S1: From Kerkow media. So what are you going to do
S1: about it?
S2: You know, we have a habit of consuming all things,
S2: news and politics through the filter of our own opinion.
S2: But sometimes new situations arise or sometimes we listen to
S2: both sides of a complicated issue and we learn something different.
S2: Or sometimes if we're willing to give it some thought,
S2: we may even find that we've changed our minds. Our
S2: guest today served as the chairman of the Republican National
S2: Committee and some of his views may surprise you. So
S2: stick around. This is politics. Meet me in the middle.
S2: I'm Bill Kurtis. Once again, my co-host is Jane Albrecht
S2: as an international trade attorney. She fought for U.S. economic
S2: and business interests to high level government officials in many countries.
S3: She's a member
S2: of the U.S. Supreme
S3: Court bar and she's also been
S2: involved with several U.S. presidential campaigns.
S1: Welcome, Jane. Thanks. Always nice to be here and welcome, Michael.
S2: Michael Steele is an American conservative political commentator and attorney
S2: and a former Republican Party politician. He served as the
S2: seventh lieutenant governor of Maryland. By the way, he was
S2: the first African-American elected to any statewide office in Maryland.
S2: He's also served as chairperson of the Republican National Committee.
S2: And he was the first African-American to serve in that
S2: capacity as well.
S3: You've seen him
S2: on CNN and MSNBC, FOX and
S3: frankly, everywhere,
S2: as he's often in the news outlets for his perspectives.
S2: Back in 20/20, like some other lifelong Republicans, he formally
S2: endorsed Joe Biden for the presidency. Michael, thank you for
S2: joining us today. This is exciting.
S4: Thank you. It's good to be here. Absolutely.
S2: Michael, you've said that you're still a Republican. Does that
S2: hold true today
S3: as we speak? Yeah, still
S4: does. Haters will hate and
S3: God bless them.
S4: But I've been in this a lot longer than a
S4: lot of the haters who just showed up. And for me,
S4: it's tough. I'm not I don't want to play it off. And,
S4: you know, I turn a blind eye to some of
S4: the horrendously racist and xenophobic and, quite
S3: frankly, ugly behavior
S4: of some of the members of my party. But like
S4: any good person, parent
S3: leader, you try to
S4: correct bad behavior. And so far, at least now, I
S4: welcome standing in that breach to talk about
S3: the ideas and the
S4: ideals of a once proud party that though many may
S4: have disagreed with some of our policy prescriptions, they they
S4: did not view us through the very narrow and ugly
S4: lenses that we portray ourselves today. And it's important to
S4: understand why that is why that
S3: lens has sort of been
S4: created as a look for the party. And those of
S4: us inside have seen this coming for quite some time.
S4: I think it's still, at least right now, Bill, worth
S4: standing in the breach to try to correct it
S2: before we get into the whole scenario of where the
S2: party is and where it's going. I think I'd like
S2: to come in the side door, if you don't mind.
S2: And sure, for the sake of this question, congratulations, Michael.
S2: You are again, the chairman of the Republican Party. So
S2: I'm not asking you here what you or the party
S2: won't be any more right now. We'll get to that later.
S2: What are the specific steps that you will now take
S2: to make it your party again?
S4: Well, that's that's a tough question to answer, because that
S4: answer requires a commitment not just from someone from one person,
S4: but an entire group of people. We all have to
S4: be on the same mind and same page about what
S4: the party is and what it isn't. So while I
S4: may try to, as I did when I was national chairman,
S4: move the party to embrace not just his historic past,
S4: but what I think would be an important and a
S4: historic future that most closely resemble the emerging diversity of
S4: this great experiment we call America. You've got to have
S4: buy into that. People have got to believe and want
S4: that to be a part of their own journey, their
S4: own story, as I said, to chairman of the state
S4: parties in the National Committee, men and women who
S3: work with them. We know them
S4: affectionately as the one hundred and sixty eight members who
S4: make up the RNC. That I'm not a Pied Piper,
S4: no chairman is a Pied Piper. What I try to
S4: do is give guidance and direction, give vision and purpose,
S4: elevate our principles and ideas. But it matters what you
S4: do on the ground. And if you're not down with
S4: expanding the party's influence and base among a growing, diverse
S4: population of voters, it won't happen no matter what I preach.
S2: Are you saying, Michael, that you think it's kind of
S2: beyond help or can you, as a leader of the party,
S2: make some moves that are going to set it in
S2: the right direction?
S4: Yeah, I think it's not beyond help at this point.
S4: You've got to have leaders who are willing to state
S4: the case and make the case in front of the
S4: party as a whole and and give them their charge
S4: that you'll either pick up that charge and agree. Yes,
S4: we like an expanding, diverse base of African-Americans, Hispanics, gay
S4: and lesbian Americans, etc., or we don't. We want to
S4: have a more isolated, insulated base of white segregationist Republican men.
S4: So you tell me which way you want to go.
S4: And that would tell me whether or not the party
S4: is prepared to move into its future. Look, at the
S4: end of the day, Bill, if you don't want help,
S4: you won't get helped. If you don't change your behavior,
S4: then you will continue to do bad. Things or behave
S4: in a way that does not help you, so, you know,
S4: when you have people inside the party who are doubling
S4: down and coming out of the 20 20 election and
S4: certainly coming on after January six, saying that this is
S4: Trump's party, everybody get used to it. Well, we know
S4: what Trump and Trump ism has meant and what it
S4: has done. So if you're telling me that's who we are, then, OK,
S4: you've now drawn a line that I'm willing to fight
S4: for or fight over. I may or may not win
S4: that battle, but I just don't walk away. I've been
S4: doing this for far too long, just to walk away
S4: from stupid that's standing in front of me. So my
S4: thing is, let's push back against stupid the you know,
S4: the Idiocracy that is now the leadership of the GOP
S4: in many respects, that blindly follows a man who is
S4: neither a conservative nor Republican who is devoid of any
S4: values set or principles that anyone would want to impart
S4: to their own children, let alone a nation, and see
S4: where we are.
S3: Michael, this is admirable, but you act
S1: like the Republican Party is an innocent victim to all this.
S1: In fact, they made a pact with the devil back
S1: when they adopted the Southern Strategy.
S3: Sure.
S1: It's really not gone away.
S4: Well, look, it's not just a Southern strategy, but it's also,
S4: you know, it's the same pack that the Democrats made.
S1: So, no, it's not the same pack that the Democrats
S1: may yell
S4: for about one hundred years. This is the problem. Everybody
S4: wants to put them in nice little neat partisan buckets.
S4: And the reality of it is this is our political system.
S4: It is something that is a scourge on both parties
S4: who played a role in animating and pushing out these narratives,
S4: particularly in the race based so that Southern strategy came
S4: to life. Why? Because Lyndon Johnson, who himself was a
S3: segregationist, decided
S4: political expediency, history, all of that to embrace basically Robert
S4: Kennedy's agenda on
S3: civil rights that was
S4: born into the sort of voting rights space in the
S4: civil rights space, which you had Republicans that Johnson leaned
S4: on to help get that through in sixty four. In
S4: sixty five. So so but it goes back to what
S4: what you saw in the nineteen sixty four presidential race
S4: when Barry Goldwater doubled down on segregation, because that's the
S4: beginning of the Southern Strategy. Remember, the South was Democratic,
S4: not Republican at that time. The North was Republican. I
S4: remember that shift to the South. Becoming Republican was part
S4: of the strategy because you could not win a presidential
S4: race without picking up states in the South. And so
S4: the calculation going back to Goldwater, which is why you
S4: had that embrace in Goldwater later on in his life,
S4: repudiated that stand in sixty four because he realized what
S4: Pandora's box he had opened by taking a cold, calculated
S4: political strategy and applying it in a political process with
S4: a party that had a long standing civil rights history,
S4: if you will, up to that point. So the reality
S4: began for us in that. And I and I'm not
S4: disputing your point. I think you make a very valid
S4: point about the poison and the role that that poison
S4: played in the modern day Republican Party.
S3: But I think it's
S4: important to understand that art in the political calculations to it,
S4: that Nixon took advantage of coming off of that horrible
S4: convention speech of Goldwater in 64 where he embraced segregation ism.
S4: Nixon saw the political opportunism of that in winning his
S4: presidential race in 68, and even Reagan played into it
S4: when he launched his campaign in 1980 in one of
S4: the ugliest spots in Mississippi relative to the question of race. So, yeah,
S4: that narrative is there for sure. But that does not
S4: mean that there were people inside the party who fought
S4: against that narrative as well.
S2: Michael, are the voters a reflection of the Republican Party
S2: or is the Republican Party a reflection of the voters?
S4: Both. Both. It's symbiotic. I mean, you see it on
S4: you see it on the left as much as you
S4: see it on the right. You have a situation where
S4: over the last 30 or so years, the base of
S4: of staying with the Republican Party, the base of the party,
S4: has become much more animated, engaged. And why is that?
S4: Because that base has felt more and more disenfranchised, disconnected,
S4: which allowed that space for Donald Trump to come in
S4: and play the kind of narrative out that he played out,
S4: keeping in mind that what Donald Trump did was effectively
S4: take his viewers over a 14, 15 year period and
S4: turn them into his voters. They so he had already
S4: been talking to a lot of those folks out there
S4: through the various media outlets. That he was on where
S4: he connected with these voters, which is why the overwhelming
S4: thing you hear about Donald Trump from a lot of
S4: his supporters is he's a fighter. It's not about policy.
S4: It's not about these other things. So I think you
S4: look more broadly
S3: at where the
S4: line is between the voters and the party. And it's
S4: a story of the tail getting to the point where
S4: it wags the dog. And I think that's what drives
S4: a lot of it right now.
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S2: Let's talk about today's reality, Michael, for just a second,
S2: because it seems that any Republican now that has a
S2: conscience or says anything responsible gets run out of town
S2: on a rail. Where did these voters come from and
S2: how did they get so radicalized?
S4: They've been radicalized over a long period of time. It
S4: just didn't happen in four years or in one political cycle.
S4: You had Tea Party before that. You had a lot
S4: of disaffected voters in the 2006 election, the 2000 election.
S4: You had a lot of frustrated voters in the 1990s
S4: and 80s. And so this is this is a trend
S4: line that's been in place for a long time in
S4: a lot of those voters check themselves out of the system.
S4: They just stop participating, which was the big surprise of
S4: twenty sixteen when they finally showed back up. And all
S4: these voters who no one was counting on, no one
S4: was polling, no one was talking to folks discounted because
S4: of their God and their guns or they discounted them
S4: because they were somehow bad people or are not serious
S4: or smart or anything like that. They decided to show
S4: up and vote. Their avatar was Donald Trump. So you've
S4: got to look at how these voters, particularly on the
S4: Republican side, and I would dare say currently on the
S4: on the Democratic side, you have the same issue with
S4: progressives who've emerged as a as a fighting force inside
S4: the Democratic Party. And if you don't learn the lesson
S4: from the GOP, you are doomed to make the same
S4: mistakes that were made inside the GOP with respect to
S4: that very hard conservative base. And so while the Republican
S4: side is more about the culture wars, the Democratic side
S4: is more about the economic wars. And so those are
S4: competing interests in this voter narrative that I think voters
S4: who feel isolated are looking for avatars, looking for voices,
S4: looking for leaders who reflect that. That's how you come
S4: up with the Marjorie Taylor Green. That's how you come
S4: up with a crazy gates down in Florida. So the
S4: realities are where those voters now are selecting people who
S4: they think can push back and attack the system that
S4: they've come to dislike. That's one of the animating ideas
S4: around Donald Trump and Trump ism, is to, as he
S4: said he would do, deconstruct the administrative state.
S1: Michael, I think you make really good points and you
S1: talk about the willingness to fight, to change, to bring
S1: the Republican Party back to its original ideals. But when
S1: you talk about the frustration of these voters, part of
S1: it is that
S3: the Republicans
S1: courted the white working class. Sure. But they courted them
S1: on false promises. Their policies really benefited the wealthy and corporations.
S1: The policies that no government, no taxes, no regulation, all
S3: government is bad.
S1: And then when the Republican Party didn't deliver on that,
S1: their base got more frustrated. It was the Republican base
S1: that became the Tea Party after George W. Bush
S3: and then the
S1: conservative money embraced the Tea Party, and it just kept
S1: getting spiraled into more and more extremism. And part of that,
S1: as you know, was promoted by lies. The Republican Party
S1: told their base, not just the big lie last time.
S3: All right.
S4: So you say all of that. So what do you
S4: what do you want to do about it? What do
S4: you think you do about it? Let me throw the
S4: question to you, because, you know, the question is, what
S4: are you fighting over? I can fight the past and yeah,
S4: I can list the sins of the father and the
S4: grandfather and the great grandfather, but I don't live in
S4: that time. So the question is, what do I do
S4: with that? I cannot only thing I can do is
S4: acknowledge the truth of it. When I was national chairman,
S4: I gave a speech at the National Press Club, which
S4: I definitely declared that the efforts by the party to
S4: engage in the Southern Strategy was over. The Southern Strategy
S4: was dead. I took that speech and went to the
S4: NAACP and declared without hesitation that we are broadening the
S4: base of our party and we need you to be
S4: a part of that. Ken Mehlman did the same thing.
S4: He was the first one to acknowledge the sins of
S4: the father and the grandfather. So the question then becomes
S4: in this internal struggle inside of a party in which
S4: people seem to be more interested in crouching in a
S4: corner and looking out at the world and saying, you
S4: are against us and therefore we are against you, as
S4: opposed to recognizing the lie of that. How did you
S4: then help them out of that corner? How do you
S4: then move that party for. And that is to be honest, Jane,
S4: that is the real battle that's occurring there. Republicans right
S4: now who are just saying, I'm out of here. I
S4: don't want any part of it. This thing is dead
S4: to me. I'm going to go start a third party.
S4: I'm going to do something else. Then there are other
S4: Republicans are like, well, OK, that may or may not
S4: be true. We'll see. And then there guys like myself,
S4: like I'm already to do something else, but I think
S4: I want to try to terraform this first. I'm going
S4: to try to bring. Many of those folks who still
S4: believe in those ideas, I don't need the majority of
S4: Greens in my party, I want them gone. I want
S4: them in the wasteland of politics, on the ash heap
S4: of history. I don't need them. We don't need them
S4: as a country. So the question is, how do you
S4: then pull people away from that? Someone's got to take
S4: a stand and someone's got to say this is worth
S4: fighting for. And if they don't, then basically what you're
S4: saying is, screw it, the GOP will go the way
S4: of the Whigs and whatever shows up next will show
S4: up next. And we'll just live with what Democrats give
S4: us for the next however many years. I'm not willing
S4: to settle on that at this point.
S1: I agree that's a huge task to try to take
S1: this party from where it has gotten itself and try
S1: to basically fight for the heart and soul of the
S1: of the Republican Party. Yeah, I think you really have
S1: to start with how human beings change. I think you
S1: also you have to be willing to take an honest
S1: look at yourself and
S3: say, where did I
S1: get it wrong? And then learn and grow from that. Sure.
S1: So that starts with the leaders of the Republican Party
S1: as many as possible, starting to tell the truth, not
S1: talking about confessing of sins, but the truth about what
S1: the situation is today. Right.
S2: Jane, the politicians in the Republican Party are reacting to
S2: what brings in their voters.
S3: That's it.
S2: They're not
S3: governing.
S4: They're not governing or leaving.
S2: They're not leading anything. They are, in fact, politicians. So
S2: why should they change their direction if what they're doing
S2: is giving them a situation where they're winning?
S1: But I'm talking about telling the truth, I'm not talking
S1: about confessing sense,
S2: but you would like them to tell the truth, but
S2: the truth didn't necessarily work, right? The lies have worked.
S4: If the truth doesn't win you an election. Why would
S4: I tell it? I mean, let me take let me
S4: tell you what the thinking is right now, Jane. Mm hmm.
S4: The thinking inside the GOP right now is and this
S4: is reflected by Mitch McConnell, if you want to get
S4: a bead on what's going on, just listen to what
S4: the man's telling you. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So Mitch
S4: McConnell has already calculated and what he's saying is evidence
S4: that suggests to him, sorry, we get the house back
S4: next year, we'll just hold this line. Our voters are
S4: going to be fired up to to take back the
S4: House next year and we'll grab the Senate along the way.
S4: Now that the political realities of that may be very
S4: different a year from now than they are presently. But
S4: that's the calculation. And I think, Bill, you make the
S4: right point. Where is the incentive to acknowledge the truth?
S4: We've watched the president in the former United States crap
S4: all over the truth for five years. What price to
S4: be paid for it? Oh, he got impeached twice.
S2: So what I'm going to take a right turn for
S2: a second. January six was a big day, Michael. If
S2: the folks who broke into the Capitol on January 6th
S2: were handed the keys to the government other than to
S2: anoint Trump back in power, what do they want? What
S2: would they do if they were in charge?
S4: That's a hard question, because I don't think they know
S4: what they would do. They could because they were they
S4: were they were rudderless. They had a command. They had
S4: they were on a ship with no rudder. They had
S4: a they had a captain of the ship, President Trump,
S4: who was just saying this way with no idea what
S4: what it would look like when they got to where
S4: this was. So outside of wanting to to kill the
S4: vice president and the speaker of the House, I don't
S4: think there was much more of a plan.
S1: There wasn't.
S4: And so what does that mean for Jane as a
S4: white woman? What does that mean for me as a
S4: black man? I would say, are you with some of
S4: these people's are our fates would have been a little
S4: bit suspect in the hands of some of these people.
S4: That's the reality. They are threatened by the success and
S4: the power of a woman like Jane and what she's
S4: done in her career professionally and personally. They're threatened by
S4: what I stand for. And what I've done in mine
S4: is as a black man, they see in America that
S4: never existed. And Trump alludes to that all the time.
S2: You don't think they're just voting their tax rate? No.
S1: Oh, no, bill. Not not the ones that stormed the capital.
S1: There's other people that do, but not the ones that
S1: stormed the Capitol.
S4: No, they're not voting tax rates now.
S2: Do they believe the election was really stolen?
S1: Yes.
S3: Yes, they do. They were told
S2: that by a guy six months before he was not elected. Correct.
S2: He said if I lose, it's because it's it's a fraud.
S4: And so that tells you that they were more invested
S4: in him than they were the country. And that should
S4: be scary to all of us. And a lesson to
S4: all of us. Right.
S1: I think a lot of what is going on in
S1: America right now is based on a lot of leaders
S1: lying and a lot of media lies going on. And
S1: we won't talk about which stations do it in which
S1: stations don't. Truth is powerful.
S4: The truth is powerful.
S2: Speaking about the lies, let's talk about some of the
S2: things that are going on right now, like the fundraising.
S2: I know, Michael, you've heard about how the Republicans have
S2: had to return something like 120
S3: million dollars after
S2: tricking their own base with a hidden opt out that
S2: made their contributions auto repeat monthly. It's like thank you
S2: for your support. And, you know, I'm not going to
S2: say what it really is.
S4: It's stupid. The grift is amazing.
S3: Yeah. And that's what
S4: the party is becoming. This goes back to the 2000 election.
S4: But go ahead.
S2: It's just I don't understand how this group of people
S2: can be so forgiving. You know, a tablespoon of bleach
S2: will keep covid away. It's like there is no end
S2: to their tolerance for how much they can get screwed
S2: by the party that they're voting into power.
S4: They don't see it that way. You do. You're not
S4: looking at this through their lens. You have your belief
S4: system in the way you've approached this. You've not walked
S4: in their shoes. You've not spent time in a conversation
S4: with them. When I have and this is what triggered
S4: for me the moment. And I knew at this point
S4: in
S3: twenty sixteen,
S4: early twenty sixteen that Donald Trump was going to win
S4: the election. I'm watching a focus group and this young
S4: mother of two divorced from New Hampshire, I believe she
S4: was when asked what she liked about Donald Trump, she said, well,
S4: he's just like me. And I sat there and I went, Oh,
S4: I need to peel that onion back. Yeah, I need
S4: to understand that because you need to tell me. This woman,
S4: this blue collar woman raising two kids on her own,
S4: looks at someone like Donald Trump and says he's just
S4: like me, is not like, oh, I just like him
S3: or he makes me
S4: feel good. She said he's just like me. And I'm like, OK,
S4: there's something going on out here. So, Bill, you've got
S4: to you've got to understand how people look at this
S4: and why they look at this and why they still
S4: look at Trump the way they do, why all those
S4: people were willing to go and commit insurrection in his
S4: name and then come out of the other again. Oh, no, no.
S4: Most of the people there, they were killed. They were kuhnen.
S4: They were antifa. Oh, you mean your buddy who drove
S4: across the country with you in your pickup truck, those
S4: antifa you drove with an empty fat guy all that
S4: way from from Mississippi or from Missouri or North Dakota.
S4: And but they're willing to rewrite the narrative to protect
S4: what they perceive as the important interest they have at
S4: the moment. And that's their investment in everything that Donald
S4: Trump has said.
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S2: Welcome back, Michael, you came out in 2020 in support
S2: of Biden and Harris. How are they doing in their
S2: administration so far?
S4: I think they're doing amazingly well. And to be honest,
S4: I disagree with the president's decision on XL pipeline. I
S4: thought that was a mistake because of the impact they
S4: would have on on the markets and jobs especially. But
S4: that's OK. That's a policy disagreement. I knew that I
S4: even told the president during this campaign that I would
S4: disagree with him on these things and I would be
S4: vocal about that when necessary. And he was fine with that.
S4: And so I think when I step back and I
S4: look at what he's done and the way he's doing it,
S4: I have to give him the same approval and applause
S4: that the American people are giving. He has stepped into
S4: the breach, turned around the narrative on COGAT, turned around
S4: the narrative on the economy, turned around the narrative on. Now,
S4: as we move into the discussion on infrastructure, on job creation,
S4: winning the support of the American people by being transparent,
S4: I think very much to to Jane's earlier points about honesty,
S4: being honest, being vulnerable and willing to say, yeah, you know,
S4: we were caught flat footed at the border. While I
S4: appreciate that honesty. The next thing is now you've got
S4: to step up the game and come up with a
S4: policy to address the crisis that is brewing there. Mm hmm.
S4: But I think the American people, at least at this
S4: point in the remaining days left leading up to his
S4: first 100 days, are willing to give him the runway
S4: to do that. And I think that's a particularly after
S4: what we've gone through, Bill, over
S3: the last four years,
S4: five years. I think that's a good thing. I think
S4: it's a healthy thing for both his administration and the country.
S2: So let's talk about a couple of these policies. And
S2: I'd like to to start with the whole H.R. one
S2: discussion in Washington.
S3: Right.
S2: It does appear that the Republicans philosophy is do whatever
S2: you can to win voters, suppress fine gerrymander, change the
S2: look and feel of the local voters so that you
S2: can win. Fine. Lie fine. The Biden administration is butting
S2: up against that philosophy. So let's first talk about in
S2: this Congress, especially with the Senate, in the condition that
S2: it's in with the filibuster still alive, how do you
S2: navigate from here to, you know, maybe getting H.R.
S3: one passed, making sure
S2: that the voter has a say as opposed to they
S2: have no way to vote under the circumstances?
S4: Yeah. So H.R. one is more than just voting no.
S4: And that's the problem with H.R. one. If I were
S4: the leadership, what I would do at this point is
S4: I would pull the voting provisions out as a standalone
S4: and put that package before the Congress. Now, you put
S4: the Republicans in a spot because it's easy for me
S4: to go back and criticize H.R. one by saying it
S4: does all these other things that we can't afford and
S4: it has nothing to do with voting. You know, the
S4: environmental provisions
S3: in there, all the
S4: sort of Christmas tree stuff that, you know, we tend
S4: to do as as a Democratic member of the House said, yeah,
S4: the problem with anything that's that's labeled H.R. one is
S4: that it just becomes a stalking horse for people to
S4: attack and because it's loaded up with everything.
S1: What about gerrymandering and campaign finance?
S4: How do you think the Democrats control the House of Representatives?
S4: That's been a part of the national platform for a
S4: long
S3: time,
S1: but at least the Democrats are willing to at least
S3: reform it now. Yeah, and that's fine.
S4: Then put it in a separate bill.
S1: You think you could get it passed? Probably not. Why?
S4: Well, the same reason you can't get responsible gun legislation passed.
S3: Where is the will for the will
S2: with the voters there? But the will with the politicians
S2: that are supported by the NRA is not. And who
S4: do the voters
S3: vote for? You think that
S2: the politicians right now on gun rules are reflecting the voters?
S4: Let me ask you this
S3: one with Sandy Hook. When did when do
S4: we watch twenty six little babies get shot up in
S4: their classrooms? What year was that and how many elections
S4: have we had since then? And this is a 90
S4: percent issue with the American people.
S1: It becomes a chicken and egg because to the extent
S1: you have gerrymandered districts.
S3: No, it doesn't. It does.
S2: So what's the answer to that?
S3: Might you vote
S4: them out
S1: if it's harder with gerrymandered districts? And I'm not talking
S1: about let's not talk about the past, as you say.
S1: Let's talk about how do you fix it today?
S2: Actually, you know what, Jane? He's right. You have
S3: said elections
S2: have consequences. This is one of the consequences.
S1: Yes, I understand that.
S4: Whether the gerrymandered or not. Ninety seven percent of the
S4: members of Congress get re-elected, that's Democrats and Republicans. So
S4: at the end of the day, if these issues are
S4: that important to us as citizens, as voters, why do
S4: we keep electing individuals who don't support us on those?
S4: The issues we keep reelecting them, and irrespective you're now
S4: into the second gerrymandering, the second redistricting period, we're in
S4: twenty twenty that occurred during the period twenty ten to
S4: twenty twenty. So you can change that. I know that
S4: firsthand because I live in a state where I'm outnumbered
S4: two to one by Democrats. All right. But I fought
S4: to change the system in my state to give to
S4: give single member districts to black voters who are being
S4: represented by white politicians and to give Republicans a little
S4: bit more opportunity to compete. I live in a county
S4: of eight hundred thousand people in which they're only registered.
S4: Fifty some thousand Republicans. So don't talk to me about
S4: the impact of gerrymandering. I know that firsthand.
S1: And I'm not talking about gerrymandering from a party perspective.
S1: I'm just talking about in general. There are better ways
S1: of doing it.
S4: But my point is the people support it as much
S4: as they complain about it, they still support it. And
S4: so you can't tell me that just because a district
S4: is gerrymandered a certain way that you have to keep
S4: voting for the same people who keep that system in place.
S4: Why not vote for the guy or gal who's running
S4: against it? Why not vote for the person who's coming
S4: out fresh out of the gate as opposed to the
S4: guy who's been a part of the problem for 30 years?
S2: Michael, I just want to ask you
S3: one more question. Yes, sir.
S2: Tell us something we don't know that can give us
S2: hope that the Republican Party can get back to governance,
S2: get away from politics and actually care about the American
S2: people are processed in our lives.
S4: I can't tell you that because I don't know that.
S4: And that's what I'm still trying to discover if that
S4: light is even there. I'm just being honest. I think
S4: everybody wants very quick, easy solutions to an intractable, difficult
S4: problem that has been in the making. As Jane first
S4: noted in our conversation going back to the 1960s. And
S4: I just don't think you can just unwrap
S3: that and
S4: undo the devastating impact from that in a short time.
S4: It's going to take a leadership that has not emerged.
S4: I was heartened and hopeful with the likes of Liz
S4: Cheney doing what she did and Adam Kinzinger and others,
S4: you know, those 10 or so who who kind of
S4: stood their ground and who are now paying a political
S4: price for it. But we need more.
S2: So, Michael, what's your place in this going forward
S4: to make as much annoying noise as I can? People
S4: ask me why I haven't left the Republican Party. I
S4: said because it pisses them off. The longer I stay in,
S4: that's where I am today. In six months, we may
S4: be having a very different conversation if I see that
S4: light my coming on.
S2: How can people follow you?
S4: Well, you can follow me on Twitter at Michael Steele.
S4: Very easy. Check out my podcast, the Michael Steele podcast.
S4: You know, where we get your podcast there. I will be.
S4: And if you want to, you know, do a little
S4: deeper dive, you can go visit my website. Michael Steele
S4: Network dot com.
S3: That's it. Oh, this was great.
S4: Yeah, I really enjoyed the conversation. I love the push.
S4: The pull. It's good to engage. And I wish as
S4: a country we did more of this with a sense
S4: of good nature and really with a sense of learning
S4: and hearing what the other person has said. And I
S4: thank you
S3: both for that. And really, we enjoyed it.
S2: Well, that was a powerful show, and I certainly hope
S2: Michael comes back and joins us. And Jane, of course,
S2: thank you for joining again. That was excellent. And to
S2: you listening, please don't forget the hit the follow button
S2: so you you don't have to hunt around for the
S2: next episode of Meet Me in the Middle. And thank
S2: you to our producer and editor, Joey Salvinia, music for
S2: Meet Me in the Middle of a composed and performed
S2: by Celeste Anorectic, executive producer for this episode is Stuart Halpern.
S2: These are complicated issues. This is why we need to
S2: have a discussion like this in the middle. See you
S2: next week, everybody.
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