Michael Steele: A Total and Complete Schlonging

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the Bullock Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. It's gonna be a fun one today. We're welcoming back to the show, co-host of MSNOW's The Weeknight, also a former chair of the RNC and was Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. It's Michael Steele. What's up, Chairman? - What up, what up, hey man, how you doing? - Looking good, baby. - I'm looking good, I'm feeling good. I gotta skip in my step. (laughing) Me and Bill Crystal just have been so aligned all year, though, I guess, I mean, he was the one that thought we could win Mississippi, so he's been a little ahead of me, but we've been mostly aligned all year, which is nice, you have synergy. And once again, we're aligned this morning. He opens up his newsletter like this, and this is exactly how I've been feeling this week. So by saying, you know on Wednesday, I said we deserve one day of celebration, but as we get to Friday, I've decided we need more than one day of celebration. We can get back to work soon enough. There'll be no shortage of struggles and challenges and difficulties. I'll come a time very soon to think and worry and argue. But how often do we get to celebrate something like what the American people accomplished on Tuesday, the breadth and depth of the popular repudiation of Trump and Trumpism deserves more than a mere 24 hours? For Mississippi Delta to the Alaskan Tundraf and the Outer Banks to the Great Plains, that kind of iron curtain has been lifted from across our continent. A feeling of dread has given way to a sense of possibility. That's where I'm at, baby. Who cares about January? I'm living in the moment you for this week. Will you do that with me? I think we savor it, dude. I think we do. The faith in the American people, especially after 2024, when they went back to crazy to put it rather frankly, 10 million people decided it wasn't worth their vote to go to the polls and stay at home. They roused themselves out of the Trump stupor, and they looked at their lives. They recounted the promises made, the promises not kept. They realized that their sense of the American dream had been forfeited for their children, and they wanted change. And look, I think the last time you and I can really say, we've seen this kind of epic change. You're really talking about three distinct periods, the 2006, 2010 period, 1994, and certainly going back to the Reagan shift where the ground moved in 1980. Those type of epic moments where the country kind of leans in, you have to pay attention. But to Bill's point, you also have to take a moment and go, salute, baby, salute. You know, because it really, it really sent a lot about the potential here. Democrats are, I think, in a much better position than we were in 2010, after the 2010 cycle, where we saw massive pickup of state legislative races, has state houses, governorships, and Congress. And the big driver here is they laid down some really strong policy predicates on accountability, for sure, but affordability, the ability to work together to bring prices down for families across the country. So I think it's going to be exciting for them if they aren't true to form and screw it up. They should be putting themselves, I think, in a good position to go forward at least well into '27. I think you'd kind of understated the feeling after 2024 a little bit. I think that there was a deep doubt that the American people could ever arise from the slumber. There was a fair point. A lot of us were looking around to going, well, shit. Maybe our neighbors aren't exactly what we thought they were. Maybe there was something about that. I need to change my neighborhood. Exactly. There was something about the character of the country that was permanently broken. And so to me, I just think that is the big relief and also the thing to celebrate, right? Like this notion that even in 2020, after the Biden win, I was sad the week after the Biden win. Like I was happy he won, but I spent most of the week sad, because it was not a repudiation of Trump. Like it was an eaked out victory, and we knew that there was a fight ahead. And this feels meaningfully different from that, just a total absolute shlonging as the president would like to say. And it will be a long time. I had kind of like one of them, the Irish Wake, or the Jewish funeral. It's going to be a long funeral. It's going to be a long one. Yeah, but it started my head. And it's been 10 years. And I don't know, have you kind of changed to think about that this week? Just kind of the 10 years? Yeah, no, I think about it all the time. I think about my party, basically desiccating itself, and sitting there wondering how it happened, and why it happened, and not fully understanding, earlier on that the man that they follow has no allegiance, loyalty, has no desire to be with them, or want them, the way they think he does. They're a tool for him. They always have been. And so you see this sense of confusion. That's part one. The other part, though, which this is going to be very hard, because I'm that son of a bitch. You're not going to come up in my face down a pretend like this shit didn't happen and you had no role to play in it. So all you Republicans who are now sitting there, coming out talking about, oh, yeah, it was the war, and we should have done this, and we should have done that, and we should have had better candidate quality matters. Bitch, shut the fuck up. I don't want to hear that shit from you. Please don't get up in my face saying that, don't please, don't even pretend, because you will get called out in a very embarrassing way. Just know that, because I'm not in the mood after this win to countenance your bullshit and try to gloss over my eyes what you did for the last 10 years to put the party and the nation in this position in the first place. So don't even all you soft ass bitches out there who was sitting back and wouldn't come to the microphone and say Donald Trump, this war is illegal. I will not stand with it. I will vote for the war powers resolution. All you soft bitches who got out there and said, oh, Pete Hexeth will make a great secretary defense. Oh, Cash Patel, oh my God, the FBI will never be the same where you got that shit, right? Don't even, don't even come up in my face with that Joss crap. Don't even do it because there is no room for that. And so these two pieces for me, how the party starts to reconcile itself with the country and all the little, you know, running those bitches who allow this to happen, who are going to be trying to clean their act up, the think they're going to run for president in 28 and that we're just going to put the last 10 years behind us and blindly say Marco Rubio, you had no role in this war. Marco Rubio, you had no role in the breakup of our European alliance or Ron DeSantis, you had no role in what happened, not just in your state, but around the country with this cultural war bullshit. Don't even pretend people, please. Well, you're going to make my job easy this morning, which is nice. You got a lot to say. I love how I brought up feelings. Look, what are your feelings about the last 10 years? And you could go anywhere with that. Like for me, I've got Glee. There's a little bit of wistfulness. I got a little teary without him Hamilton yesterday and thinking about our immigrant neighbors. Michael Steele's response is righteous rage and double middle finger. That's the feeling that came up for you. Double middle finger. And I like that. There's a part of me that's there as well. We're going to come back to the double middle finger. Okay, I promise. But I want to give people a little bit of, just kind of get us up to speed of where we are and some of the election stuff. A Mississippi thing stand right now. Scott Colombs leading by about a little over 1,800. He flipped Forest County, named for Nathan Bedford Forest. That's got a nice, very nice, nice, nice little fact. Cindy Hyde Smith posted yesterday in the third person that Cindy Hyde Smith is going to represent Mississippi in the United States Senate for the next six years. Based on all the data that nerds I've talked to and Mississippi and around the country, I think Cindy Hyde Smith is going to be representing the Baloxie slot machine for the next six years. Actually, I think she's just going to be sitting there with her toe firky, pulling the slots. 'Cause she's going down and then we'll make for 55. And Mary Paltola's looking pretty good for 56. But any thoughts on Mississippi? - You know, I have to give shout out props to Bill, our friend Bill and my colleague Simone Sandes Townsson, who on our show about two and a half, three months ago, raised the first prospects of what could happen in Mississippi. And, you know, I had a year ago, [BLANK_AUDIO] our show said that Republicans would lose the Senate and everyone thought I was out of my mind. But I said to people, then I said, I know my peeps. You're following your Donald Trump. This does not end well for Republicans in the Senate because they're going to be bagged with a whole lot of stuff they can't carry and that proved to be true. Mississippi, you know, Tuck Schumer very early on and looked at Mississippi and really had a hand in sort of shaping that race in a lot of respect. So, you know, credit to him for seeing something there that people didn't see at the time. And so it takes that kind of, I think, intuitiveness when you're looking at certain races. I know this from 2010. Now, I got into a lot of fights with official Washington because they didn't want me to invest in places because they didn't think people were going to win. I'm like, no, they're going to be good. And so that's how you get to a Mississippi, taking that political risk. The same is true in Alaska. Candidate quality matters. Investment in that candidate matters is not just what they say to connect with the people. It's all the infrastructure behind them to support that message and to support them. And the Democrats were very good about this. I've been bullish on Texas since the year 2000. My first trip to Texas as a party chairman. I'm a state party chairman. I went down there for some stuff. And I just, I just talked to people then and saw some things going on over the next few years that reinforced my mind that Texas was a place to watch. And you know, a lot of the work that I do with the national popular vote folks. I've been saying Texas is going to be a battleground state for the last five years. And here we are. I declared it the other night. It's going to be. It's now with the governorship and the Senate and the state house races that they've won. It's in play. So all of these dynamics sort of inform us about Mississippi. And they inform us about Michigan. I think we should take the plank out of our eye when it comes to Mississippi because I think a lot of people got caught up in the racism. And they didn't look at the facts on the ground. And they didn't listen to what the people in the ground were saying about, you know, El Saiyad. And they'd certainly the response to that horrible ad afterwards also was, I think it was very telling in so many ways. So there are a lot of pieces that when you sort of look at the totality of this election, you begin to understand why Mississippi's happening. I wouldn't hit on two things you just talked about because I'm glad you mentioned the National Park to evoke. So I've been wanting to bring this up all week. It's just a little side fact because those tsunami was so large that, you know, at the state legislative level, we're talking about this in the green room a little bit, you know, there were a bunch of surprises. Like I was in North Carolina, for example, a couple weeks for the election. And even in the bull case, let's talk to some guy that that consults for the state house, he was like, right, maybe we can get to a tie. Like maybe we can get down one. And the state, I'm the state house now is like going to have a huge democratic majority in North Carolina, right? So so a bunch of that stuff had a bunch of places and just an interesting fun fact. So for you understand, there's a thing called the compact. And the deal at the compact is that if enough states that add up to over 270 electoral votes put into law, you know, law that they will give their electors to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of their state, that is kind of a functional work around with the electoral college. And you would have a functional national popular vote now. Functionally a direct election of the president. Exactly. And that for the first time ever, that the Democrats now control enough states to do that. Yes, we are we are 22 electoral votes away from 270 right now. But yeah, but I think with the results this week, I think you might have passed them. Yeah, we may have passed them. And we'll you know, we'll see, there's still a lot of work to do in this space. But I think the reality of it is 2028 could be the first time the people directly elect the president of the United States. We know there will be lawsuits and all of this, but this has been constitutionally tested. It's it's black letter law, the constitution, the power rest with the states, the compact. So folks understand is the exact same type of compact that states intern to on the lottery where they agree that the winner of the lottery in Louisiana gets to benefit from the money that I and Maryland put into a power ball. Right. And if I win your money from Louisiana comes to me, same thing here, states agree, okay, we will focus, we'll put our money into the electoral bucket. I mean, our electoral votes into the electoral bucket. And whoever wins a national poppy vote gets the votes in the bucket regardless of who wins our state. And so that's the compact. And so it's a way that transform how you run for president. Because now you can't play to the extremes. I need California as a Republican. I may not win the state, but I can I can mine five, six million votes out of California, which will add to my national popular vote total. So now I've got to go campaign in California. I got to raise money there. It's from the Democrat. I got to go to Alabama and Mississippi and try to raise money and dollars and votes there. So it transforms the process. There'll be more conversation about this. But I just want to put on the table straight up so people don't get confused. This does not eliminate the electoral college. I've listened to a number of people the last 24 hours on the news talk about in some headlines. You know, this could, you know, eliminate the the electoral college. It does not that bullshit. It does not. It uses the electoral college structure. The only thing is is the compact of the states that are part of the electoral college that agree. Maryland's 10 electoral votes are in the bucket. We were the first state to go in and 20 years ago. And so those are in the bucket. So if a Republican wins the national popular vote, they get Maryland's 10 electoral votes, even though they may lose the election here in Maryland. It's an interesting thing. We'll keep monitoring it. It is related to what you also said about Blexus. And you kind of went viral on on MS now doing a version of what you just said talking about how you think Texas is really in play in 2028. So if the compact doesn't come through and we're still in electoral college mode in 2028, Texas still is a battleground state becomes a battleground state. And I think it has to for this reason yesterday Rob Plierty and I were talking about this a little bit and he was like a little skeptical because of how much it costs. But the reward is so great for Democrats. I think you end up having to play because if they win, Texas, there's almost that you basically mock the Republicans out, right? Can I just make that point for you real quick? To be clear. To be clear America. So y'all know, if Texas is a battleground state and the Republicans don't win it, there's no math. There's no math that gets them the presidency. They can win Ohio, they can win Michigan, they can win Florida, all those big popular battleground states, they can win them. Democrats start with 40. They add California. It's game set match, baby. It does not change. Yeah. Care about privacy. Get yourself to www.joindeletney.com and let me tell you why. Your digital footprint, it's bigger than you think. It's much bigger than Donald Trump's footprint. Between the social media usage, the apps, the texts, online shopping, just think about the amount of places that you've given your personal information. Well, your privacy is worth protecting. And any one of those places, new AI bot swarms could go in there, break it out, jailbreak, if you're in fell. 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That's www.joindeletney.com. /bullwork, code bullwork. Telleriko beat Ken Paxon by so much that if not a single person showed up to vote for him on election day, he's still one to one. They would be the only vote for Telleriko. It's greater than the total vote for Ken Paxon. Totally insane. Okay. And you know, it's a 12-point victory. He knows the wins by seven. Ted Cruz is the only statewide elected Republican in all of Texas. So, so like there's the positive and you know, some of this stuff seems very durable. The Rio Grande Valley, you know, that feels like it really was a short blip for Trump. And it was a response to the border being out of control with Biden and some other factors. And that's hard to imagine that going back at any time soon. Maybe who the hell knows what the future holds. So that's durable. A bunch of the, you know, the Dallas sprawl becoming Democrat. Like that's the same thing that happened in other cities. It just happened a little later. because it was Texas. You know what I mean? So there's no reason to believe that that isn't terrible that kind of this suburban exerben sprawl around Dallas and Houston wouldn't stay as democratic. So to me, I think it's a real possibility. The one thing, the one flag that's worth noting is it was a turnout story in Texas. There was about a million fewer people that turned out, a little over a million than in 2024. And I think a lot of those were Trump voters. These guys at Broome Street Labs, I was looking at their analysis. The Democrats net gain about 75% of it was from Republicans not showing up. It was from turnout, you know, it was different state to state, but you know, 7, 8, 9% of Trump voters did sweat. Like there was some persuasion too. But a big part of it was not drying out. And so you do worry that in a presidential year, those folks come back, depends on if candidates are, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, and obviously it would be still a big uphill battle for the Democrats. But, you know, that's kind of the state of play in Texas. I don't know if you have anything to add to that. Yeah, no, I think that makes, I think that makes a lot of sense. So let's start with the last point first. What that says to me is if I am the chairman of the Democratic Party of the state of Texas, I am working with the chairman of the National Party, Ken Martin, to build an infrastructure in Texas, off of the good vibes, the good feelings, the narratives, the messaging, the history, all of that, to lock as much of that vote as I can. But also, to grow the vote, there are a lot of people who still need to be registered, who still need to be organized, who now watch this storyline unfold, and they can be a part of what comes next. So creating that interest. Now, a lot of that's going to hinge on two things, how Talarico and Hinahosa are doing, how, particularly for the governor, particularly for the governor. The Senate is a different play for a whole lot of reasons, because of national implications, but how people feel in the state about the, because they will project what they think about the Democratic Party on how Hinahosa is doing. So if Gina's doing well, they're going to like Democrats. If they find their cost of living is favorably impacted, they're going to like the Democrats. If they find their access to healthcare is favorably impacted, they're going to like Democrats. So there's an opportunity here to sort of create a little bit of a penser around emotional, an emotional high and policy basics, to bring voters a little bit closer and a little bit tighter, because you're absolutely right when you have a million people on the other side who didn't show up in a presidential year, they're likely to do that, particularly if there's, you know, someone that excites them on the Republican side for president. So you want to begin to counterbalance that now, not 18 months from now. To your first point, you know, I think that there is a lot of, and this is sort of a broadening out of what I just said, a lot of other national implications that will drive storylines in Texas as well, because at the end of the day, Texas is no different than any of the state, even though they think they're outsides and they're bigger and they're better. To a lot like New York, they have this sort of mind thing going on. I like to hang with folks like Louisiana and Maryland myself, but you know, the reality of it is they're going to be, you know, global factors that are also going to drive. So the price of diesel and the price of gas that affects a state like Texas imports tariffs, all these other things, then that's where Tallariko can begin to level up a different kind of voice than what we've heard from certainly from the Republican leadership of the state. So I think Democrats are in a good position when it comes to Texas, but to your point, they're yellow flags, not red flags, they're yellow flags right now that they need to pay attention to, but not just in Texas, I would say nationally as well, because you don't want to forfeit this moment and momentum the way we forfeited it coming out of 2010, because by 2012, we started to lose a lot of the seats that we had gained in 2010. Yeah, I'll talk a little bit more 2010 a second, but I do just want to do one more state update, and it's all green flags in this state, and that is Georgia. And we talked about John Oshoff's win, we talked about Keisha Lance Bottoms win, but I hadn't really locked in on what had happened down ballot, and it is insane. I would like to put this graphic up on the screen for YouTube viewers who can get a visual look at what happened to the statewide office holders in Georgia. I'm going to read it for the audio listeners. On the left here, you have a bunch of guys named Butch, a bunch of Republicans named Butch. It's all like guys that were all the statewide office holders. And now on the right side of the graphic, it's the new statewide office holders. Governor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Lieutenant Governor Josh McLauren, Secretary of State Penny Brown Reynolds, Black woman, Attorney General Tanya Miller, Black woman, State Superintendent of Schools, Lydia Powell, Black woman, Agriculture Commissioner, Catherine Johan Arnold, Black woman, Insurance Commissioner, Keisha Wates, Black woman, Labor Commissioner, Nikki Porcher, Black woman. It's seven Black women out of eight are the statewide office holders. There's always a thing in DC where it's like the Republican cogs is a bunch of guys named Mike. And George, and now we got two Keisha. Two Keisha's. Go figure. Go figure. Oh my gosh. It's such a beautiful story out of Georgia when you consider the history of Georgia the same in Mississippi when you consider the history of Mississippi to have a Black leadership emerge this way, particularly in an era where you have a president and a government that is trying to excise right out the history of Black people in this country. So voters around the country gave us five Black governors. They gave us in states like Georgia Black leadership. We got Hispanic governors, Hispanic governor in California, Hispanic leadership and in Texas. Native American. Governor. Native. Oh my gosh. Can what I mean, that is the that that story there is just amazing when you consider the history of the country. And and sort of wiping out the Native American story, the way we have now to have the first Native American governor. Is profoundly to fall into New Mexico. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting. Well, I'm still monitoring one of the races that, you know, I kind of had a bunch of these stretch house races that I was encouraging listeners to support. And one of them was that leader of the president of the Navajo Nation running against Eli Crane in Arizona. And this is a super big stretch. His name shot at the nest because Eli, you know, this is a very safe our district, but Eli Crane is such a douchebag. I put it on the list anyway, because I thought it'd be cool for him to win. And we're a recount territory right now. I got you guys still a slight favorite, but it is possible that that he wins that race too. So this for me, Tim was America's middle finger on to the government on DEI. So you don't want, okay, all right, deal with all these Black and Brown and and you know, Native American people who are now going to be leading significant swaths of the country, not and not insignificant states. On Merit, by the way, Merit, you can get more Merit than just winning more votes. You can get more Merit than just winning more Merit than three quarters of this cabinet. Yeah, that's for sure. So, you know, so I just think it's, I think it was a profound moment on so many levels, what the American people did, the way they pushed back. And we can say, yeah, a lot of it was, you know, affordability issues, but there was also this thread about the country itself. You and I've talked about this, so especially over the last six or so years, about how this country has to reconcile itself to its own history and how it has to come to grips with where it is. We are a pluralistic society and culture. And I'm sure, you know, there, you know, a whole lot of white folks are sitting there crying in there, whatever they're crying in right now, but that's okay, boo. We still love you. You're still, we all here together. Where are you going? What are you going to do? Benny Johnson was crying about how Texas, this has happened to Texas because Texas isn't white enough anymore. And I was like, you're talking about Texas. It's like, have you ever been to a Chevy? It's like Tex, you know, the cultural milieu. It's not the white. We're not talking about North Dakota, right? From the start, it's been like this, but that's a failure or educational system because these mofos don't even know how the country was created and what parts of it came from what are the parts. It is time to start holiday shopping. And when in doubt, I always go for cozy. That's my gifting philosophy and Quince bedding makes it easy. The quality is exceptional and it's the kind of gift people actually use and they'll love for the holidays. They'll keep bringing it up to you. You know, they think about you and you go to bed at night. Sometimes I could be a little creepy, but most of the time that's nice. So think about who you want thinking about you when they put their that are had on their pillow, quenches 100%. European and linen get softer after every wash. And their organic cotton bedding is breathable and incredibly soft. It's hotel quality comfort on your own bed. Quinn's makes it easy to create a bed that you'll look forward to getting into. 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Download the Quinn's app for app exclusive offers. Go to Quinn's.com, get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada in the UK too. And when Quinn's asked you where you heard about them, let them know it was the Bullwork Daily Ditzensha. It's the best way to support our show. We're going to take a little half time break to laugh, to point and laugh. Is that good? Is that for the show? I prepared some clips for you. It was shout out to our friends at Decoding Fox News, the Taylor and RuPaul our Bullwork clips team. We just did a little highlight real for you this morning of Fox News election night. And it's going to start with Britt Hume before the results come in. And with-- sorry, it's going to end with Dana Perino getting sad. Let's listen. One of the questions we'll get an attitude tonight, I think, is whether Donald Trump and his fervent effort to get out his voters, A, will it be enough if it succeed? If it is succeeded, we will find out. I've been talking to some very, very high up people inside the White House. And they are not nervous yet, because they haven't seen enough about Texas. It sounds like there is some frustration that Georgia was such an early call for us off over Collins, because most of the time, one so easily in Georgia. But they think that things are pretty even and that we will know a lot more about whether or not things are going to turn away from their direction here at the White House. You could argue that he might have saved some seats that we haven't even called you. I think the Iran War was an issue, but I don't think that there's any way that these Democrats can end it. You remember, how do you end a war? How do you try to end a war? Defund the troops. And I'd love to see them try. And I absolutely love that. That couldn't happen. The big news there is James Talleriko, but also perhaps bigger as far as the impact in Texas is Greg Abbott going down. I mean, not since Ann Richards has there been a Democrat governor. The Republicans spent two weeks suggesting that he went to a mental institution when he said he had the flu. And so they just wasted all of this time. And you can't just jump in and Elon Musk can't buy a seat for $168 million. This time around, you had Speaker Mike Johnson on air, telling everybody that the polls were completely wrong. And I feel like it gave a false sense of security to Republican voters who might have turned out if they thought things were going to be differently. Little sheep. Little sheep. All right, you know, oh my God, oh my God. Still tone deaf. Still completely tone deaf. Completely missing what the country pushed back to the war at all. They think that they can do that. Oh, you're going to defund people with love for us to defund the troops and not have come home. That would I don't have like an 88% approval rating. If they pass that to Congress. Brent, we're doing bring the troops home. We're defunding the war. People would love that. Then it's like, oh, yeah, it's so now because it is just like now. People didn't turn out because they didn't like the shit you were doing. Wasn't it wasn't the spin? Not complicated. Not complicated. And the reality is those snippets are just sort of you could just see it over time, the devolution of really kind of understanding what the country was doing and not being able to fully respond to it. And so, yeah, defund the war. Yeah, okay. No one's saying that, but now that you've mentioned it, maybe I'm pro, I mean, we will take care of our veterans when they come home, but they come up with something, Michael, just so you know, I just by Wednesday, they had a chance to get a little bit of sleep and think through it. And then yesterday afternoon, the middle of the day of the news programs, the news hour, not the opinion at night, not what you're doing. They're in the news hour of the middle of the day. They've turned to something else that I think they're going to be focused on. Let's watch that. West Hollywood unanimously passes ordinance granting protections for Pauli. The amorous relationships. What's going on out? West. To be clear, it is West Hollywood, which is where the Star Wars canteen goes to feel normal. Okay. If you've ever walked around West Hollywood, it's, you know, extraterrestrial life. They're trying to offer some type of legal protection for people who are in thropos. So, you're thruples? Thruples? You sleep with thruples, thruples. Why? You sleep with two or three and more people? Look at that. They're doing thruples in the same way. Watch out. That's the new. That's what let's talk about that. Says the guy whose jawline meets his hair. What the fuck? He's like there. The Star Wars could do. It's like, have you been to West Hollywood? It's great. They got a little lemon. They got some juice. But it's not. You're the weirdo. There's a story. Let's talk about thruples. But see this again, go back to the thing that you think will, will, will get people fired up. We're not talking about polyamorous relationships. Okay. If I can put that in my gas tank, let's talk about it. What are you taught? What are we doing here? But this is where, this is where you are. That's what they got. What are you thinking? What are you going to talk about? I mean, they could do the news, which is that, you know, their coalition is falling apart. The Donald Trump has to grapple with the total rejection, the war is unpopular, that the economy is bad. They could do the news. Right. But we want to scare you with culture bullshit. Yeah. I live in Prince George's County, Maryland, Tim. Yeah. Why the fuck do I care about what the city council in West Hollywood did? And by the way, we know it doesn't work because we just saw on Tuesday, like I was, I was with my buddy, um, uh, uh, my favorite place in Austin is Lava, barbecue. So I stopped by there, um, on the way out of town. After Tellerinkle one and my college buddy lives there and, you know, he's like that, a political person. And, you know, we're just having lunch and he's like, my kids, like my sons are like learning about trans from Ken Paxton's ads. And he's fine. He like, I don't know if anything against trans people, but he's like, now I'm explaining this stuff to my eight year old. And it's like the whole, this whole idea, this whole scare tactic was like, oh, the left is transning your kids, but like the people in Texas were like, no, actually it's you guys that are teaching the kids about trans and thruples. They wouldn't know about this till they went to college. But you won't shut the fuck up about it. And so like, you're the problem that you're trying to solve, and it's so true, it's so true. Oh my god. They're so stupid. Damn, they're so stupid. They can't help themselves. Let's do a little history and then forward with Republican Party stuff. Okay. So you've been mentioned twenty-ten a bunch. You're a chairman there. I went back and looked at this morning. So the Republicans, their national house win was plus seven. Like, if you add it up all the house votes, we're still counting. It's going to be Dems around 13 this time. It's almost double this time than last. And they were actually more Republicans winning seats than Democrats because of the nature of gerrymandering all this. Right. So that's a little comparison. On the Bullwork Reddit, you know, a lot of times we get some heat from our fans and so I like to check. You know, I miss stuff from time to time. I got a really nice post. So I want to read about that because it relates to my experience after you, after you left the RNC. Tim Miller in the GOP autopsy wasn't wrong, they were just early. Let's go back to the autopsy. And we talked about how the voting rights crack down was going to cause a backlash among black voters, how Romney's self deportation plan was going to cause a backlash among Hispanic voters. However, they're having a bunch of TV ads from super PACs that were a waste of money and weren't landing with voters and how primary elections and the way we do it are yielding lose or candidates. That's a pretty good assessment of what went wrong this time. Yeah, 14 years later, you know, nothing, nothing worse in politics than being mischived. But I don't know. What thinking about 2010 and the successes in the 2012 and the failures, like what are some lessons from that and how they think about it now? Well, look, you know, the big lesson from, from 10, I mean, I've always been honest about that. I looked at what Howard Dean did with a 50 state strategy and I said we should do that. I mean, I had to in my political experience because I've always been in a very difficult political spot. I grew up in Washington, DC where, you know, Republicans out number 10 to 1, I live in Prince Georgia's County. I was party chairman with 58,000 Republicans, registered Republicans in a county of 800,000 people. And yet, we won, you know, ballot initiatives on tax policy and housing. policy because of how we connected issues to voters. And so I learned very early on the importance of that. And I brought that to the 2010 cycle, which meant that we weren't just going to focus on winning federal races, but we're going to focus on winning local races and empowering our Republican voices for county executive and city council and mayor and state legislature. And I think that that was a lesson that played out very nicely here. Ken Martin for all the shit that he got. And you know, people said, oh, you got no money. Well, of course, he didn't have any money because he didn't have a White House. If Joe Biden were in the White House, he had a lot of money. Joe Biden won in the White House. I didn't have a White House at the time. The worst thing for me, I had Citizens United, which was brand new and everybody wanted to flock to Super PACs. And so I had major donors who weren't giving. So guess what? The next thing I borrowed was Obama's, you know, small dollar donor program and instituted that at the RNC. We never had one before. So the reality of it is politics is about what you learn as much as what you achieve. And the lessons I think are going to be very important for Democrats coming off of this cycle. Please just don't stay stuck on the high of the wind. Yeah. Figure out what it is you learn very much like what you guys then look, I didn't need an autopsy. No disrespect to that effort. To tell me that we have black and brown motors, right? I didn't need, I didn't need an autopsy to get the Hispanic governors and a black congressman elected in 2010. But the reality of it is there were some important lessons in that. And in 2016, Ryan's previous shot all over that autopsy. And I remember telling him, dude, tell Donald Trump to bring his fat ass down to Washington, sit him in the RNC office, because he's just a guy running for president. You are the chairman of the party. And tell him, I'm sorry, you see this thing right here? This is our autopsy. This is how we're going to run for the Hispanic vote. We're not going to call Mexicans murderers and rapists or bad people. You can't do that. Then you're going to have a problem with me. He didn't. He capitulated. He tore up the autopsy. I don't work for a minute. And it worked. But that minute was just that because look at the only person in the last 10 years to win is Donald Trump. Don't work for anybody else. Yeah. It doesn't work for anybody else. And a party is more than one person. Well, it might not be for the Republicans have by 2028. They're they're running out of people left. The bench is pretty thin right now. I think that's right. And to your point on the Howard Dean. And I think this is hopefully the Democrats get this now. Some people got it before I've been I've been praising Anderson Clayton for a while. It's got Cologne. Tell Rico Hamilton. Some people got a accident here in Louisiana. It's like all of a sudden it's like, oh, shit, we could win maybe. Right. So I look, the lessons come into different times, different places. But I do think the Democrats have got it now, which is like, oh, wait, actually, the folks that are living out in the South, we could they could vote for us if we tried, you know, if we put up compelling candidates and had a message for them, you know, and had effort and made sure that their concerns were heard. So I do think that I kind of continuing that rather than letting it die on the vine is going to be super important. Well, I think what's important about what you say there is lead with your values. Don't be afraid of your values. So Cologne didn't run from the values of Telleriko or Gina, you know, so or Adam Hamilton or Hamilton, right? Lead with your values. Don't be afraid of that. I mean, you can you can be a Democrat in a Christian. You can be a Democrat in a Jew. You can be a Democrat in a Muslim. You can be a Democrat and unaffiliated to any faith tradition, but lead with what your values are. Your mom and your daddy raised you some kind of way, didn't they? All right. So you lead with that because that's where America is. And so that's why the cultural war bullshit runs its course because the how you inoculate yourself against that is when you to your very point, you're raising your daughter and you're teaching her values. And you're looking around the leadership of the country. And you're, you know, as she gets older, you're like, you can point to people. This is this is a good person. And they're they have your interests at heart. They have your health, your welfare, your your economy, all those things at heart. Those are part of the value sets. Yeah. And so that's what a Hamilton represents in so many ways. Yeah. You know, when you when you see a candidate standing at a mic on the night that he wins and the placket in front of him is love thy neighbor. Yeah. I mean, come on. That resonates with a lot of Americans at the end of the day, no matter where you stand on the political spectrum. That's the only thing Christ asked you to do. He didn't ask you to, to sit on trans people. He didn't ask you to go all all ballistic on trying to make an army, army look, you know, a young man coming into the military and look like an Aryan war fighter. You just said love each other. Yeah. Now that was one of the hard parts that 2024 too was my was thinking about my daughter because I was like, oh, she's going to be able to remember Trump now. And the modeling does matter. I mean, people can grow up and become courageous and and strong and valued and principled with bad role models everywhere, but it still makes it harder. It still sucks, you know, yes. Yeah. She has to meet the vice president Harris and she's like, uh, and she is what we would have been such a better shape if we were there right now. But, but here we are, better late than ever, you know. Well, look at the role model. Look at the role model that Vice President Harris represents to her. She doesn't see Democrat repose. She sees a strong black woman in a position of power and leadership. And what does that say to her reinforced by you? Right. That can be you if you want it. Yeah. I want to talk about the GOP future now. Marco some scuttle but some mixed reporting. Some scuttle but he might be trying to leave trying to get out of Dodge. Oh, he's out. He's gone. He's trying to, he's trying to, uh, he sees what's happening with JD bands. I mean, Marco, people have a little bit of misunderstanding about Marco. Marco is as calculating as JD Vance just he's smoother about it. Like the OG Marco in the state legislature. He was like a bushy establishment. Yes. Yeah. And then he saw an opportunity to run as a tea party guy. That 2010 year he runs against Charlie Chris opportunistic smart thing to do by the way. But then he gets in office and then the autopsy happens and he becomes autopsy Marco. He's tea party autopsy. It's a tea party but also I'm kind of immigrants. He tries to do that game. And then Trump gets a nomination. He's like, maybe I maybe I'm a never jumper for a minute. Like he's never, maybe that's going to be the new hotness. Then then Trump wins. And it's like, Oh, boy, I need to be nationalist populist Marco. You know, now I need to be Trumpy Maga Marco. And it's worked for him. He's secretary of state. You know, it's worked for him. But it would not be out of care. It would be very in character of Marco to look at this result and say, yeah, maybe it's time to, um, table towards something else. Yes. And that's what you can fully expect to happen. And, you know, I just remember having a conversation with Marco. And he worked with me when I was chairman of GOPAC. He just finished up his leadership of the Florida House. And we were talking about stuff and he got involved with GOPAC. Maybe what GOPAC was GOPAC was founded by Newt Gingrich in the 1980s. Okay. And it was, it was state legislative development. So it was, you know, all the down ballot races, you develop candidates. And he had those training videos and all of that stuff. And it was very, very effective as sort of, it helped build the army of folks who came into Congress in 1994 and all of that. So I became chairman of GOPAC in 2007 after I left lieutenant governorship. And, and, and then served until 2009 when I became RNC chairman. But got to no Marco work with Marco. Marco was good guy. Like you said, real good bush guy, you know, just straight down the, you know, everyday kind of conservatism. What has been disappointing for me is just what you described. I get opportunism. I get, I get wanting to be in the room where it happens. But whatever room you walk into, I should at least know who you are. And I don't. Because you've just illustrated just that little bit. Because ears keep growing. And you don't recognize them. Or, or you're speaking more at a personal level. It's like a Pinocchio situation. Yeah, that's exactly. But, you know, you're already, you're telling me who you are now. What's your core? There is not. If you're on a stage with a man who says that your father was part of the plot to assassinate John F Kennedy, do it. If you're on a stage with a man And he basically. saying your wife is ugly and et cetera, I'm like, okay, Muffa, we fightin' right now. I didn't think shit you and I can do at this point. What's your core? And so a lot of these guys, this goes back to what we were saying a little bit earlier. A lot of these guys are gonna try to remake themselves and think we're deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid about them. No, we are not. And we will recount your words, recall what you said. So JD Vance, we have what you think about women. Marco Rubio, we have what you said about Maga and Venezuela and Ukraine. You were one of the biggest staunch supporters of Ukraine. What happened? Yeah. When did you become a Putinista? So. I'm gonna close with one Putinista thing, but I just, I want to cover JD Vance first, and then we'll get you out of here. JBL wrote this yesterday. The conspiracy to push Donald Trump aside, and how you already see it. Yeah, it was good. And he's talking about how JD puts out this statement that basically talks about all the things Trump did wrong without saying his name and that explains that for while we lost with Iran and the economy. And then Trump, Jr quote tweets it with this is right. So he's kind of alibying himself a little bit. You can tell this was a work behind that scene, so he's like, John Jr, I need you to do this. So I don't see Mike I'm going against the dawn. And so as JBL looks at it, he's like basically JD has a couple of options if he wants to take over. The first is to try to control Trump to behave the next two years, right? Good luck with that. And be responsive to this. Good luck with that. That's number one. That's tough. The second option, which Nate Silver, now's the James Carval last night, he also thinks this is possible. It's just kind of controlled Trump into retiring. Why don't you just go back to Mar-a-Laga, Pope Benedict did it. And good luck with that. I think as well. That's another option. The third option for JD is resigning himself and you just think of Trump won't in the war. Then I have to follow my own principles and try to run as an outsider. Really tough. We saw what Trump did to Mike Pence and Trump's popularity is at its low, but he's still in a public and primary, but trying him like that is still going to be really challenging. None of those options seem great to me. Get out your crystal ball for me. What do you think? How do you think things look forward for JD and Trump? I don't think JD will be the nominee of the Republican Party. I don't think the President will put his impromotor on him. I don't think the President likes him quite honestly and has no real intentions of leveling him up. JD came out and did a little mini-Heyesman with Trump, sort of creating a little distance. Trump, for whatever you may think about him, does not like that. Even though Junior probably went around into the back room and said, "Hey, Dad, this is going to happen. Just be cool about it." It sticks with Trump. It sticks with him. You don't have to mention his name. He knows. So I don't think this plays out the way he thinks it does. I think the battle for the nomination is going to be right. I think it's going to be ugly. It's going to be fractured. You're going to have the folks who want to be Trump 2.0 or 3.0. You have the people who are going to try to rebrand the party and rebuild it the way it once was later for that shit. You're going to have the people who are going to come in with a fresh set of eyes and say, "The future is this way." It now runs through a place called Texas and Nevada and Mississippi and giving where the Democrats have now begun to amass some strength. You're going to see these factions, I think, begin to emerge. Here's the bottom line, Tim. You know this very well from your time in the party. In 1989, when Reagan left, we never resolved the question, who's the next Reagan? And that never being resolved has led to where we are right now because Trump answered the question. Actually, it was kind of resolved, which is there is no next Reagan and I'm going to do this new thing. Right. I'm going to do this new other thing. Right. The reality then becomes one of resolving that because that is the heart of what the Republican party is. Right. And that's an extended question, right, which is, is there a new Trump? Is there a new term? Is there a term to Reagan there, isn't, or is there some other third thing, or is there a period in the wilderness? That's the fourth option. Is there a period in the wilderness where you try to do a fake Trump? And that's what basically, you know, and I think that's where we land initially. And I think there's a third thing. I think there's going to be something else. There's going to be a new, I mean, a new Republican party or what we know as a Republican party will emerge. The MAGA stuff, I think, has, has, has hit its, is sealing it, there is no more growth in it. And, and so, you know, I may wind up eating these words in a few years, maybe, maybe not, but the reality of it is. Don't do it in a montage of you, like we were just doing a fox. Right. Exactly. So listen, it is too full back in 2026, but the reality is, I think the party is going to, I've said this for a number of years now, it needs probably the biggest political enema it could ever have. Yeah. And it just needs to clean all the shit out of itself and really look with a set of fresh eyes to mix metaphors at what its future is. Are we the party of Lincoln? We throw that phrase around, but fundamentally, the assholes who now are part of this MAGA bullshit in the party don't even know what that means. They call you and me rhinos, right, when you were Republican, I still am. Why? Because I stand in the, in the lane with Lincoln and Eisenhower and Bush and Reagan. What, what the fuck are you talking about? Get the fuck out of here. Don't come on my face with that crap. I need my fuck. You just show it up. You weren't, you weren't knocking on doors with me and Washington DC trying to win some damn city council race or in Prince George's County trying to run a party with 58,000 Republicans against 800,000 Democrats. So you know, all this Rhino bullshit, I think a lot of Republicans like me know more. And so you're going to have this tension, which I think is necessary part of cleaning out the crap and settling on who we are. And if we don't settle right, okay, I guess not, I'll go do something else. But the reality of it is, that's the fight for me right now going forward. I'm going to play as much of a hand as I can and who the next nominee of this party will be. And along with a lot of folks, the folks that are Republican legacy, you know, Senator Dan Ford's group of former electives and party leadership are looking to settle in that third space with some good, with some good ideas and good candidates. So we'll see. It's going to be fun, baby. You're going to be talking about it. I know that. We will be talking about it. And I want to sort of cause it's a tizer thing together and I couldn't let it go from this week. It may be so mad. But speaking about the way that things have distanced from the older Republican party and speaking about the way that this down Trump's not going to change his tune as much as JD wants them to. There was one news item that happened in the White House this week and that was they invited the Russians. Right. And Carol Demetrov who has been the one trying to work over Jared Kushner and Steve Wyckoff and to get into creating this deal. Does everything put him once? Yes. He is there at a press conference of Melania and I just want to play this for people to take us into the weekend. Demelania, you saved and touched so many lives. As a token of appreciation, we'd like to give you a small gift, which is a painting by 11-year-old gold leader from Aleški, who chose to be living with your family in Russia, in Tuopsia. And this beautiful drawing says just three words. I love Melania. Carol, thank you for your cooperation and professionalism. My deepest appreciation to Miss Anna Lantratova, Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation. Your dedication breaks hope and dignity to those devastated by war. Thank you. For people who miss that, Carol said that the painting was from an 11-year-old who chose to live in Russia. That's a fucking kid-napped kid. Thank you. Thank you. They gave the painting from a kid-napped Ukrainian kid to Melania as a gift. Melania then accepts the kid-napped child's drawing. And then thanks, Russian's human rights leader, for all the great work they've been doing. Is this- What the fuck are we doing? And why are we showcasing the fucking Russians in the middle of a war? What are we doing? That is their response to the picture. Why are we even doing this? And all of this, all of a sudden, Melania is the patron saint of Ukraine and all of this conversation about what she- the pope is the one who's been backending a lot of this bullshit, trying to clean this crap up and trying to move these parts. Vladimir Putin isn't about ending this war. What are we doing, American? Child, thief, and war criminal to the White House to give the first lady an honorary drawing. And she was just, I think, you, in her broken English, and that is totally insane and unreal. And the only thing that, I mean, it is enraging, but the other half that is, like, thank fucking changing. engine. The Tigers ain't changing their stripes. And so I don't know, maybe it'll be 60 Senate seats to 2028. Well, this is why 2026 happened. Yeah. And just wait for 2028, baby. We'll see you. That is the chairman, Michael Steele. I always love the time with you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Hopefully we gave people a little some joy, some laughs, some some righteous rage for their weekend. And we'll be talking to you soon, all right? You got it, Flaya. You take care of my friend. Everybody else will be back on Monday. See you all then. Have a great, great weekend. Have a drink for me. Peace. The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzaly Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.