Michael Steele: Let it Rip, Joe

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Speaker 4 Welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.
It is Friday and we've got, what, six more shows to do.

Speaker 4 So of course we're bringing on our A team to break down everything that's going on because, you know, the world is not taking a break.

Speaker 2 Welcome back.

Speaker 4 Chairman Michael Steele. Appreciate it, Michael.

Speaker 2 Good to be back in the neighborhood, my friend. And like I said,

Speaker 2 you were trending on Twitter this week, my friend, when you made your announcement about just, you know, taking a road a little less traveled. A little less traveled.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's my ambition in life, is to trend on Twitter.

Speaker 2 But we're not done yet.

Speaker 4 We're not leaving the fight. I want to.

Speaker 4 And actually, now that you mentioned Twitter, one of the things that I should have explained is that I really worry about getting Twitter brain, where you just have this constant flood of takes.

Speaker 4 And then you realize, you know what, I'm not actually reading anything. My attention span has been destroyed and I'm reacting rather than actually creating anything.

Speaker 4 And I hope you understand what I'm talking about. So

Speaker 4 it's not that I'm bailing out. It's like, you know, it's like sometimes thinking about something for longer than 20 minutes is not the worst thing in the world.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 It really isn't. And I totally get what you're saying.

Speaker 2 And I find that in this particular race right now that we find ourselves in, it is a matter of just kind of, okay, how many different ways can we say the same thing?

Speaker 2 And there are only really two ways you can say the same thing. It either is a certain way or it isn't.

Speaker 2 And if you want to have a broader lens, you've got to slow it down. You've got to step back from it so that you can actually think through.

Speaker 2 possible other ways you can say it. That's right.
I totally get what you're saying, but I have to admit, I'll have to admit, I panicked in the moment like a lot of people when I first read your tweet.

Speaker 2 And I was like, oh, hell no.

Speaker 2 Oh, hell yes.

Speaker 4 But in any case, though, no, I mean, you know, we'll still chat on MSNBC, and I intend to keep writing.

Speaker 4 And by the way, congratulations on your new role, you know, as co-host of MSNBC's new show, The Weekend. You're also host of your own podcast.

Speaker 4 Everybody knows that you're the former chairman of the RNC. Now, The Weekend, talk about an all-star team co-hosted by Alicia Menendez, you, and Simone Sanders Townsend.

Speaker 4 And it's 8 to 10 Eastern Time, Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. So you have all week to think the thoughts for that.

Speaker 2 That's right. That's right.
Yeah, and that's true. And the beauty of the show is we get to not just, you know, it's not a regurgitation of the news you heard on Tuesday,

Speaker 2 but it really is a chance to have some players who directly affect. So our goal every week is to have people live in studio on set so we can look them in the eye and have the conversation.

Speaker 2 And then the other side of it is just the conversation amongst the three of us, which is always kind of fun, particularly between me and Simone. So we have a good time.

Speaker 4 That's always great watching smart people talk about this. Okay, so big decision that I had to make this morning, and I was just talking about it before we got on.

Speaker 4 As longtime listeners of this podcast know, there was a time when I think I probably dropped more F-bombs per capita, even than, you know,

Speaker 4 some of the podcasts that routinely got explicit ratings. Actually, I always got explicit ratings.

Speaker 4 And when I found out that my daughter-in-law was listening to the podcast in the kitchen with my granddaughters, maybe I should dial that back a little bit, you know?

Speaker 4 So I've tried with mixed success to kind of dial down the F-bombs. But today is one of those days where we have to test this.

Speaker 2 We have to test the limits. Okay.

Speaker 4 And I do not want to be the occasion of sin for you, Chairman Spiel. Oh, no, baby.

Speaker 2 I'm all in because I can go to confession tomorrow. We're good.
Okay.

Speaker 4 is this is good news. Okay.
Because one of the big stories of the day, of course, is this report about what Joe Biden says in private about Donald Trump.

Speaker 4 You know, it's the story in Politico by, you know, our good friend Jonathan Lemire and his colleagues. And basically,

Speaker 4 he says that Donald Trump is a sick fuck. And I say that because, of course, I am quoting apparently the president of the United States.
Okay, so here's the story. Okay.

Speaker 4 President Joe Biden has a reputation for salty language behind closed doors, but it nearly slipped out in public during his speech at Valley Forge last month to mark the third anniversary of the January 6th insurrection.

Speaker 4 Animated and angry, he derided Donald Trump and his followers for drawing glee from political violence.

Speaker 4 At his rally, he jokes about an intruder whipped up by the big Trump lie taking a hammer to Paul Pelosi's skull, Biden said. And he thinks that's funny, the president continued.
He laughed about it.

Speaker 4 What a sick, dot, dot, dot. Biden let his voice trail off as the crowd cheered and chuckled.
In private, he does not stop short.

Speaker 4 The president has described Trump to longtime friends and close aides as a sick fuck who delights in others' misfortunes, according to three people who have heard the president use the profane description.

Speaker 4 Profane but accurate description. According to one of the people who has spoken to the president, Biden recently said of Trump, what a fucking asshole the guy is.

Speaker 2 The White House declined to comment. And then they write,

Speaker 4 I love that line. That's right.
The epithets may cut against the image Biden often projects as someone eager to take down the level of incivility and acrimony in politics.

Speaker 4 I'm sorry, but I guess I'm all out of bleeps to give.

Speaker 2 Joe, let it rip. Let it rip.
Just look.

Speaker 2 You know what? The question that I almost responded to it on Twitter, but then I just like, I just let it go because

Speaker 2 I'm just like, you know, this is so obviously stupid.

Speaker 2 The fact that people are shocked that Joe Biden would say this about Trump. And my point is

Speaker 2 he is not saying anything the rest of us haven't said and say every day. And since Joe Biden is, if nothing else, a man of the people, it all makes sense to me.
I was not shocked nor surprised.

Speaker 2 Yes, he has a salty vocabulary. We've seen that during the time when he was vice president on certain occasions.
So a question is, what's the point?

Speaker 2 I appreciate the president accurately describing the former president who is an insurrectionist and, you know, sitting there in federal court trying to defend against 91 felony counts, having been adjudged a serial sexual predator.

Speaker 2 Okay, yes, the F-bomb is an appropriate appellation to put next to his name. So I had no

Speaker 2 problem with it.

Speaker 4 I agree with all of that. And, you know, and all the folks that are on the fainting couch are clutching their pearls about this.

Speaker 4 By the way, I love hearing Republicans who've gone along with Donald Trump now being concerned about civility.

Speaker 2 Like, I know, right? Language, Mr.

Speaker 4 President. We need to, yeah, just shut that.

Speaker 2 Shut that hell off. Shut the hell off.
Because

Speaker 4 I think the beauty of calling the beauty is probably the wrong word that I wouldn't use. If I was writing, I would come up with something different, but it's a podcast.

Speaker 4 The appropriateness of calling him a sick fuck is it captures something fundamental here, which is we can call him, you know, a misogynist and a racist and an insurrectionist and all of those kind of normal terms.

Speaker 4 But the real reality is, cut through it all, we're talking about Donald Trump, who is a sociopath, a narcissist, a malignant narcissist, someone who does delight in the pain and suffering of others.

Speaker 4 And in any conversation, in any bar, anywhere in the upper Midwest where I live, you would describe someone like this in any other context as, yeah, that guy's a sick fuck.

Speaker 2 You would.

Speaker 2 That's the point. Joe Biden said what a lot of people say.
in conversations amongst themselves and their friends.

Speaker 2 But the other thing to keep in mind, Joe Biden did not stand on a podium and say that.

Speaker 2 As Donald Trump has used profanity to describe individuals as recently as last week, the president had a private conversation.

Speaker 2 Now, if some of the people he had that conversation wished to go to our buddy Jonathan Lemire and disclose that, okay,

Speaker 2 I'd have some questions about that if I'm Joe Biden in terms of having a conversation with that person again. But the reality of it is it was a private conversation.

Speaker 2 He did not, as President of the United States, stand stand in front of the nation and say that.

Speaker 4 But Michael, I'm guessing he's not real, real unhappy that got out.

Speaker 2 No, I was going to say, having said that, I don't think there's any ketchup on the walls in the Oval Office about this. It's like, oh, okay.

Speaker 2 He's not whining in the moment, that's for sure.

Speaker 4 Joe Biden actually fights. I'm kind of doing the flashback to

Speaker 4 2015, 2016, when Donald Trump first came out and he was doing his bizarre, incoherent word salads. And I was like, okay, guys, are you actually listening to him?

Speaker 4 And remember the number, you remember this, Michael. The number of people who said, yeah, he talks like we talk.

Speaker 4 He says, no, you are not that stupid. You know, wait, no, he talks like, he talks the way we talk.
Well, guess what?

Speaker 4 Joe Biden, Joe fucking Biden, the fucking president of the United States is talking,

Speaker 2 you talk right now about this guy.

Speaker 4 You know, part of it is this a recognition that, you know, there's been this asymmetry in our politics where there are no rules. There's no shame when it comes to Donald Trump and the MAGA supporters.

Speaker 4 They can throw anything at anyone. They can mock the disabled.
They can mock people who have been beaten up. And it's like, it's become what Brian Kloss calls, you know, the banality of crazy.

Speaker 4 But then, you know, anytime a Democrat, you know, steps out of line at something.

Speaker 4 Joe Biden is at least, I think there's an indication that, you know what, we're not going to play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules here, right?

Speaker 4 We're not going to have, you know, them step out and we're going to play this very elegant game of chess while Donald Trump is basically standing over the board just pissing on it.

Speaker 4 It's like, we're going to call him out on it.

Speaker 2 That is exactly right. And it's about time.
And the reaction from the MAGA community displays, or at least demonstrates to me, that they're just petulant little snowflakes.

Speaker 2 They can't take what they give because

Speaker 2 they can't engage in an argument. They cannot gauge in a mental battle over a statement that Trump said or position that Trump has taken.
They blindly and incoherently just follow him.

Speaker 2 And so that when a Charlie Sykes writes something that calls them out or a Michael Steele says something about them on MSNBC,

Speaker 2 they just go into this, you know, kind of whirling dervish kind of incoherent word salad of blather.

Speaker 2 And you sit there and you go, oh, okay, so you can't even have a conversation about what I just said.

Speaker 2 So because it is not oriented in anything. And so their reactions tend to be an over-dramatization, which for me just confirms that it's all performative to begin with.
It's all performative.

Speaker 2 And when things are performative, it's like, you know, doing improv. You did it and you move on from it.
But then later on, when you have to go back and replay it, you can't do it the same way.

Speaker 2 There is no connective tissue because that's the point. It's not connected to anything.

Speaker 4 Well, it's going to get ugly now because we know how Donald Trump reacts.

Speaker 4 He's not a creative individual. It's a lot of projections.
So we're going to get a lot of like, well, you know, you're the sick fuck. No, I'm not the sick fuck.

Speaker 2 You're the sick fuck.

Speaker 4 And then, of course, the columnists will write.

Speaker 4 There will be the people who will then assume the editorial position and bemoan the growing incivility and ugliness of our politics as if this has not been a reality for eight years.

Speaker 4 As if Donald Trump has not dragged this country and this culture culture through this for eight years, and it's the only moment that people go, yeah, you know, mocking an 82-year-old man has been beaten in the head with a hammer by one of your supporters, that is sick.

Speaker 4 You and I, Michael, how many hours have we devoted to substantive discussions of policies, of rhetoric, and all of this stuff? And it's going to be, can't we be better than this?

Speaker 4 I'm just waiting for that first editorial. Mr.
President, be better.

Speaker 2 Oh, fuck you. Seriously.
I mean, I'm sorry.

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Speaker 4 Ben Wittis, who was on yesterday, just written a really nice piece about the podcast.

Speaker 4 And one of the most interesting things he said, which I also liked a lot, was that on this podcast, we've never lost our sense of shock at the decay of the Republican Party.

Speaker 4 We refuse to move on from the intellectual and the moral collapse of American conservatism. Every day's outrage hits him hard and hits him fresh as though yesterday's hadn't happened.

Speaker 4 It's not because we're naive, but you know, Prometheus knows the eagle is going to eat his liver every day, yet every day the process still involves having your liver ripped out and devoured.

Speaker 4 And so I wanted to get your take on watching so many of these big-dollar Republican donors, and you know most of them, if not all of them,

Speaker 4 who are gathering somewhere, is it in Florida, and they're trying, they're rubbing their chins and they're trying to decide, hmm, should we get on board the Trump train?

Speaker 4 You know, Nikki Haley or Donald Trump. We're just not sure about that.

Speaker 4 And the thing about it that's really striking to me is that these are not the red hat MAGA wearers, the people who believe that Donald Trump is, you know, is Jesus or even believe the big lie.

Speaker 4 These are really smart guys, guys who at one time contributed lots of money to PACS trying to block Donald Trump back in 2016.

Speaker 4 And they've seen everything that we have seen. They've watched him as president, as ex-president.
They've watched his decomposition, decompensation.

Speaker 4 And they're still sitting there going, yeah, maybe, maybe we'll do this again. So tell me your reaction and what are they thinking, Michael? You know these guys.

Speaker 2 Well, first off, decomposition is an appropriate word too. So you didn't have to take that one back.
And so it is a a decomposition because the body politic within the GOP is dead.

Speaker 2 And so therefore you have to acknowledge that in the first instance. So the lifeline that they perceive to be Nikki Haley is an illusion.

Speaker 2 The idea that I'm going to write a $30, $40, $50 million check to a campaign that is likely to end in two weeks. makes no political nor business sense.

Speaker 2 And so you're absolutely correct in your assessment that the convening now is around

Speaker 2 how do we save face after

Speaker 2 dancing with the devils of DeSantis, Scott, and now Haley,

Speaker 2 do we convince Trump, who's declared publicly, if you support Haley in any way, you're dead to me, that we want forgiveness and we were going to write Nikki a $50 million check.

Speaker 2 We'll write you a $100 million check.

Speaker 4 Because there's a price, right?

Speaker 2 Right, exactly. Exactly.
So they're trying to rationalize the loss of their souls on this.

Speaker 2 Here's the rub. Generally, when you do this, you reference the donors, the big end donors, usually they are writing those checks because they want policy outcomes.
Right.

Speaker 2 It's not just, oh, philosophically, I'm a Republican or conservative and I support the cause of Republicanism slash conservatism in whatever shape that might take.

Speaker 2 It is, there are policy outcomes I want this party to advocate for on my behalf, and I want that advocacy to occur through these elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels.

Speaker 2 The Republican Party has no power.

Speaker 2 It is a shell of itself.

Speaker 4 It has no policy agenda at the moment.

Speaker 2 You have a feckless Speaker of the House who is declaring openly that, no, we do not want to solve the problem at the border for two reasons.

Speaker 2 One, because Donald Trump told us not to solve the problem. And two,

Speaker 2 we don't want Joe Biden to get a quote win. That's it.
That's the policy right there. So the question for a donor is, you're writing a check for that? Because you know the House is gone next year.

Speaker 2 Republicans are not holding the House. They're not.
They're just not. The math doesn't work.
I don't care. You talk all day about gerrymandering.
The math ain't there.

Speaker 2 The Senate now, and this is why McConnell has been frustratingly quiet. The Senate now is in play for Democrats.

Speaker 2 I'm on record, I'm telling you here on this show right now, mark it down, the Senate is in play. That's an advantage that they had coming into this election is now in on play.

Speaker 2 So donors are sitting there going, well, maybe we can save the Senate. Well, okay, you're going to be writing a big check.
But when the bombs start coming in on immigration, abortion,

Speaker 2 and other civil rights issues issues in some of the key battleground states, like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. And the Michigan Republican Party is the definition of a hot mess.
Boom. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like the RNC, it is broke.

Speaker 2 And the chairwoman of the state party is sitting there fighting other Republicans because she's largely an incompetent boob. And the party knows it.

Speaker 2 So they're trying to get Ambassador Hoechstra to come in and salvage

Speaker 2 the fight. So in one of the big battleground states, there's an internal fight going on.

Speaker 2 Governor Shapiro in Pennsylvania has got it on lockdown in Pennsylvania, right?

Speaker 2 So the landscape politically has changed. And donors are sitting back and looking at that going, oh, hell,

Speaker 2 this election is going to be a waste of my money. Because there's no policy angle.

Speaker 2 You've got more Marjorie Taylor Greens running for office than Mitt Romney's. Where do you go to play? And at the top of that heap is Donald Trump, who's already threatened you.

Speaker 2 I get the aspirational launch towards Nikki, but Nikki's 27 points down in her home state, Charlie.

Speaker 4 I'm more fascinated by the number that might actually, you know, the ones who are making their peace with Trump, because, you know, in 2016, you could tell yourself stories about who Donald Trump was and what you were going to get from him, that, you know, the transactional nature that, okay, you know, he may be, you know, a narcissistic boob, but I'm going to get X, Y, and Z from him.

Speaker 4 Now, fast forward eight years, and you're somebody like a Paul Singer who has no illusions about who Donald Trump is.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 is the access for them so important, or the legislation on carried interest, or some regulatory thing?

Speaker 4 Is it so important to them that they're willing to go, yeah, let's put Donald Trump back in the White House?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 4 And in their mind, they rationalize it in the same transactional way as if nothing has happened from 2016 to now to make them think this is bad for the country.

Speaker 4 I may get certain things I want, but the price would be catastrophic. That's not the way they think.
That's not the way they process it.

Speaker 2 That is the way they think. They have to rationalize it that way because otherwise they'd be writing that check to Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 And what they fail to appreciate is that's okay because Joe Biden is the president of the United States. And guess what?

Speaker 2 The Democrats control at least the Senate and likely will control both next year. And even if they don't control the Senate next year and they control the House, they still have the White House.

Speaker 2 So you've got to leverage your dollar, right? The business mindset used to be:

Speaker 2 I'm going to play with whomever I need to play with in order to get the things, like you said, carried interest, those things addressed the way I'd like them to be addressed. All right.

Speaker 2 Today, it is tribal. I'm a part of this tribe.
I'm only going to play with this tribe. And so when this tribe goes out and really screws the pooch,

Speaker 2 where do I go? Well, I'm with my tribe. And as your tribe loses more and more influence and power and the ability to effectively change the game, why are you still playing with them?

Speaker 2 Well, because they're my tribe. I don't see the Paul Singers going.

Speaker 2 He's not going to come out. and say

Speaker 2 the country matters more than the party or the politics right now. That's just not how this is going to go.
And they're going to write that check that Donald Trump demands.

Speaker 2 There is no policy agenda attached to it. It is a one-way check, right? You're writing to me and you probably won't get anything in return because you haven't.

Speaker 2 You didn't the last time you wrote a check. Remember, this started out with Republicans having the White House, the Senate, and the House.
And there was no repeal of Obamacare.

Speaker 2 There was no infrastructure program put in place. And the COVID response was a mess.
And the only thing that a Paul Singer got out of it was a glorious tax cut.

Speaker 2 But there's still other stuff that was left on the table that touch on things like the border, workforce, et cetera, that impacts those guys who have businesses that require people to run them and work in them.

Speaker 4 Let's stick with the money just for a second because I really wanted to also get your take on Ronna McDaniel, who has the job that you used to have.

Speaker 4 And we're getting kind of interesting reports about how the amount of money they've been pissing away. And what's what, yeah, okay, so tell me what, what is going on with the RNC?

Speaker 2 I got fired because I spent money on campaigns. Now, just so I can set the record straight, number one.

Speaker 2 I flew in a private jet two times. Once was on Election Day 2009 because I had to fly from Washington to New Jersey to campaign for Chris Christie.

Speaker 2 And then I flew from New Jersey to go to Virginia to campaign for Bob McDonald. We closed out the evening there with him when he won his election.
So we had a victory there.

Speaker 2 I then flew back to New Jersey right after celebrating with Bob McDonald to celebrate with Governor Christie-elect. at that time.

Speaker 2 The second time was when I was on the Fire Pelosi bus tour and I was in the middle of the country and I had to get back to Washington for an event that was required of me by the leadership and there was no commercial way to do it in time so we charted a plane so that was it hotels folks the RNC chairman should not be staying in fancy swank hotels we hold events at the four seasons the chairman doesn't stay at the four seasons at least I never did so here's the deal the RNC is sitting on $9 million cash on hand coming into the presidential cycle they've spent money on things like makeup and clothing and all this other stuff.

Speaker 4 Flowers, lots of flowers.

Speaker 2 Lots of flowers. I never bought flowers, don't understand what you need flowers for.

Speaker 2 But it's embarrassing. And the line of credit that I took out in 2010, I didn't want to take out.
The party wanted, basically, forced me. The budget committee forced it on me.
So I took it out.

Speaker 2 We spent the money to win elections. They have to get a line of credit to keep the lights on.
And yet, after all of that,

Speaker 2 Rana still gets to stay in the chair. And I don't understand, oh, I know why, because Donald Trump wants her there.

Speaker 4 That's the alpha and the omega of all these descriptions, the incompetence, the losing, the grift.

Speaker 4 None of it matters. If Donald Trump wants you there, that's what the Republican Party is right now.

Speaker 2 That's what it is. And those dollars that are being spent, I mean, just look at what the RNC spent over the years on his legal fees.
Look at what they spent on the care and feeding of his children.

Speaker 4 Who'd otherwise go hungry?

Speaker 2 Who would otherwise go hungry? Cold and hungry. The RNC was their ATM.
And the reality of it is dollars that were donated by donors, particularly small dollar donors, were wasted.

Speaker 2 And I'm sorry, you just don't go into a presidential cycle like this, trailing your opponents.

Speaker 2 And certainly, given what's happening with the state parties as well, it's not just the Michigans that are out of cash. There are a lot of others that don't have cash raised.

Speaker 2 I don't know how they're going to compete this November.

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Speaker 4 Let's go back to some of the quasi-substance of the moment here. I am utterly fascinated by the Republicans essentially getting everything they want on the border.

Speaker 4 I mean, they obviously think the border is their biggest, biggest issue. So they get everything they want and they've decided that they're not interested in actually passing any legislation.

Speaker 4 They're being called out for that by people like Senator Langford from Oklahoma, who's a conservative Republican.

Speaker 4 But what they are willing to do is go ahead with having a show trial, the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas.

Speaker 4 And they're moving ahead with all of that, which is interesting because they clearly think that the way to approach the border issue is to have a performative show with this sort of sham impeachment, but not do anything substantively by passing legislation that might address it, which in a nutshell captures the Republican Party right now.

Speaker 2 Feels like it. Couldn't agree with you more.
Couldn't agree with you more, Charlie. It is, I would say, embarrassing, but it's not.
It's actually pathetic that we are so low as a party right now.

Speaker 2 And I say that as a current member still of the Republican Party, it is pathetic to listen to leadership. whine and bitch and bemoan a process that they control, that they can do something about.

Speaker 2 You claim for years, and certainly during the three years so far of the Biden administration, that the border was a mess. And Americans, like me, agree it was a mess.

Speaker 2 The administration mishandled out of the gate the seriousness of the problem there at the border. And instead of getting in front of it, let themselves become overwhelmed by it.

Speaker 2 So from both a policy and a political standpoint, it was an opportunity for the Republican parties to put legislation on the table.

Speaker 2 It's not like we didn't have a vault that we could go to and pull some out, right? Because George Bush had some policy. The Gang of Eight had some proposals, as did other members.

Speaker 2 You could have cobbled together a bill and said, here, Mr. President, let us help you out.
We got this, right?

Speaker 4 No, you didn't.

Speaker 2 So finally, when Senate Republicans and Democrats working with the White House cobbled together one of the most conservative border bills in a generation, largely giving the Republicans everything they want on the security front, much to the consternation of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Speaker 2 You have Donald Trump waking up one morning and deciding, oh crap, I can't let this happen, calling up Johnson, Speaker Johnson, and telling him, listen, you're going to kill this because you're not going to help Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 You're not going to give Joe Biden a win. And then he goes out and threatens the effort and the process by declaring this is DOA.

Speaker 4 We're not even going to look at the bill.

Speaker 2 We're not even going to put it through committee so that we can do a markup and put changes in the bill because they can't put changes because you got every damn thing you want.

Speaker 2 There are no changes to make from the Republican side. You got everything you want.

Speaker 2 So the fact that you won't put the bill forward tells us that you are engaging in political and policy malfeasance and do not deserve the chair.

Speaker 2 You want to be in the job so badly and you claim that the border is so important that you're going to scrap it. You're going to crap all over it just because Donald Trump told you to.

Speaker 2 What kind of punk are you?

Speaker 2 Seriously. What kind of punk are you?

Speaker 4 Spoiler alert, we kind of know the answer to all of that.

Speaker 2 I do. I do.
I do. But it's sad.

Speaker 4 But it's also interesting that what what he has like a one or two vote majority and they're still going to go ahead with this bogus impeachment.

Speaker 4 And now, of course, Ken Buck is saying, I'm a no, which means that their margin is maybe one vote.

Speaker 2 You're going to get

Speaker 2 one vote.

Speaker 4 And by the way, for the students of history, this hasn't happened. I'm a member of the president's cabinet.
It has not been impeached since 1876. When Secretary of War William Belknap.

Speaker 2 They want to impeach my orcas because they have a policy disagreement with them.

Speaker 2 so if you have a policy disagreement put a policy on the table that the administration can engage you on that myorcus can come before your committees and discuss and say what's good or bad about it but no we don't want to do that we just want to impeach them and they want to impeach him for this simple reason so people understand exactly what's going on here there's only one reason and for all of this to be going the way it is and that's because donald trump has been impeached and donald trump doesn't want to be the only political player out there who's been impeached right which means the pressure is going to be really intense on republicans to impeach joe biden i mean if they had a bigger majority i think it would be a pretty much

Speaker 4 but you know that donald trump is sitting down there in mar-a-a-lago and he's stewing about that choice impeached you know you can devalue the impeachment by making sure that everyone is impeached.

Speaker 4 Then it's like, it's no big deal, right? Right. And you know that he's going to be pressuring.
He's going to be pushing. He's going to be pushing.

Speaker 4 And at some point, Mike Johnson's going to say, sorry, I just don't have the votes. They're just not there.

Speaker 2 You've done that the vote. And

Speaker 2 I wouldn't be surprised, Charlie, if he doesn't have the vote for my orcas.

Speaker 4 One last thing in the time that we have left here. Let me tell you something I'm a little bit worried about.
The big story next week is going to be the argument in front of the U.S.

Speaker 4 Supreme Court on the 14th Amendment disqualification of Donald Trump. Now, as a matter of law,

Speaker 4 I have read many of these amicus briefs. I think that Judge Ludig has made a compelling case for how that would apply.

Speaker 4 So I'm not arguing this on the merits. I just think that people need to brace themselves that this Supreme Court is not going to throw Donald Trump off the ballot.

Speaker 4 And we can argue that the 14th Amendment applies. I agree it applies.

Speaker 4 But I think people need to dial back their you know, the wish casting here because this Supreme Court is not going to disqualify him. I worry about the big headline.

Speaker 4 You know, Supreme Court hands Trump big win. Supreme Court says Donald Trump not an insurrectionist.
What do you think? I'm going to get your take on this.

Speaker 2 You're talking about the Colorado.

Speaker 2 Yes, that's right. Yeah, the Colorado.
Okay. So I agree with you 1,000%, number one, in the first instance.
I think people need to dial back the sort of wish casting on the outcome.

Speaker 2 But I would argue, Charlie, I don't think this Supreme Court or a liberal Supreme Court would rule otherwise. My reasoning on this is

Speaker 2 there is not enough there yet. You are talking about two states that have committed this action.

Speaker 2 Not 17,

Speaker 2 not 10, but two.

Speaker 2 And you have more states that have decided to keep him on the ballot than kick him off the ballot. And I think the Supreme Court punts on this.

Speaker 2 I think they find a way to send it back and say, basically saying, until there are more cases and controversy amongst the states. Because right now there isn't controversy amongst the states.

Speaker 2 You have two out of 50 states that said you're not going to be on our ballot. They can do that.
There are other off-ramps as well.

Speaker 4 And judges are very, very creative. And we've seen this in the past.
I mean, you know, if you

Speaker 4 spend much time studying the history of the court, look, this is a court that's already got a lot of questions about legitimacy, a lot of controversy. This is the last thing on earth they want to do.

Speaker 4 And if a judge wants to dodge making a tough decision, the judge will do this. The Supreme Court

Speaker 4 has many ways of doing it. So I just hope that people keep the expectations in check.
I think the big case, the one that I'm hanging fire on, is his claim of immunity.

Speaker 4 I am much more confident that the D.C. Circuit is eventually going to get around to saying, of course, you don't have absolute immunity.

Speaker 4 The Supreme Court might actually balance this out and saying, no, you don't have absolute immunity to criminal prosecution, but we're we're not going to be the ones that are going to throw you off the ballot.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 2 I think that's where the court will land on this.

Speaker 2 And I think, in the first instance, with respect to the Colorado case, the 14th Amendment, I think they will have a very narrow reading of that amendment, and they will create the lane that basically says you can't kick him off the ballot.

Speaker 2 The voters likely should be the ones to decide that, something in that space.

Speaker 2 Or they say, there's just not enough here with Colorado and one other state, Maine, saying that, you know, they want him off. It's not ready for us.
It's not right. But we'll see.

Speaker 2 I think your broader point, though, is the one that we need to focus in on and it's how people react to that interpretation.

Speaker 2 And I think, unfortunately, you're going to have extreme reaction one way or the other.

Speaker 2 And I think we just need to brace for it and just be prepared to have good folks like like yourself and myself and others out there who are saying okay y'all just calm down have yourself a little you know gin and tonic or a little bourbon and just kind of go to the corner of the room and mull it over but otherwise getting excited about this right now because i think the bigger one on immunity is is the one

Speaker 2 that really matters for me because you know whether he's on the ballot or not

Speaker 2 fine but giving him absolute immunity that's a problem. That changes everything.

Speaker 4 You can catch Michael Steele's new show, The Weekend. He is the co-host along with Alicia Menendez and Simone Sanders Townsend from 8 to 10 a.m.
Eastern Time on Saturday and Sunday mornings on MSNBC.

Speaker 4 Chairman Steele, it is always great to have you back on the podcast. Have a great weekend.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 You too, Charlie. It's a real pleasure, my friend, as always.
You take care.

Speaker 4 And thank you all for listening to this weekend's Bullwork podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.
We will be back on Monday, and we will do this all over again.

Speaker 4 The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.

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