Steele. How you doing, Chairman? I'm good, baby boy.
How you What are you doing, man?

Well, I mean- I mean... of the weekend on MSNBC.
He was Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. It's Michael Steele.
How you doing, Chairman? I'm good, baby boy. How you doing, man?

Well, I mean, time is a flat circle. It's either on Monday's show or Tuesday's show,

I was like, this has been the longest three weeks of my life. And then I was like, wait a minute,

it's only been two weeks, actually. So, you know, I'm here.
I'm alive. And that's about all we can

ask for right now, right? How you doing? It sucks real hard right now. I'm alive.
And that's about all we can ask for right now. Right.
How are you doing?

It sucks real hard right now. I'm at a point where I'm frustrated and angry at the same time with the way storylines have played out with no response.
And it is galling and mind numbingly stupid to me that we see the arrogance and disregard of this administration, the leveling up of the menagerie of misfits to be secretaries of fill-in-the-blank and directors of national intelligence. And there doesn't seem to be a counter narrative, let alone counter efforts to expose this bullshit for what it is.
And it's frustrating because I feel like, you know, folks like you, myself and others are out here clang the bell, the warning bell saying, guys, don't do this. Trust me.
It's not the price of eggs. Okay.
I hear you, but it's not the price of eggs. That's the least of your problems.
And here we are now. And then seeing people all of a sudden now, do I have a job? How can he do this? Where does he get the, bitch, please.
We told you you we told you this shit was coming we told we told you what project 2025 was so for me right now tim it's just i'm very frustrated with the way the story in in the last 18 or so days has kind of unfolded and the reaction to it more than anything else. All right.
Well, I was going to get into that at the end, but let's just do this right off the top. We'll get to the news next.
You know, because you had a kind of a viral little exchange with our friend Joe Scarborough a couple weeks ago. I don't want to be rude.
I understand the instinct of some folks, right, in the post after, well, you and I i weren't shocked but after the shock that some people went through of trump winning right that to be like we need to reassess like maybe what we were doing before wasn't right right like maybe there needs to be more accommodation right like it's not that i don't get that instinct like i get it i just think that it's wrong. Right.
And it fundamentally misunderstands why Trump won

and why Democrats

won. Like, it's not that I don't get that instinct.
Like, I get it. I just think that it's wrong.
Right. And it fundamentally misunderstands why Trump won and why Democrats failed.
And I think that the moment right now, which I think people are coming around to once they start seeing the reality of all this, is calling for going to the mattresses opposition, doing everything possible to try to, you know, put gunk in the spokes of their tires right to do anything to slow these guys down and create a a narrative about how this is going to be a disastrous failed presidency that we that need to be avoided right and like that is the only actually job for people that are opposed to Trump, whether you're on the left or the pro-democracy right or whatever. Like, that's the job in my view.
And not everybody's come around to that yet. I guess you and Joe had a little disagreement on that point.
Yeah, look, I'm all about grace and all of that stuff. But I know the thing that's in front of me.
I know what it is. It has exposed itself time and time again.
It tells me over and over again what it is. There is no redemptive feature here.
There is no, oh, gee, gosh, I'm sorry. I should be that kind of president as opposed to this kind of president that I am.
I should actually not look to blow up the federal government. But as true conservatives has always argued, let's look at how we can make it function better and not overreach, right? And that's not what this has ever been about.
It has never been about that, and there are a lot of people who know that now, knew that then, and for me, I just can't go down this merry lane that, oh, now let's just try to understand and be nice when that's not what this bitch is about, and as I said about Hakeem Jeffries, that's my boy, you know, I'll roll with Hakeem. I appreciate his leadership, but I'm sorry, when you're handing over the gavel, you don't look at the thing in front of you that tried to overturn the last election and was in the back room fomenting insurrection and say, we're going to now lay down our swords and pick up our bipartisan plowshares.
He's going to take that plowshares and shove it up your ass because that's what they're about. And I wish the hell people would get that shit in their head and understand this thing is not democracy.
This thing is not democratic, small d. This thing is not the expression of what the founders wanted.
In fact, this thing is what our founders warned us against. And I just, in this moment, am fed up with everybody's bullshit, excuse making, cry babying, wringing of their hands, and not understanding, use the damn system against them.
I don't know why the hell Chuck Schumer is the minority leader in the Senate. He shouldn't be because he's gotten punked every which way from Sunday by the Republicans.

You think you're going to get something different in this iteration? John Thune is not Mitch McConnell in many respects, but John Thune is going to do what what? What John Thune wants to do or what Donald Trump wants him to do. Tim, I don't understand why folks continue to pretend that if I say it nicer and if I go visit him and if I plead or cajole or pretend with him that somehow Donald Trump is going to turn around and go, you know, I appreciate that.
So let me play nice with you.

Yeah, I think part of it is fear.

Some people are afraid, right?

Of what? They figure if they do that.

Of him.

Right, of him.

And what they could do.

And they're like, okay, well, if I soften the edges of my attacks here,

maybe they won't come after me.

I'm not telling you.

I'm just trying to explain their thinking, man.

That's not me.

You're as confused as I am. All all right i think that's some of it i think some of it is like trump does back down every once in a while so they're like why not try to get mine on my one little thing those are all considerations but i i'm hoping the thing is changing there's one piece of evidence of this on your on your boy hakeem there were some initial rumblings in the start here that like the move was, okay, you know, hey, we're not going to bail them out.
But if they want to come to us with a deal, and it's like some border funding in California, and then, you know, we keep the government open, we raise the debt ceiling, like we'll be responsible stewards. And we'll, you know, we'll get a few things, we'll get a few pounds of flesh out of them get a few you know little pieces of silver and we'll cut a deal that's what the reporters are saying and i'm going what in the fuck are you talking about like what are you talking like there's no deal there's no deal like make them do it make them govern.
There's no deal to be made.

They're shutting down parts of the government illegally right now and blocking payments to Lutheran services. And you're like, I'm going to work with them on a border security plus fire relief deal? No, F that.
And we're starting to see the tone change on that from the Democrats. news out this morning that the

Kash Patel hearing is being delayed because

of new information that's been coming out about the ways they're

trying to weaponize the FBI.

So maybe they're starting to get it a little bit, Michael. I don't know.
I don't know. You know, I live in the world, Tim.
My political experience that I learned many years ago from the likes of Marion Barry and Joey Eldale and others here growing up

in Washington, D.C. is words are meaningless.
Dude, show me what you got. Show me what you got.
You know, because I can tell you anything, but if I'm going to smack you upside the head after the conversation, that tells me everything. Right.
So I hear the, you know, maybe we can do this or do that. Just do it.
Don't don't telegraph it. Don't talk about it.
Just do it. Look, Tim, this is where I come from.
For 18 months, Joe Manchin tied up the Biden administration over the filibuster and a whole host of other bullshit.

Wouldn't let this bill go through. Held up that.

Tommy Tuberville, perhaps the dumbest member of the United States Senate, held up over 200 DOD appointments.

Generals, people we needed out in the field for how long? By himself, by himself. And we got Democrats sitting here trying to figure out, oh, gee, I don't know what we can do to stop Kash Patel or Tulsi Gabbard's appointment.
Yes, you do. So don't talk to me about how bad it is.
We know how bad it is. Damn it.
Do something. Even if you slow the roll at the end, outcome is, yes, they get through.
At least you slow the roll of the process and you let them put down the marker that this appointment is an abomination. It is bad for the country.

We know what Kash Patel is going to do with the FBI.

Why do we know that?

Because he told us, not once, but over a 10-year period.

I mean, Trump is the king of delay.

It's the same thing.

I said it was the longest two weeks ever,

but there's only 102 weeks left

until they could actually take over the speakership and get some power. He's not counting.
He's not counting. I'm just saying that Kash Patel can do a lot less damage in 96 weeks than he can do in 101 weeks.
Honestly, it does take time to gum up the works. There's a story related to this we gotta get into all the elon news i could

really turn this into an elon podcast like they're doing i don't understand the guy like he tweeted 200 times yesterday he's running three companies and he's tearing apart the entire federal government there's so many stories about him it's taking over my entire outline but i want to get to a couple of stories but there was one thing that you tweeted about that i think kind of frames this conversation here.

And that is this.

There was a former NOAA official said this. The strategy here is, well, we're just going to do it and dare somebody to stop us.
And by the time they stop us, we'll have destroyed it. And that, Ike, to me, is the most succinct summation of all this Elon stuff we're about to get into.
But do you have any thoughts on that bigger picture? Tim, that is exactly what the play is. It has always been the play.
They couldn't get it in gear in the last term. They had four years to sit down and figure out what the mechanisms were.
I participated in a number of efforts to sort of war game their strategies during that time and what it potentially would look like. So I'm not surprised at this because along with a number of other folks, we looked at, OK, if Trump comes back, what does he do? And this is exactly what we figured he would do.
The problem is that those other institutional responses from the United States Congress to individual agencies has not played out the way we thought they would, that there would be a more aggressive response to this fact. This fundamentally is the play.
We're just going to do it. And I've said this over the years about Donald Trump is something I learned about him for the first time I worked with him back in 2013.
He will always, always do what he wants to do until you stop him. It's not complicated.
Not complicated. And the reason he does it, Tim,

because he doesn't believe you can stop him. And so that's the arrogance that he brings to this.

But that arrogance has got to be met with an equal arrogance, which is why I love the president of

Mexico. Because she was like, all right, bitch, bring it on.
You want to put tariffs on me? me cool because Donald Trump didn't think Canada and Mexico would respond the way they did because what did he say when he put out that that executive order talking about the tariffs I dare you and they were like okay and to be honest I think Canada kind of fit followed the lead of Mexico because she wasn't playing. She's been tough.
She wasn't playing. So that, at the core of this, is exactly that.
We're going to do it until you stop us. And by the time you get to stopping us, we will have already messed it up so badly.
Right? Yeah, and I hate to leave this on the federal workers, but in a lot of places, folks are going folks are gonna need to stand up so i said to ann about on tuesday but look it's like uh there's this post article this morning this time the resistance is unfolding in the courts rather than the streets you have fbi agents suing over trump's plan to target the agents that investigated the insurrection you know the unions have asked to judge the block the do, efforts from accessing personal information, our friends at Protect Democracy and others are working on this. Again, it's a delay rather than a stop tactic.
But like the combination of the courts, but like publicly speaking out is going to have to be what this comes to. And I do think that that comes with a little bit of fear for some people, but like giving tangible examples of damage being done.
What are you afraid of if you're already losing your job? Yeah. The reality of it is lawsuits are not visuals.
Right. I can't see your lawsuit.
I'm not in court. I don't want to be in court.
But when your ass is standing outside of the FBI building, or you've got federal workers who are protesting in local offices or, you know, trying to get into a building that they work in, physically involving themselves and trying to get the nation's attention on what's happening to them. That's an important visual.
The next visual is going to come at a very, very profoundly personal level. When your ass tries to access government services that you need, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, et cetera, all you little red things.
We're seeing it in Virginia. There was already some shutting down the community health centers because they weren't getting payments right so what are you going to do then because that's when when it hits you because you think oh shutting down the government yes just do it well okay who's going to process your social security payment who's going to process the case that you had trying to get services and help for your parents or for your family member? But that office is now shut down.
What are you going to do? Who are you going to call? You're going to call that member of Congress who's sitting there going, yes, more please. Or who are you going to call? So that becomes the next level of reality here.
I agree with you a thousand percent. You need to bring a certain physicality, meaning your physical presence to this discussion so that people can have a face or faces that they see that are fighting not for their own personal situation.
That's part of it. But these are public servants.
These are men and women who've been serving in these positions throughout every administration, not just Donald Trump's first term, but George Bush's, Bill Clinton's. We have this sense that the government is laden with all of these left-wing ideolog to, you know, be so woke that they do all this crazy stuff.
No, that's not the case. The FBI is one of the most conservative organizations in government.
There are a few wokes in there. You're conservative.
This is one thing I want to ask you about. You're like your little conservative pleasure centers.
There's no part of the last 18 days that's tickled anything. You're like, all right, we do need to shut down.
It was about time we shut down some of these agencies. They were bloated.
There's nothing in there for you? No. You know why? Because the way you do that.
Is by leveling up what evidence you have When you go after USAID, then put the evidence out there and don't just cherry pick something out of a budget line that's part of a bigger budget. We can all do that.
That's no reason to shut down an agency because they spend $30,000 on something you don't like out of a $100 million budget. Okay?

I'm very much of... agency because they spend $30,000 on something you don't like out of a $100 million budget.

Okay? I'm very much of the mind, yes, and always argue about looking at how we make government more efficient and work better on behalf of people. For me, that's about response times to

problems, wait times on phone calls, you know, duplicative

efforts across agencies or within departments. That's not what Project 2025 is about.
They don't give a shit about any of that. They just want to eliminate agencies.
Let's be clear about why, Tim they're doing doing all of this. You know why? Because next month and succeeding months, they've got to deal with re-upping of the massive Trump tax cuts.
There's no money in the budget to do it. Nope.
So this is what this is about. They're cleaving these agencies to pay for this tax cut.
Trust me on that. This is not about, oh, we want a more efficient government.
We're going to shut down the Department of Education. We're getting rid of USAID.
We're going to streamline the FBI. All of those dollars have got to go somewhere.
How do you perform the investigations that fbi is currently involved in if you're shutting down half half of the the field offices who's doing that work so the work goes away the money is freed up where's that money going to go now no you're right i mean for some of these people it's paying for the tax cut and that's going to be a big sticky wicket for them because that's a four or five trillion dollar price tag that there's no money for. For other of these guys, though, this is kind of why I was interested in your answer, because you're sort of talking around this point, which is some of these guys aren't conservative, they're arsonists, right? Like, there's a difference between wanting to have a leaner, smaller, more responsive government, and wanting chaos, wanting to tear tear everything down because you want to take power for yourself.
Right. And both of those people live together in this administration, like the ones that are doing this because they want to pay for the tax cuts and the ones that are doing this because they want to see everything burn.
So, right. They both agree on blowing it up.
Right. But they think on the other side of that that the piece that they want is going to be what they get and that's not where this that's where the fight begins i want to go back to the elon musk thing and just say this the other mistake i think i agree with you about elon musk there's so much there to say about this guy, this immigrant who's taken away his U.S.
citizen. Yeah, but he's still an immigrant, right? This got all of this power that he's been given.
I think the strategy has to be, that's great. But Elon Musk is the bright shining object that is a distraction in some extent.
Everything Elon Musk is doing has to be tied back to Donald Trump because this is the great setup. I give you Vivek Ramaswamy, right? When they started the old HB1 visa thing and that whole thing started to blow up, where's Vivek? Anybody seen the brown skin guy? What happened? I happened? I thought we were partners.
I thought we were all in this together. They dumped his ass so fast to make your head swim.
Right.

jettison oh this is the problem our white base is upset right let's blame it okay vivant and so vivant's like oh okay i'm gonna go run for governor okay baby you go ahead and do that boo

the reality of it is you have these pieces that are in place doing what they're doing with the idea that Donald Trump at some point, should it all go sideways, goes, how did that happen? Right? Because he's done it before. And so Elon Musk, everything he's doing, yes, I hate it.
And that's because Donald Trump told you to do it and put it back on Trump. Just don't leave it on Elon alone, because trust me, Republicans and Trump are going to scapegoat him like a dog when it goes south.
And this is related to some of the things that I want to talk about. So just here, a couple of news items this morning.
We got CBS' Jen Jacobs, who is reporting that some federal employees say they found a program downloaded to their government computers that could be used to sift through their team chats to search for keywords, treasury computers included. Some staff told CBS they think Musk looking for signs of disloyalty.
Washington Post, agents of Musk have gained access to highly restricted government records on millions of federal employees, including Treasury and State Department officials as part of a broader effort to wrest control over the government's personnel agency. This is very alarming, scary stuff.
But to your point, it is framed as a Musk operation, not a Trump operation. And that is showing in the polls.

The other item from this morning, Elon Musk approval, disapprove 49%, approve 39. Doge disapprove 46%, approve 41.
So he's already less popular than Trump. He is already out there taking the arrows.
and and in these stories that are like straight out of 1984 dystopia where it's like we're going

to be spying on mid-level treasury officials whose job is just you know to ensure that payments get processed to make sure they haven't said any wrong thoughts about donald trump before like that's about trump right and why the crap are we polling on an unelected guy Who the hell cares? He's not an elected official. Why are we polling on Elon Musk? Right.
And the reason is, is because that negative number, that minus 46 percent or whatever it would otherwise translate to Trump. Now, look, it's a bargain for exchange.
Elon Musk is getting exactly what Elon Musk's one side.

He don't give a rat's ass if he's upside down in his popularity. He's a billionaire.
He's the richest man in the world. What does he care? Right.
He's he's got control over the contracting system of the federal government. He's not the Doge isn't looking into his NASA contracts.
The Doge is not going to recommend that the government streamline the excesses in those contracts, because trust me, there's a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse in those contracts. But they're not going to carve that out.
The man made $400 million on Inauguration Day, right? This is all about how he's going to make more money. The bargain for exchanges, I'll do what you need me to do.
I just want to be the world's first trillionaire. And all those other motherfuckers sitting behind Trump at that inauguration, they want a piece of that too.
So just need to be clear-eyed about what's happening in front of us so when the whole thing collapses we know why and also it's like it might be elon and his 23 year old incels that are like executing this spy campaign and purge within the federal government but like they're looking for people who are disloyal to trump like that is that is what this is about thank you on to another trump thing gaza you know it's like sometimes like what do you what do you even fucking do with some of this shit but trump uh trump uh it was the other night folks let me just say when tim starts muttering under his breath it's not it's not, it's not good. Trust me, it's not good.

I know.

Like I'm thinking about, do I need it?

Is it?

It's 8.42 a.m.

I probably shouldn't be thinking about a cigarette quite yet.

All right.

So we have Trump gives the press conference with BB.

He seemed to even take BB and Susie Wiles off guard

based on their facial reactions

about the degree of his plans for a casino on the Gaza Strip, the Riviera of the Middle East. Then we go through the same rigmarole.
We always go through it. Next day, you know, Mike Johnson's like, you know, we got to see what the details are on this.
I think he's being aspirational. Marco Rubio.
Oh, this is not this is not part of the plan. You know, there's people in background talking to reporters like, well, you know, he was a little out of over his skis.
Trump sends out a bleat this morning. I don't know if you've seen this.
The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the U.S. by Israel at the conclusion of the fighting.
The Palestinians, people like Chuck Schumer, would have already been resettled. The U.S.
would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on earth like we're back to doing the same shit like all it's like the people around them are like let me try to retcon what trump said to make it seem normal and trump's like nope actually i'm gonna make racist jokes about the palestinians and how somebody that i doesn't don't like is a palestinian because that's a slur to me and I'm dead serious. I'm right to make racist jokes about the Palestinians and how somebody that I don't like is a Palestinian because that's a slur to me.
And I'm dead serious. I want Trump hotel Gaza Strip.
So it's all bullshit. And it's typical Trump bullshit because it ain't happening.
You know why it's not happening? Because the Saudis have already said it's not happening. And there's not a deal that's going to get cut in which Jordan is going to say, oh, yeah, give us more Palestinians.
All right. It's just not happening.
But Trump throws it out there and he throws it out there in such a way that, you know, as you rightly noted, you look at the face of B. and Susie Wiles and go, did that shit just happen?

Did he say, you know what it reminded me of?

It reminded me of that moment when he did the presser in which he said, yeah, well, you can take the bleach and you can inject it in your system.

And he looked over at what's her name?

Deborah Birx.

Yeah, Dr. Birx.

And she's like putting her head down. I know this motherfucker, just not say put bleach in your arm, right? That was that moment.
That was the exact same scenario. Here's the deal.
Again, you get sucked into the rabbit hole talking about Gaza in the way that Trump wants to do Gaza. Folks, stop for a moment and say to yourself, how does that stabilize the Middle East? How does having Trump Casino on the Gaza Strip and making Gaza the Riviera of the Middle East, how does that stabilize the region? You think Hamas is going to just sell, oh, a beach club.
Shit, I can get a tan. What are the rules at that beach club going to be? Are the women, what's the women's dress rules going to be at the Trump beach club Gaza Strip? I got the burker that, you know, lets the sun raise.
The burkini? I got my burkini. I don't know, man.
So this is where my, maybe my instincts are wrong. And so I want you to tell me why this is wrong.
But part of me is like,

I always... I don't know, man.
So this is where maybe my instincts are wrong. And so I want you to tell me why this is wrong.
But part of me is like, always the smart people are like, don't take the Trump bait. You know, this is what he wants.
He wants to distract you. And part of me is kind of like, I don't know.
All this bait works for him because this stuff trickles down and regular people see it. And regular people are like, that don't think about the stuff that deeply.

They're like, yeah, that would be cool for America. If we had America Riviera right there on the Gaza Strip.
And maybe the answer is trolling back. Like, I don't know.
If you're a good Democratic troll like Jared Moskowitz, maybe shouldn't he be filing a bill today saying, be it resolved. like the United States

is planning on investing

in a new casino and high-rise development and the gaza strip i want to budget here's a 15 billion dollar budget for it and i would like my republican colleagues to be my co-sponsor on this bill let's see it who's gonna build it who's gonna we're gonna be sent contractors there i don't part of me is like instead of don't take the bait maybe bait him back i don't i don't know maybe that's a bad idea why i love tim and this is why tim was a good comms guy when he was at the rnc and this is why he's been a great comms guy since it's because that's exactly what you do that's exactly what you do that's why that's you do. That's why I was just saying a little bit before about, you know, yeah, all right, in the Senate, play hardball.
Put these guys in the box where they have to account for the bullshit that's coming out of this man's mouth. Yes, I would absolutely sponsor the bill and put it on the floor on the committee and say, okay, that's what he wants to do.
I think that's a great idea. I'm all about even naming it.
Trump Hotel and Casino Gaza. Let's do it.
We'll budget for it. And let's appropriate to get the get the feasibility studies and all that in place.
Two hundred and fifty million dollars. Let's just do that.
And watch how fast it collapses. And let's take some of the MAGA Americans that suffered in the Biden economy.
And that's good work for them. That's there's construction work.
That's real. Yeah, it's real.
It's real work. And then, you know all the other stuff like the the relocation of two million people the countries that won't take them the terrorist organizations that won't go away all of that shit will just dissipate once we start construction on the trump hotel and casino gaza all right i want to talk about an economic matter.
I know that you saw this. Carolyn Leavitt was asked the other day about prices, and I want to take a listen to that.
How long will it take to cycle through and get some of the actual prices that Americans are paying to come down? Prices at the store and at the grocery pump? All of the above. Across the board, sure.
Well, the president is doing everything he can, obviously, to reduce the cost of living crisis in this country as quickly as possible. That's why he signed a litany of executive orders across the board in the first couple of weeks here.
He declared a national energy emergency. He committed to cutting 10 regulations for every new one on the book.
As you know, working for a Fox Business-related outlet,

deregulation and energy independence are huge drivers of reducing inflation in this country.

I love that. As you know, Fox Business, shouldn't you be on our side on this one? That question was a little hard.
Right. So I listened to that.
And, you know, Candy Girl here is just she's just so she's so just so sweet and yummy to listen to. So delicious.
So I responded back. But on day one.
Trump told us, quote, I want on groceries. Very simple word.
Groceries. We're going to bring those prices way down.
End quote. Trump, I want my prices at the grocery pump to go down now.
I can't afford- Why do they keep saying grocery pump? Right. What the fuck is a grocery? Anyway, at the grocery pump, I can't afford the eggs I need to put into my tank because that's what you do.
Okay. So this is what you're telling me.
So look, folks, Trump has already told us he doesn't know how he's bringing grocery prices down because he can't. It's too hard.
He's now admitted that. But we knew that.
You knew that back in November. You knew exactly what you were doing with your vote.
And the layup about, oh my God, the price of eggs, you knew it was bullshit then. And it still is.
Because if you don't know anything about your own personal market, you know that you adjust. You did.
You know how I know you adjusted? Because a lot of y'all asses went on a very nice long vacation during the summer. In the midst of all of the so-called high prices, you took a break and you packed up those eggs and you went with your family someplace nice and that's okay.
And I just think all of this double speak bullshit coming out of this white house about oh well we you know we're cutting this and we did that there's no plan here there never has been because there are things that are affecting the price of eggs that have nothing to do with joe biden or donald trump there's a little thing called bird flu. Little thing where you got to put down 2 million chickens.
Luckily, we'll have RFK Jr. in charge of managing.
Yeah, well, I feel so much better now. I mean, obviously, you weren't surprised.
But, like, man, it is really something that RFK and Tulsi are just going down party line votes. Like,'s really something you know michael like had we if we had a little time machine if we got to our little delorean and went back to october and got around the table with todd young and susan collins tom tillis and we're like trump is gonna win and he's gonna make a fox host the head of the military rfk the head of hhs and tulsi the head of the national intelligence services and y'all are going to go on along with all of it i think that these guys would have told us that we had tds right i think they would have been like no no oh come on like come on either he wouldn't do all of that or i would oppose some of it or you know and like here we are it's like such a dog bites man a story at this point like i almost get bored mentioning on the podcast so you know what it reminds me of it reminds me of that moment where jesus looks at peter and he goes dude before the cock goes two times you're gonna deny my deny my ass.
And he was like, oh, hell no.

I will die for you.

What are you talking about?

Right? Next thing you know,

hey, Peter, you were with him.

Nah, I don't even know who he is.

Right?

That's these Republicans.

If you go back in time and you

told them this is what you would do, oh, no, there's no way in hell. But we know now their nature.
We know now who they are. They have been exposed for what they are.
And just as Christ knew the nature of Peter in that moment, we know their nature. And so I'm not surprised.
I said weeks ago that all of these, after the whole thing with our boy from Florida went down, once they got him off the docket, it was clear sailing. They weren't sacrificing anybody else.
This is my frustration with Democrats. I still think Gates would have got through, too, by the way.
You know what, Tim? I'm going to agree with you. Here's what he said to me.
He said he said to me. I saw him at that Turning Point USA thing I go to every year.
We're in the lobby of the hotel. You know, I said, Matt, number one, you made me look like a bad pundit because I said you were getting through.
And then you bailed like a little wuss. And he laughed at that.
And then we started talking for a little bit and he starts doing his fake talk and whatever. But I was like, but really, like really, why didn't you push it? And he says to me, he he goes tim john curtis from utah the senator that's replaced romney he told me privately that it was something like he'd sacrificed his children before he voted to make me the attorney general and we're sitting right here two months later february 6th and i'm like i would put my mortgage on john curtis voting to confirm matt gates where's john curtis john curtis is nowhere he hadn't done anything in any of these hearings all these guys are tough as nails in their office you know tough talk but when push comes to shove they all were gonna fold the gates could have gotten through yeah i i totally agree with that i thought that the weakest of all of them was Tulsa Gabbard because she cut the closest to the things that Republicans seemingly still care the most about.
And that is the whole national security piece. So her narrative in that space was bad for a lot of them.
But Donald Trump has already told them, well, if you don't go with her, I'm going to primary you. And once you tell them that, they're like, oh, shit, no, I can't afford to be primary because this is the most important thing I've ever done in my life.
And I cannot give this up because it's all about me. F the country.
I don't give a shit about the country. She can tell Putin whatever she wants as long as I get reelected and don't have a primary.

That's what this crew is about.

That's what their leadership is.

It is pathetically sad

the level of

pussydom that they have created.

We can say that again. That's a

pussydom. That's a word we can say again now

in 2025. I don't know if you knew this,

but it was banned during the woke Biden

era. You weren't allowed to say that.
But we can say it again. We're in a whole different space now.
Yeah, different words are banned now. Justice.
You can't say justice. You can't say equality.
Different words are banned now. And God knows if you say DEI, that's like saying the N-word.
So just be careful.

You were the chairman of a committee.

You won some elections back then in that midterm.

Democrats just elected a new chairman, Ken Martin.

I don't know Ken Martin.

So he could prove me wrong. I've never met Ken Martin.

All I know is what I watched during the DNC chairs race.

And it felt very milquetoast to me. It felt very limp.
And so I hope to be proven wrong on that. But I'm wondering if you, you know, if somebody sends Ken Martin this little video clip here, I'm wondering what your advice would be to him.
We had Ken Martin on our show the week before the election. The presidential election and the chair's election? The chair's election.
So two weeks ago. And I thought Chairman Wickler out of Wisconsin would be a better fit for this moment because this moment aligns a lot like it did for me in 2009 after the loss in 06 and 08, a really bad brand for the party.

You have a very popular president sitting down on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They have the House,

the Senate. So then how do you now figure out the strategy to begin to claw back the narrative?

My hope is that he brings, he's the chairman of Minnesota, the Minnesota party, and apparently is a good tactician in that regard and in that space. He's going to need that, I think, to put in place some tacticals.
If he levels up a 50-state strategy, if he starts with branding and messaging at the grassroots, in his first test case will be two states that are going to be important this November, Virginia and New Jersey, especially Virginia, which is going to have a very, I think, interesting and hotly contested race for governor between Spanberger and Winsome, Lieutenant Governor Winsome. So you're going to have an opportunity to see how your messaging plays in Northern Virginia, which went slightly red in the last election, and how you can then translate that more broadly across the country.
This is not just about, oh, you know, raising a lot of money, and that's important. Your problem isn't money.
Your problem is message and the fact that people don't think you're credible. And so that's going to be an important first test, how you begin to claw back credibility.
To be honest, you're not being helped by your members in the House and Senate. So I'm just letting you know's early it's early um okay one other thing just to end with some feelings i was with you i think it was like two or three weeks for the election i forget what the reason was i was up in new york and it was before the light the red light had gone on we're sitting around the table as you and simone and me and I was like, guys, I think we're losing.
I was like, I think that we're losing. Right? And what do you think? And some other people around the table were like, I don't know.
And it's close. And the two of you were like, we're losing.
Like, it's looking bad. And I didn't get a chance to ask you then, like, what were you seeing that made you feel that way? Like, what were you seeing that made you feel that the country was going a direction where they were coming to turn not only coming to terms with trump but affirming him they didn't have a reason to vote for kamala they really didn't i mean outside of you know certain narratives that there was nothing that that gravitationally pull the American people away from it.

It goes back to the joke, we've been talking about the price of eggs and all that. But look, if voters find a reason to stay in a space and you know it's not a real space, it's not a legitimate space, that there are other things that they need to take into consideration and to move them.
If you don't create that conversation, if you don't give them that appreciation that, yes, it is the thing that you're holding on to, the price of eggs, whatever, but these are other things that you need to contextualize, they're going to stay where they are. And when you talk to voters afterwards, they pretty much told you I didn't have a reason to move.
And so throughout that campaign, the question is, how does how do you move the narrative with voters? That's always been the problem for this administration going back to the very beginning. The last administration, the Biden administration.
Yes, I'm sorry. was going back to the very beginning the last administration the biden administration yes i'm sorry yeah was going back to the very beginning that's why i alluded to you know joe manchin and his you know tying people up in knots for 18 months over something like the filibuster and the american people are going who's phil who's buster and what did they do why is everybody so mad at them right not understanding what the fight was about.
And the Democrats are fighting over process. Donald Trump is out here just slinging a wing and saying, that's your problem.
They're focused on process. I'm just going to go in and blow it all up.
And so when people become frustrated with the process, the idea of blowing it all up is really appealing. And no one ever corrected for that.
And so, yeah, when you're sitting there looking at the numbers, they were telling you one thing, but voters were saying something else on the ground, just as they did in 2016. And I just felt that, you know, all the efforts that folks like you and me in working with Democrats in the democracy space, they still didn't get what the fight was about.
Well, we got four more years of fighting. People get it eventually.
Yeah. People start getting part walked out to the investigation.
People get to, people feel it real good. Okay, hold on.
Yes. That was supposed to be the last thing.
That was too sad. I want to play you one clip.
We're going to end with this clip. We got a big football game on Sunday, and our president, who's very mentally sharp, was talking about the game.
I want to listen to that. You know, his quarterback was named Mahomes.
He was a great college coach. And I said, how good was he? He said, you don't want to know how good.
He made me into a great coach. He's a pretty good quarterback, right? So Donald Trump talking about Tommy Tuberville.
One little problem with that, though. You know what the problem is, Chairman Steele? Are you a big college football fan? No, I'm not a big college football fan.
One little problem. little problem tommy tuberville didn't coach patrick homes ever that's what i was thinking i don't know college football but i think i knew that i was like he just made it up he just like made up some story about tommy tuberville the dumbest senator bringing uh you know doing patrick homes anyway it's you know they're not all fire it's not it's not all they're not firing on all cylinders there I don't they're not and and people think that's endearing they just think oh well that's just Trump being Trump well you know yeah I guess the town idiot is just the town idiot and you just everybody just rolls by and rolls nice if we if we get to just

make stuff make it up we're gonna you can't wait to hear what i'm gonna be telling about the boys that i kissed back in the day i'm gonna be i'm gonna be naming some big names you know i'm just gonna be just gonna be like oh man it was i did it just like tommy toberville coach patrick mahomes you know

I kissed

Zac Efron

same thing

I had to coach

him a little

tongue actually

yeah me I did it. Just like Tommy Tuberville coached Patrick Mahomes.
You know?

I kissed Zac Efron.

Same thing.

I had to coach him a little tongue, actually. Yeah, me and little Nas X.

I was coaching him on that.

Anyway, Michael Steele, I'm so happy you're in our little family here.

Thanks for taking all the time today.

Nah, man.

It's my pleasure, brother.

Always.

We got much to talk about.

All right.

That's the chairman.

We'll be back tomorrow with somebody a little more liberal than the chairman.

He'll take us through the weekend.

See you all, bye.

Bye. And this one is for the champions Ain't lost since I been gettin' ya Funny how you said he was the year, ya Then I went there, didn't I get ya I told you long ago, on the road I got what they waitin' for All run from nothin', dawg, get your soul Just tell them ain't layin' low You was never really rootin' for me anyway When I back up at the top, I wanna hear you say You don't run from nothing, dawg, get your soul Just tell them that the break is over Need a, uh, need a, um, um Need a couple number ones, need a pack on every song Need me like one with Nicky Mel Tell rap no I can't see ya, huh I'm a potty like a night people, huh On for a bit or something queer, huh But then the big bitch let me deal, yeah, yeah, yeah Ayy, oh, let do it I ain't fall off, I just ain't release my new shit I blew up and everybody tryna sue me You call me Nas, but the hood call me Doobie, yo And this one is for the champion Ain't lost since I began, yo Funny how you said it was the year, yo Then I went in and again, yo I told you long ago, on the road I got what they waiting for Four room from nothing, dawg, get your soul Just tell them ain't laying low You was never really rooting for me anyway When I back up at the top, I wanna hear you say He'll run from nothing, dawg, get your soul Just tell them that the break is over My name is Wee, baby

My name is Wee, baby