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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Foreign hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. He's back. He was the former chair of the Republican National Committee. He's host of the Michael Steele Podcast, which we're distributing here at the Bulwark. But beginning Monday, May 5, Michael and his fellow panelists Simone Sanders Townsend and Alicia Menendez will move to prime time, co host the 7pm Eastern hour on MSNBC. You're going prime time, baby. Deion Sanders, prime, baby.
- [00:34]
Michael Steele
Looking forward to it. It's a lot of fun and I'm glad to be in this conversation with you, as always. You're one of my fav people out there, and so I'm just glad to be able to come on and shoot the breeze with you and celebrate this new chapter that's coming up on May 5th. I'm excited about it, man. It's going to be a lot of fun.
- [00:52]
Tim Miller
Talk to me about prime time. You do have a new support team now. You got getting you on a zpeg. Do you have your own personal makeup artist? Like, what's the difference with prime? How do things change when you're prime time?
- [01:00]
Michael Steele
Like, all I asked for was someone who could put some hair on my head that was I need more hair for prime time. So. And the response was just grow out what's left and you can do a comb over.
- [01:12]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [01:12]
Michael Steele
I was like, but afros don't comb over that well. So it's just, you know, I, I don't how that works. Now we've got, look, we've got a great team in our executive producer, Kyle Griffin and the production team around him, the writers, all of that, a big portion of that transitions with us to the Primetime Hour. Yeah, the support is a little bit different. It's a different game. You've got more hands that are part of making the product, which is good. And because, you know, look certainly for, for SpinCo MSNBC, you're everyone's familiar with, you know, sort of the, the standalone entity now that will be the new version of msnbc. They're building a wonderful brand exciting new programming. It started with our effort on the weekend from 8 to 10 in the morning, Saturday and Sundays, and is now kind of grown out to this opportunity in primetime. But it's also helped transform how other shows are looking. So it's been really, really fun, man, to sort of be sort of the experimental project that works out really well and that is sort of an example of some exciting things to come. And so I'm looking forward to May 5th and 7:00 and, you know, bringing the heat as I am want to do.
- [02:29]
Tim Miller
All right, well, let's bring the heat I'm looking forward to, too, because I'll be able to see you more. The 7am Saturday Central Time hour isn't really kind of how we do things in New Orleans. So, you know, I'll get to see you more. More at dinner time than I did. Yeah.
- [02:43]
Michael Steele
I was going to say, right, folks, 7:00am Tim's coming in. He's not going to be watching TV.
- [02:48]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Not checking out Alicia Menendez's takes at 7:00am on Saturday. That's for a different demo. All right, well, you, you're Catholic, right? You went to Archbishop Carroll. Catholic schoolboy, thought he might maybe could have been pope at one point. Any, any thoughts on the pope's passing, possibly because of the smug hot air coming out of JD Vance the day before?
- [03:09]
Michael Steele
I won't even. I had so many of my friends go say to me, really, his last official visit. Are you serious? You know, I've been very reflective of this pope for a lot of reasons, because everyone really wanted to reduce his papacy to, you know, right versus left, conservative versus liberal. And yes, you could argue, oh, he was progressive on immigration. Well, I don't know if my reading of the Bible and the words of Christ around the Beatitudes or what the Lord gave Moses in the Ten Commandments would be considered progressive. I think it's just kind of common sense, loving your neighbor as yourself. That's progressive. And if that's progressive, what does it say about being a conservative? That I don't love my neighbor, that I don't give a shit about the immigrant, that I don't care about what happens to my fellow man and woman? You just can't put him in that box. Because I think what the pope was trying to do was say, look at the core of everything that we do should be love. It should inform how we approach the world and the challenges we have are resolved if we see the humanity of our fellow traveler. It's been really a reflective moment for me. You know, I was an Augustinian seminarian, spent three years in a monastery, roughly that.
- [04:40]
Tim Miller
Also, I had this in my memory somewhere. I knew that you had flirted with the priesthood, but I don't think that three years in a seminary, in a monastery, rather, was something I was familiar with. Give us a little more color on that.
- [04:52]
Michael Steele
Yeah. So I entered the Augustinian order Order of St. Augustine after I graduated from Hopkins. And that August, I went up to Villanova and joined the men there. For my first year while I was at Villanova, I taught at one of our high schools, Malvern Prep, and then went up to Massachusetts for my novitiate and spent time up there preparing for Simple Vows. And that was the journey. And then I left right before Simple Vows because I felt God was calling me to move in a different direction and to take. Take what I learned in that time and apply it to this, what I've been doing since. It is actually. Tim informed how I served as Lieutenant Governor, informed how I served as RNC chairman in a very political position, that part of my Christian values should direct and help me navigate through some very sticky political stuff. And it did. I have a whole different view of how I look at people. I used to tell people after I cussed them out, I'd say, you know, this could have been a lot worse because I spent three years in a seminary. This went a lot better than it otherwise would have. It Just look at me like, okay, whatever.
- [06:10]
Tim Miller
This could have been confession. I could have been, you know, giving you 10 Hail Marys, 10 Our Fathers. You know, you could have.
- [06:15]
Michael Steele
It could have been really painful. Yeah, all you need is, all right, start praying. But, yeah, man, it's a very important time for us. The church is going to go through a transition. You know, the. The who's in, who's out horse race of the election of the next pope is going to ensue after the funeral, if not before. But I think the legacy of this pope is going to be a profound one. And given that he selected and put in place a significant majority of the cardinals who will be electing his successor, they're not going to necessarily look for a similar type or, you know, the next version of Francis. But I think some of the things that he. The qualities he led with, they're going to realize are important. And hopefully the Holy Spirit will lead them to choose the person who will best reflect this time and is best needed for these times.
- [07:10]
Tim Miller
I love hearing you talk about that. I can, you know, the Catholic schoolboy. You know, you can hear the other Catholic schoolboy and the kind of the language that is used. It's funny, the JD Vance of it all, you know, as an adult convert to respect everybody's religious journey. But it reminds me, there's this great meme that I. That I saw that really resonated with me, listening to you versus listening to J.D. vance. I want to share with you. It's every lifelong Catholic I've ever met is like, I think we're supposed to give this food to poor people. And every adult convert to Catholicism is like the archon of Constantinople's epistle on the Pentecostine rites of the Eucharist clearly states that women shouldn't have driver's licenses. It is really true, just like the. And it's an overstatement, like the rhetoric is for, you know, the Archbishop Carol Catholic versus the. The adult convert. J.D. vance, Catholic is. Is a little different.
- [08:00]
Michael Steele
It's. It's a little bit different. It's. But that is so well put. Exactly. Look, you know, it's always kind of marvel, and it's true, I guess, for a lot of folks who convert to a new faith, that they have a certain zeal about it, that those of us who were born into the faith, baptized in the faith at a young age, grew up with it, you know, that zeal is there. It just manifests itself differently. And it's less rhetorical, it's less full on public display, but it is in the works. When you think about the charities you give to the people you support, the programs that you advocate for putting your children in Catholic school, if that option's available. I mean, all the little things that we do, it really kind of reminds me, Tim, of, you know, the lessons at the beginning of Lent. What is the first thing the Lord tells us? Do not, you know, wear, you know, the ashes and sackcloth. Do not show the world how you pray. You know, sit there with your prayer book, walking. You know, you remain humble in your faith, you remain humble in your journey, but you do the works that we are asked to do, which start with loving your neighbor as yourself, then do unto others as you would have them do unto you and providing for the Samaritan that you meet in your journey. And you know what bothers me a lot with today's fascist Christians or Christofascism or Christian nationalism, is that it forgets that the man they purportedly follow, Jesus Christ, was himself a refugee, was herself a migrant who fled the oppression of a government that wanted to kill him and went to a little place called Bethlehem, where he was born. And if the government of Bethlehem looked at Mary and Joseph as they entered the gates and said, who the hell are you? What are you doing here? Get the hell out.
- [10:07]
Tim Miller
I'm sorry. I'm pretty sure that Pontius Pilate is the hero of the Easter story. It's been a while since I've been in Catholic school, but I'm pretty sure. Just a quick aside on all that. 1. One of our past sponsors of this podcast is the Jesuit Refugee Service, which is a great charity to support on this front of the Jesuit pope and and the Michael Steele spirit of the lessons of the of the Christmas story and the Easter story, rather than the send them to a hole in El Salvador lesson, which I don't I think I must have missed that week.
- [10:39]
Michael Steele
I miss week, too.
- [10:42]
Tim Miller
All right, y'all. There's so much going on in politics these days, and everybody's got a different angle on it. And, you know, when it comes to reporting and analysis, the folks at the NPR Politics Podcast is a place where people go to understand what goes down inside Washington and what every decision might mean for you and me. First impressions are always important. All this week, the NPR Politics podcast is unpacking the first 100 days of Trump's presidency, their tackling, what's been done, what's to come and what might change and as always, what it means for you, the listener. Every episode makes it easy for you to understand what's going on from the complete restructure of the federal government, immigration policy, tariffs and trade. These 100 days have been monumental. Every day the NPR Politics podcast team will focus on one thing and it'll boil down to 15 minutes or less. Think of it as your political multivitamin. You know, the folks at NPR are under attack these days from the administration. There is a full frontal attack on them. PBS and the types of reporting analysis they do are so important just and the resources they have are so important. It was just last week on the Ann Applebaum Podcast, I was shouting out the NPR story about from Zambia, the reporter in Zambia reporting on what happened when the HIV drugs were running out there. So, you know, these are folks that do important work and I'd encourage you to check it out. Politics might move fast, but you can count on the NPR Politics podcast to declutter it all for you. Listen now to the NPR Politics Podcast only for npr, wherever you get your podcasts. I want to get back to the immigration stuff in a second, but I was trying to think where which of all the crazy stuff happened in the administration do I want to start with? With Michael Steele. And I saw a draft of something Sam Stein's working on for today, which is just a list of all the things they've messed up. And I think this is a good place to start, right, because we have a lot of ideological differences with what's happening with the administration. But even if you maga nationalism, it has just been a shit show of unbelievable proportions. The Albergo Garcia Thing they admit was wrong Harvard, the letter they said that was sent by accident. That was in a story over the weekend. The signal chat was a mistake. The tariff formula had a math mistake. According to the economists. They cited the Doge cuts that they made and then pulled back. And they made them pull back. And then Elon's in Nova office saying, well, you're not going to bat a thousand percent. They sent out an email accidentally outing the names of the CIA hires, the new CIA hires. I mean, these are just screw ups. Like this is just a comedy of errors by a bunch of amateurs that are not up for it. So I thought maybe that'd be a good place to start and letting you go with it where you want it.
- [13:21]
Michael Steele
It is a good place to start because I think you just insulted the amateurs out there. And the reason I think you did is because even an amateur has a working understanding of what the job is and what the limitations and requirements of the job are, right? They over perform because they don't want to make the mistake, right? So, you know, we've all had that experience as amateurs at something very early in our careers or you know, bringing someone in who's new to the work we're doing. These folks generally don't like government. They don't like the people who serve in government. And what is the big lie, Tim, is they don't like the people who rely on the service of government. Because that last part is the sticky part. Because what they're now seeing in town halls and red districts, in protests across the nation is that the American people, for all of their concerns and maybe even lack of trust with some aspects of government, still rely on it, still need it. They understand what Social Security is there for because they've paid into it. They understand why Medicaid is important. Because their mother, their father, their grandparent or themselves otherwise wouldn't get the health care that they need. They understand what the Department of Education at the federal level is there for. They recognize if the states absolutely control the outcome of educational training and programs, et cetera. But they also appreciate the fact that their special ed kid gets a little extra help from the federal government to get to stay a certain pace, to learn and to graduate and to try to become a productive person in our society. So they understand these things. The fact that the problem now with the MAGA folks inside the government who just wants to go in like Elon Musk with the buzzsaw, just going to start cutting and tearing and then go, oops, didn't mean to Hit that. Oh, wow. I didn't know that there. That's important. They're now hearing from the very people they thought would be standing out there cheering them, and they're not, because they're wrong. And what we're seeing now, particularly in this space with Abrego Garcia, is. I don't care, Tim. I don't give a damn if Abrego Garcia is the head of MS.13.
- [15:56]
Tim Miller
They'd have some evidence if he was the head, but.
- [16:01]
Michael Steele
And I don't give a damn if he's Mother Teresa. But what I do give a damn about is that if our criminal justice system wants to pull him in, that, A, to your point, they have the evidence, and B, he's allowed the due process to confront that evidence and to attest to his innocence or whatever. But that process is important because if you strip that away for Abrego Garcia, Tim Miller, Michael Steele, Jane Doe, John Doe are next. And we know that's the end game. Why go back to the last point I made. Because they fundamentally don't like the people that the government is there to serve. And they want to create a space in which the only folks around them and in their orbit are blind loyalists who at any moment they can kick to the curb. But until that moment occurs, we'll do whatever they want them to do. And that's not how the country was built.
- [17:05]
Tim Miller
It's interesting that you went there, Michael. I was going to save this for later, but it's just so on the nose that you kind of understand the threats and the process and the concerns about what is happening with due process in this country. Because yesterday on Fox, Will Kane is one of the new Fox himbos. He had Maxwell Frost on. Frost was live from San Salvador, and good on him and a couple other Democrats who are continuing to push on this. There's a group that went down there. But Frost brought up what you just brought up, right? The fact that Trump has said that what the next group he wants to send el Salvador are U.S. citizens. He wants to send them to Sukkot. And after he brought this up, some hilarity ensued. So I want to play for people that exchange with. With Will Kane and then. And then Will Cain's attempted cleanup. So it'll be two clips back to back. Let's listen.
- [17:51]
C
You have that in front of you. I've not seen that statement. Can you please quote where that comes from, that he would like to deport American citizens?
- [17:58]
Michael Steele
He said it in the Oval Office.
- [18:00]
C
He said he wants to go for homegrown snacks. People born and raised in the United States. Do you have anything. Do you have anything besides your word on that? I have not seen. I have not seen that. After years of very fine people, among other hoaxes, I'm suspicious of any Democrat quoting President Trump in full context. And I make no apologies, none, on not being able to know or recall that specific clip because it doesn't reinforce my fever dream Handmaid's Tale vision of America, where Lilly, who reads the Bulwark on the Upper west side, is about to be deported right after Kilmar Brago Garcia.
- [18:35]
Tim Miller
Sorry, Will, but Lily that reads the Bulwark, you know, actually is aware of what the President of the United States says. So, like Lily reads the bulwark, is aware of the news. You know, I know you're supposed to be a news anchor, so that is a gap between you and Lily out there. And Lily doesn't think she's going next. She thinks that the American citizens who Trump thinks or accuses of being a criminal are going next. And that is the fucking risk here, right, Chairman?
- [19:03]
Michael Steele
That's exactly the risk. And we're all at risk. Look, the thing that's in the way, the thing that is in the way of everything Donald Trump wants to do, or more to the point, the people around him want to do, the Steve Millers, et cetera, is the Constitution. It's not the regulations on fluoride. It's not whether or not you fund usaid. It's not whether or not this department or that department is large or small has one person or a thousand people. It is the Constitution. Because if you did not have that, the rest of this doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. If we did not have that, Michael Steele and Tim Miller would not be on this mic right now because there would have been jackbooted thugs coming to his location in mind to shut it down. That's what this is about. And it's not hyperbole. And Fox can level up stupid to sit behind a desk in front of a camera and sit there and go, oh, well, you know, I'm not going to make any excuse or apologize for not knowing something. Shut the hell up. Why are you there? You're pushing out the same level of stupid that has infected the political process. But you know what? That's okay. Why? Because the Constitution allows you to do it. And if it wasn't there, guess what? There would be someone to come take you off the air. So that's what this boils down to. And I just wish people and you know, to a certain extent, from going back to my rant about two months ago where I kind of lost my shit and just kind of said, Simone asked me, she said, well, what do you want people to do? I just said, I want them to give a damn. I want them to show they care about what's happening to the country, that these people don't like them, don't want them, and is doing everything they can to make their lives miserable deliberately. And it's nice to see now people taking to the streets more, expressing more directly their concerns, showing up at town halls, even creating town halls they know their members not going to come to. So the next step, folks, is to unelect those who are not in service to the American people, who are not in service to the concerns that you have. We are no longer in the land of $7 cartons of egg. We're beyond that. In fact, it was never really about that. If you're honest people, come on, just be honest. You know what? It really was about the $7 egg. You know why? Because you took a vacation that summer and you could have saved up the money for the eggs in the fall. Right? We know what 2024 was like for most people. It was okay. But there were other things that were going on that really pissed you off and that's, that's respectable. And that should have been addressed by the Democrats and it wasn't okay? So now you have the power to address those things more directly with your elected officials. And the fact that if you hold a town hall and they don't show up, if they come and stand in front of you with arrogance and disdain for the fact that you are concerned about Abrego Garcia because you know he represents you and your rights. If you're concerned about that, and that Congressman isn't. That Congressman no longer should have a job. That's what the power of our Constitution allows. That's why we the people, Tim, are the most important words in our founding documents. Because these men, as flawed and at times failing as they were, wrote something unlike anything written politically except the Magna Carta, which first established the rights of the common man. Right, allows you. Allows you to be the government, not the institutions, and certainly not Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a modern day King George. And we know how that story ended. And as we come up on our 250th, we need to remember that this.
- [23:09]
Tim Miller
Is why the importance. Just put a finer point on what you're saying of like, of acting now to stall or slow this to Speak out against it now because they are going to push as far as they can. This is like the element of all this, right, that it's like, it's not about the details of Abrego Garcia, because it's like, okay, well, had they just gotten away with sending three planes to El Salvador, and, you know, the New York Times wrote one article about it, and a couple immigration lawyers filed some, you know, complaints, and I yelled about it on the Bulwark podcast, and then nobody cared, and they moved on the next day. Then there would have been another plane, and another plane wouldn't have been shout out Lilly from the Upper west side. It wouldn't have been Lilly, but it would have been, you know, criminals or people accused of criminals. But. But we're not too far away from getting the Chris Krebs, right? And you can't tell me that Chris Krebs, American citizen, that is a political opponent of Donald Trump, isn't on that list. Maybe not for El Salvador, but for. For being targeted for criminal actions by this government. Because they're already doing that. They're already trying to do that.
- [24:08]
Michael Steele
Right.
- [24:09]
Tim Miller
The president signed an executive order specifically targeting a political foe. So, like, you have to gum up the works right now to slow this, because we can't stop this process because he got elected. But you can slow it now, you can fight back against it, and then you get to the midterms, right? Like, that's. There are just a lot of steps in this process, and this is where we are now.
- [24:29]
Michael Steele
There are a lot of steps in the process, and you put your finger on an essential feature of that, and that is understanding what the process is, because you know that in the moment, your voice is the most important asset we have. And that's why the protest matters. That's why when you're looking at the number of people coming out and engaging, it does rattle this White House. It certainly rattles the members of Congress. And then they're now caught between loyalty to their base, all right, that elected them in their primary, and thereby loyalty to Trump or loyalty to their service and the people in the community writ large. I love the way you put it. If you just had Tim on his mic every week sort of saying, hey, y'all, they taking people away. They put them on planes and a newspaper writing one story, and everybody else is kind of going, there goes those two. Going at it again, Right?
- [25:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [25:30]
Michael Steele
When we wake up with the knock at the door, we're going to be wondering, well, how the hell did we get here? Well, Tim was on a mic telling you about for the last year. This was coming, but that's not where we are. What's happened is there are a lot of Tim Millers out there, there are a lot of Michael Steele's out there, There are a lot of Miles Taylors and Krebs out there, people who are finding ways to resist either after being fired from their job by Elon Musk, now coming back and suing them, holding them accountable for their action, or running.
- [26:03]
Tim Miller
For office in some of those cases. We did an article on that. Couple of the fire.
- [26:06]
Michael Steele
What about that?
- [26:07]
Tim Miller
Are going to run for office.
- [26:08]
Michael Steele
Talk about a lot of federal employees now. Like, okay, y'all want to play, let's play.
- [26:13]
Tim Miller
No, that's, that's great. It's something that I've been. When people are like, what can I do? What can I do? Well, not everybody's going to run for Congress. Right. But encourage, you know, you got somebody in your life, somebody in your network somebody can support. Right. That I. Because I do think that getting more people in the field. Yeah. Is like a critical part of this.
- [26:27]
Michael Steele
It is right now.
- [26:28]
Tim Miller
I mean, this goes back to what you were doing in 2010 at the RNC, right. It's like, you can't win if you're not playing. You know, I want to get to the economy in a second, but if things keep going the way it looks, you know, there are going to be some areas where, where Democrats haven't won in a while that they could have a chance to win if they got somebody on the, that is on the field with a story, with a narrative that's talking about how they want to fix things for their fellow, you know, whatever state you're in, Iowans, rather than, you know, being whatever strident ideologues about the whole thing.
- [26:56]
Michael Steele
I said this in 2020, repeated it in 24, but in 26, it is going to be enormously more important than those two periods. They have to overwhelm the ballot box with their votes. I said this on the weekend, a number of weeks now in a row. And I will keep saying this to understand. I think you appreciate this. I know you appreciate this. What the end game is here. The end game is not 2028. The end game is 2026. Because in 2026, Republicans know, and certainly MAGA Republicans around Trump know that they could very well lose the House. They don't want to lose the House. You lose the House and then all of a sudden everything else for the next two years becomes that much harder to do now, you'll have a Democratic controlled Congress that will be hauling people's ass to their committees, demanding information, doing investigations, et cetera, et cetera. And they don't want that. They don't need that noise from within side Washington. They don't need that resistance from Capitol Hill. So it's imperative that they keep the House. Right? So when the President issues an executive order reconfiguring our elections, understand folks, this is not about 2028, this is about 2026. Part two of that, to get to part one is, okay, how do we safeguard? Well, let's see, little thing called the Insurrection Act. If you've noticed, there have been stories now popping up here and there, very much as you just described. You know, Tim is on his mic, the New York Times does one thing and everybody else moves on. Well, there are stories now that people need to pay attention to about folks inside the White House because they can't help themselves. They talk too much, talking about a strategy around the Insurrection Act. That's why I keep warning people, when you protest, behave yourselves. Don't get caught up in stupid. Right? Don't get drawn into confrontation, number one. And for organizers to police your people. In other words, have a better understanding of who's out on the streets with you because they will, they will send people, infiltrate. They always project, Tim, you know that. Oh yeah, look at, they paid these Democrats to come to the town hall. No, they didn't. Because if that, if they paid them, then what's the problem then why don't you pretend you're a Democrat, get paid and expose it, Right?
- [29:21]
Tim Miller
I haven't seen any of that yet.
- [29:23]
Michael Steele
Haven't seen any of that because it doesn't exist. But when you have a large gathering of protesters, I can put people in there and mix it up and cause a fight. And then guess what? Then Trump said, oh, see, look at all that. Look at the violence, look at all that violence. And he invokes the Insurrection act to, quote, put down the violence and protect the virginity of this great nation. And so we need to be mindful of what the end game is here. And the end game is always the ballot box. Why? Because it is the essential power of we the people. Be mindful of it.
- [29:59]
Tim Miller
Somehow. We're 30 minutes in here. We haven't even talked about our blow dried Secretary of Defense. Secretary of Defense as we speak, who knows? He was on Fox and Friends this morning doing some damage control, blaming the deep state for coming after him. It's an interesting deep state, you know, when the deep state includes somebody that you hired to run your public affairs department as a longtime friend of yours and a longtime supporter of Donald Trump's, and then. And he writes an article about how you're a complete disaster and Trump needs to move on for you to save his presidency. That's an intriguing deep. That's not the kind of deep state that I. Not kind of deep state.
- [30:34]
Michael Steele
I know. No.
- [30:35]
Tim Miller
But anyway, what have you made of what's happened with the Secretary of Defense?
- [30:39]
Michael Steele
It's a joke. He's just proving exactly why there should have been more concerns and alarms about him when his name was proposed. Whether it's, oh, everybody focused on Matt Gaetz and I knew this was going to happen. Everybody focused on Matt Gates. And so everyone seems less offensive than Matt Gaetz. Well, Lisa's not Matt Gaetz. Yeah, it's actually worse.
- [31:04]
Tim Miller
All right. It was obvious at the time, actually.
- [31:06]
Michael Steele
Also, it's just obvious at the time whether Secretary of Defense, whether it's the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, whether it's the National Security Advisor who. It doesn't matter. All of these people are cut out of the same cesspool of stupid. And so I'm not surprised. And nor is anybody else surprised. No one in Washington is surprised by this. No one.
- [31:30]
Tim Miller
They might have been surprised it took three months. They might have thought he could last a year or three months.
- [31:36]
Michael Steele
Did you really?
- [31:37]
Tim Miller
I didn't. But, I mean, maybe some of those Republicans on the Senate that confirmed him thought they were buying themselves a year. I mean, what are you doing if you're John Cornyn or Mike Rounds or Roger Wicker, like, confirming a complete ass clown to run the US Military? And it just boggled the mind that they. And so I do think they must have convinced themselves that, I don't know, he'd have good. Who the fuck knows what they convinced themselves of? But did they really think that April 22, that it would be one fiscal quarter before he would have totally, you know, imploded?
- [32:10]
Michael Steele
He is a complete incompetent. He is a weekend talk show host. And as a weekend talk show show host, I can at least say, I ran a government. I ran a national party. As a co host. I ran a national party. I did some stuff before I got to that job. Right.
- [32:30]
Tim Miller
You're in a monastery. You weren't having an affair with a married woman while your baby mama was at home, while you were still in divorce proceedings with the other woman. You know, you're in a monastery. So, like, there are some differences.
- [32:42]
Michael Steele
That's Too much work. That's way too much work. There's too many things to keep track of in that situation. I. Look, I did. No, I. That's way too much work. But it wasn't too much work for him. And what Sad, Tim. It was too much work for the United States Senate Republicans to tell the President, send us somebody else.
- [33:04]
Tim Miller
We can do better than this.
- [33:06]
Michael Steele
Because our defense of our nation is paramount. And so now, as we see, he is the one. Here's the thing. He wants to blame the deep state. He wants to blame people who are out here lying on him. He wants to blame people who are, you know, speaking in secret about him. What are they doing? They're speaking about stuff you did. They're not lying. Was it your phone? Was it your wife in the chat? Was it your brother in the chat? Was it your lawyer? What the hell's your personal lawyer? What's that about, right? Oh, look. We're about to bomb Yemen. What do you think, honey?
- [33:52]
Tim Miller
Phil Hegseth, you got any. You got two cents, Phil?
- [33:54]
Michael Steele
You got two cents? You know, I don't even know what he does at DH at Department of Homeland Security. I don't think he knows what he does there. But the reality of it is, no, it was you, baby. And it's just. It is just this whole thing my mom used to tell me when I was a kid. And whenever I did something, she'd ask me, well, did you do it? And I go.
- [34:19]
Tim Miller
Kinda.
- [34:20]
Michael Steele
Kinda? Yeah, kinda. And she would always tell me, there is no such thing. You either did or you didn't. You can't half step your responsibility in something. And you certainly can't do it at this level where as a grown ass man, your first recourse is not to stand up and go, you know what that was? The dam is dumbest thing. I should have known better as Secretary of Defense, to put that conversation on an unsecured phone, given the proximity I am to those who want to steal that information. Right? I should have known better. Mr. President, I apologize. Right. You don't apologize to us. Apologize to the President. He's the one who hired your dumbass, so that's fine, right? But the reality of it is you take responsibility. But no one in this administration wants to take responsibility for anything. They always seek to blame someone else. It's someone else's fault that they're so incompetent. It's someone else's fault that they're so blind and stupid. It's someone else's fault that they don't know what they're doing, that they're in a job over their head, that you pick a man to head up the health department of the country and he's sitting there telling people autism is not what science has told us, has been for the last 30 years. And everybody's like, okay, it all comes from the top.
- [35:45]
Tim Miller
Right? I know you know this. We'll just put it, we'll just say it out loud.
- [35:48]
Michael Steele
Right?
- [35:49]
Tim Miller
It's like Donald Trump never took responsibility for anything in his life. He went bankrupt a million times. He had a fake name. He'd call the New York Post with his fake name to talk about how good his sexual prowess was with the women that he was cheating on his wife with because they weren't going to brag on the sexual prowess. You know, he just, he doesn't like. This is just so. It just, it all stems from that. The economic situation is, is really bad.
- [36:13]
Michael Steele
Yes.
- [36:13]
Tim Miller
People listening to this have become awake to it, but I don't know if regular folks have. This is the Wall Street Journal. This is not some woke liberal lefty economist here. The Wall Street Journal yesterday, the Dow Jones shed almost 1,000 points on Monday and is headed for its worst April performance since the Great Depression. The S&P 500 performance since inauguration Day is now the worst for any president up to this point. And data going back to 28. And it's all self inflicted. None of this had anything to do with economic conditions or a pandemic or whatever. A bubble popped that was the housing market. This is all completely self inflicted because we have a total imbecile running the government just hammering himself in the dick over and over again. And my question for you, Michael, is we've had economy experts on to talk about that. So what I wanted to get your take on, what you're an expert on is where are the business advocacy groups shouting about this? You dealt with this back in 2008. Obama. There are things I didn't like about Obamacare, but Obama tries to pass Obamacare to get health care to more people. And all these advocacy groups, the Chamber of Commerce and Pharma and all these guys are out there screaming bloody murder. This is socialism. This is communism. Meanwhile, Obama oversaw kind of a stagnant but slightly growing economy that was basically directionally fine. Could have been better, could have been worse. Trump is single handedly ruining our country's economic status globally. And all these guys are just quiet. They're still sucking up to him. Explain that to me.
- [37:50]
Michael Steele
It is one of the more depressing and just frustrating aspects of this. A lot of it stems from the fact that they don't want to be a target. What Trump has done to law firms, what he's done to other groups and individuals, how he's clearly identified his little billionaires boys club of favorites, they want to be a part of that. They don't want to be on the outside of Donald Trump's favor. I don't get it. I've yet to understand what the magnetism is, and I don't even understand what the threat is, because the strength is in their numbers. These are the men and women who are part of the infrastructure of our economy. They are the ones who are at the center of wealth creation, job creation, the movement of the markets. How do we know that? Because we've seen when they decide to act in unison, for example, the bond market responds, right, which is a combination of both domestic and international engagement. In that space, Trump will correct his course. So I don't know what they want out of this other than to become wealthier than they are. They want the tax cuts be kept in place. I don't know.
- [39:12]
Tim Miller
Some of these guys have lost like 25, 30% of their stock wealth. Like what you wanted. A2. I didn't go to business school, but I can do basic math. A 2% tax cut on the corporate tax rate does not make up for losing 20% of the value of your company. Like what? What are you doing? Speak up.
- [39:34]
Michael Steele
But here's the rub on this. It is not the billionaire boys or the millionaire mamas that are going to drive this part of the conversation. It is the little shop owner who's had her corner in her community for 10, 15 years, who can no longer afford to buy the inventory for her company because it's gone up 150%. It's gone up 25%. There's a point where they cannot pass that cost on to the consumer and they close, they go out of business. That's part one, Part two. To the extent that they can and do pass that cost on to the consumer. And I'm just telling everybody, you don't have to listen to me and Tim, you don't have to believe a damn word we're saying. Just pick up an item in your house and look on the bottom and see, oh, made in China. Made in China.
- [40:41]
Tim Miller
Picking up a stapler for audio listeners.
- [40:44]
Michael Steele
I'm sorry, yes.
- [40:45]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I forgot we're doing both. That's okay.
- [40:47]
Michael Steele
I picked up a narrator, a tape container, a stapler, and now the Remote control for my television. Oh, made in China.
- [40:59]
Tim Miller
Well, I've got good news. A lot of people out there clamoring for jobs, screwing in the little screw on the back of that remote control. You know, they just want to sit there all day and screw in a little screw on the back of a remote control. There's a lot of demand out there for those jobs in America.
- [41:14]
Michael Steele
That's our economy. We are a consumer based economy. Yes, we want manufacturing in this country, but they're not going to manufacture this remote control here in this country because there's not a US Company that's going to stand up the cost to do that. Businesses have looked and moved globally and that integration is important. Why? Because we are at the leading edge of it. Everybody wants to be like us. They want to sell us products. They want us to sell them stuff to the extent that we do. But what Trump has done is created this. This lie that somehow all of manufacturing, everything that we have is manufactured here. That's just not going to happen, folks. It just isn't. And if it does, this stapler that I spent $8.99 for, it's going to cost me $28 or 30 or $40, because that's the cost of having it done here. We forget the labor costs, we forget the production costs, the cost of materials, all these things. So if it's a manufacturer, if I can go to Tim, who is in, in France, who is the one who creates the screws to go into my equipment, and he's cheaper than I can get down the street somewhere else. Guess what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go to Tim. I'm gonna go to where the cost is cheaper to me because it stays cheaper for you. So when you break that, which is what Trump is trying to do, the downward impact is not on the millionaire mamas and the billionaire boys. It's on the mom and pop operation in your neighborhood, who has to close now, will not be hiring your kid this summer, will raise its prices. So now everything you're buying in that community is going to cost you more. And who's going to be held accountable for that? You're going to blame Joe Biden for that, because that's what Donald Trump wants you to do. He wants you to blame Joe Biden. Joe Biden gave us the worst economy in the history of the world. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. You're giving us the worst economy in the history of the world. How do we know that? Because the world markets are Telling us that that's why the bond market did what is. Did what it's done. That's why this Dow is doing what it's doing. And for those of you who are in the market, go look at that 401k. How much did you lose yesterday?
- [43:46]
Tim Miller
Or don't. Or don't. You don't just trust me. It doesn't look crazy. Yeah, I mean, this is why the business guys and the small business owners, this is why they got to speak up to. It can't just be activists, right? Like, back to your point from earlier, man, it's like you have power. Everybody can't be cowering in this right now. It is easy for Trump to point at the, whatever, Gaza protesters on campus and be like, those liberals are bad people or the Black Lives Matter protests or those, you know, black folks are coming for your job. Like, if people who are in charge of capital, in charge of human capital and their money are speaking up and being like, this guy is a disaster. He's ruining everything, he's gonna hear that. And it's a lot harder for him to demonize that person and say, it's like a woke lefty. So, anyway, I would like to hear more from our friends in the business world who are losing a lot of money.
- [44:32]
Michael Steele
I would, too. I would, too. I would be nice to have them actually stand on the side of the American consumer, to stand on the side of the American small business owner. We can all create a space in which markets work that lead to fair trade. And look, bottom line, we know China is a piece of shit when it comes to this space. No one's defending China, no one's excusing China. And they need to pay a price. That's not what Trump is doing. He's going aren't friends. Here's the thing. He puts a tariff on an island of penguins. Okay. Yeah, y'all heard me. Y'all heard what I said. I ain't making this up just for you FOX folks out there not making it up. It's true. He put a tariff on an island of penguins, but he can't put a tariff on. On Russia. And so don't give me this. They have sanctions, and that's. No, we still do about $3 billion plus of trade with Russia. Right, but they were not on that list. The reality of it is the only plan here is to disrupt the market and to try to grab control of the Fed. Are you concerned about his control of the Fed, Tim? Because I know I am.
- [45:45]
Tim Miller
Extremely. And if you talk to the smart people on the finance folks, not the business guys who have been silent and who just wanted to be able to say the R word again or whatever, but the smart analyst, that's like the top worry right now.
- [45:59]
Michael Steele
If that happens, I'll just put it, you know, put it straight up. If that happens, the collapse that we've seen so far in the market, it will be like a picnic. It will be. You can't even begin to imagine the bottom falling out the way it would if Donald Trump fires the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, if he somehow keeps him in place but then wrestles control of the Fed in some other way. You really need to appreciate what that means and why an independent Fed, which has been the bane of both Republicans and Democratic presidents in the past. Right. This is nothing new. But they are that through line in our economy because they represent an essential ingredient in our economy, which is the bond market, which is the value of the dollar, which is collapsing, et cetera. So be mindful of what could happen.
- [46:53]
Tim Miller
While we're down here in the darkness, I got one more dark story. I've mentioned this in passing, but I haven't really covered it and I just. Before I lose you, I feel like it's worth talking about because NBC did a big story on this. I want to just read a little bit from it. A groundbreaking microscope at Harvard Medical School could lead to breakthroughs in cancer detection and research. That seems pretty important. The scientist that developed the computer scripts to read the images on this microscope has been in an immigration detention center for two months, putting these crucial scientific advancements at risk. The scientist, the 30 year old Russian born Kayna Petrova, worked at Harvard's renowned Kirchner Lab until she was arrested at Boston Airport in mid February. She had some frog embryos, I guess that she did not declare on her form. She's now being held down here in Monroe, Louisiana at an ICE detention center and is fighting deportation back to Russia, even though she's spoken out about the war in Ukraine. I'm not a foreigner who comes in who's a scientist who has embryos. So I was curious, like what is the usual punishment for something like this? And here's what it is. The border patrol typically imposes a fine of forfeiture of the items. So you know, the government would get the frog embryos and then you get a $500 fine. That's how things were up until three months ago. Instead, we're holding this woman in a detention center in Louisiana for two months even though she is like the critical scientist for important cancer research. And this is insanity.
- [48:31]
Michael Steele
This is the future. If we don't stop it. This is the tip of the iceberg. We've already begun to see the impact by the Doge idiots going in to the Department of Health, the national research centers, certainly now, the assault on universities, the brain drain that's going to happen, Tim, is going to be staggering. Where once we were the place that the elite thinkers, researchers wanted to come to because we had the facilities, unfettered right access, the freedom to do and.
- [49:13]
Tim Miller
Pursue that research, there's no commissar looking over your shoulder.
- [49:17]
Michael Steele
Exactly. And we're now stripping that bear and stripping it away. So where do they go? They won't come here. When you have someone like this young woman. Yeah, made a mistake, had frog embryos you just described, what would usually happen? They would take the frog embryos, which are being researched on behalf of the government anyway, okay. So they just give them back to the government.
- [49:42]
Tim Miller
Wasn't fentanyl, you know, it's not like she's like right now sneaking in drugs like she's doing fucking science research, you.
- [49:49]
Michael Steele
Know, it's frog eggs. Frog eggs. And she's in a detention center because. Probably because they're trying to figure out if the Russians want her back and they want to placate the Russians and give her. So that's what that's all about. And that's our future in terms of the impact at our universities, the impact at our research centers, like, you know, MIT and the Naval Research Lab where I worked for many years actually, with frogs.
- [50:19]
Tim Miller
And really look at you. Everything comes. You just have such a life journey. You know, you're in the monastery, you're studying frog embryos.
- [50:27]
Michael Steele
To Lieutenant Governor yeah, it was olfactory research. So it was developing equipment that could protect soldiers in the field from smells that they couldn't smell from dangerous poisons. But yeah, dude, I mean, that's what we do. That's what our government supports. That's why we have STEM programs. What are we doing now? What we're doing now? What do you think is going to happen at our university? Homegrown towns what do we do with STEM programs when we're cutting off that kind of research? When we were not facilitating or paying for or providing grants and support, support for that research? If you've developed the tools, whether it's equipment or medicine or whatever, to identify pre cancerous cells and you're going to lock up the person who's doing that research because they had frog eggs at the Airport for two months. That's why I use the word stupid.
- [51:33]
Tim Miller
So much, because this is so stupid fascism.
- [51:37]
Michael Steele
Stupid fascism. Stupid fascism.
- [51:39]
Tim Miller
Like it's not even like. So yeah, like a good Nazi, a good Nazi would take this woman and like put her to work, you know, I put her to work, you know, and then, so then you could go to the people and say, hey, I solved cancer. While you're, you know, sending people, your political enemies to El Salvador, I don't want to send them good ideas.
- [51:59]
Michael Steele
They say when you see things, you know, with a hammer, everything's a nail and you just want to crush it. And that's what they want to do. So look, our universities are trying some at least finding a way to stand their ground. We need more universities aligned with Harvard. Whether you are in the crosshairs now or not, because you will be if you have any level of research at your institution, if you have any students of foreign origin, they're all subject to this now. Even us students who go abroad and then try to come back because of their last name or the university they're at. I know of stories of people being held up trying to come back into the country who are U.S. citizens. That's a concern. So this is not just a one way travel, this is both ways. It's not just the foreign born student or individual who wants to come here or is here, but US citizens who are born here who are engaged in certain research, in certain types of government actions that they don't like. They're also subject to this. So I just think all of these for me are warning signs and how we heed them, Tim, is going to be very, very important. Because the America that Trump wants in our 251st year is not the America I think that the founders tried to create and has sustained us for.250.
- [53:34]
Tim Miller
That would be a beautiful place to end. But I just have a little dessert for you.
- [53:38]
Michael Steele
Yes, I like dessert.
- [53:39]
Tim Miller
Are you familiar with Ulta Beauty? Ulta Beauty supply store. Do you know about Ulta?
- [53:43]
Michael Steele
No, I'm not educated.
- [53:44]
Tim Miller
Now that you're in prime time, Michael, you're gonna have to learn about some of this stuff. You're gonna have to learn about skincare. All right, you're in prime time. You might consider the Ulta Beauty supply. So you can just go there, get some new face moisturizer. We got a sponsor one skin. I'm giving them free, free free air time right now. That what you use something? You know, straight men a lot of times don't know about this look, you.
- [54:06]
Michael Steele
Know, I got to keep it so it don't crack, baby. Come on now.
- [54:09]
Tim Miller
Exactly. Exactly. Well, you got some advantages on that front with the melanin that I don't have. So I had to learn a little earlier, but Nancy Mace, our friend, she was in an Ulta and she sent this tweet yesterday. Whether it's a locker room, a bathroom, or the face wash aisle at Ulta, no man has the right to invade our spaces. And let me tell you, Nancy, that face wash aisle at Ulta is my space as much as yours. And if you ever treat me like you treated this man that I'm about to play the audio of, you don't know, it's coming to you. Let's listen to Nancy Mason and Ulta over the weekend.
- [54:43]
Michael Steele
You know what? Because you people on the left are crazy. You're absolutely crazy.
- [54:48]
Tim Miller
I'm absolutely fucking crazy.
- [54:49]
Michael Steele
You are. And get out of my. Get out of my face. Goodbye.
- [54:52]
Tim Miller
You're insane.
- [54:53]
Michael Steele
You. You're gonna me.
- [54:55]
Tim Miller
You're gonna be voted out so fast this year.
- [54:57]
Michael Steele
I'm not. I'm not. I won by so much.
- [54:59]
Tim Miller
You're a disgrace to the state. That's what you are. You're a disgrace. I asked you a simple question and you just to go on this tirade.
- [55:05]
Michael Steele
And tell me you. Yeah, you, disgusting. Get out of my face.
- [55:09]
Tim Miller
He was having none of it.
- [55:11]
Michael Steele
She was. She was having none of it. But it exposed what a pathetic, useless serpent to the people of her district she is. And again, this is why you unelect them. Because you're not going to hold this woman up as an example to your daughter, are you? Really? You want your 14 year old daughter to emulate that behavior when she's in a situation where instead of showing maturity and respect for listening and even if there's a disagreement saying, you know, we disagree and I appreciate your position, but. Right. Oh, fuck you. That's your response? That's your intelligent response as a member of the United States Congress? Well, the people of her district should also say those two words at the ballot box next November because that's the only way you change it. I'm sorry, there's nothing to brag about with that. There's nothing cool about up what Nancy did there. There's nothing, you know, oh, she owned that lib. That's all bullshit and you know it is. It's trite, it's immature, it's performative, and it's beneath the office in which you've bestowed her the privilege of serving in. So like all privileges, it should be taken away and it should be given to someone who at least have a modicum of respect for the people in the district in which you live, including yourself. So she if that's what you want to level up South Carolina, then you're just showing the lack of respect you have for yourself. Because remember, our public officials are an extension of you. Because you do the one thing that everybody around the world envies. You get to go into a ballot box and freely elect them them to represent you. So if that's what you are, that's what you get.
- [57:13]
Tim Miller
Amen. And Alta, Alta is a space for all of us. Okay. Of every gender identity. Michael Steele I don't know. I'm like imagining an alternate universe where you were on the path to becoming pope, going down that monastery path. Every Catholic could have been Pope. You know, who knows? We had our first Latin Pope, our first Jesuit. You could have been the first. Could have been a brother from first American. Anyway, thank you so much. Good luck in the new show, May 5th. It's in prime time. Check them out with Alicia Menendez and Simone Sanders Townsend. Thank you for the time, my friend, and we'll be talking to you soon.
- [57:47]
Michael Steele
Love you, brother. You take care, man. Be good.
- [57:50]
Tim Miller
Everybody else, we'll see you back here tomorrow.
- [57:51]
D
Peace, coward Cutting joker lives into a rubber mask Please don't ask how I'm.
- [58:07]
Tim Miller
Doing.
- [58:14]
D
Draining come from hotel showers Hoping for the hours to pass a little.
- [58:27]
Tim Miller
Faster.
- [58:41]
D
Please don't laugh Only half of what I said was a joke Every Catholic knows he could have been poor Kahlua shooter DUI scooter with a rolling start on the hill this morning's trying to kill me this morning wants to kill me and you know I love my te but all I really want to see See you need me See.
- [59:49]
Tim Miller
You need me the Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.