Former RNC Chair: Trump’s Birtherism is ‘Bullshit Racism’

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele makes his remarks during a Republican National Committee Winter Meeting in Oxon Hill, Md., Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Former RNC Chair Michael Steele said Trump’s focus on “nonsensical” issues like birtherism was “nothing more than bullshit racism — excuse my French.”

Appearing on David Axelrod’s podcast “The Axe Files,” Steele, whose reign as RNC chair was marred by lackluster fundraising and his own foibles, didn’t hold back when it came to Trump and race.

“You cannot say to me that given the 400 plus years of this country, that at the very moment the country decides to elect the first Black man president of the United States, you going to ask for his papers? Seriously? Seriously?” said Steele. “I can go all day long about what’s wrong with Syria and economic policy and foreign policy with this administration. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and say ‘You need to show me your papers first.’ That’s not how this works.”

Steele was Republican National Committee chairman from 2009 to 2011 and is now a political analyst for MSNBC. On the podcast, Steele and Axelrod talked about the way Trump’s candidacy has exposed fractures in the Republican Party.

“Ronald Reagan, if he were a candidate running for any office today, would not win a Republican primary,” Steele told Axelrod. “Because the things that he would espouse, the policies, the values, the principles that he would lay out there, would be rejected,” Steele said, alleging that Reagan’s comparatively moderate position on taxes and immigration would now be rejected by hard-line Republican conservatives.

“The Axe Files” podcast is produced by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. Don’t be such a racist, Michael Steele ! You are just an ‘establishment goon’ trying to stop a succesful business man overturning status quo in DC.

  2. Trump Supporter: Well, if a white person says it, I might listen. Who gave HIM a microphone?

  3. Avatar for mjv135 mjv135 says:

    “You cannot say to me that given the 400 plus years of this country, that at the very moment the country decides to elect the first Black man president of the United States, you going to ask for his papers? Seriously? Seriously?”

    To quote the Little Man from Oh Brother Where Art Though -

    He ain’t lyin’.

  4. That’s right. We want REAL racism!

  5. “Ronald Reagan, if he were a candidate running for any office today, would not win a Republican primary. Because the things that he would espouse, the policies, the values, the principles that he would lay out there, would be rejected.”

    But the GOP is still the party of Lincoln. Because we believe that the Government of the United States will do no act or acts to repress persons held as slaves in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. Because we believe the president has the Constitutional authority to issue an executive order to declare that all persons held as slaves are, and henceforward shall be free. That’s why the GOP unanimously supports DACA and praises President Obama for his bold action to protect the freedom of Mexican immigrants.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

84 more replies

Participants

Avatar for paulw Avatar for srfromgr Avatar for jloomis3 Avatar for clunkertruck Avatar for asanders91360 Avatar for mooster Avatar for leftflank Avatar for theod Avatar for cwazycajun Avatar for bradbennett Avatar for inversion Avatar for whiteboar Avatar for sickneffintired Avatar for johnbarleycorn Avatar for johnscotus Avatar for dorado Avatar for dickweed Avatar for emilianoelmexicano Avatar for jinnj Avatar for jonney_5 Avatar for clauscph Avatar for professorpoopypants Avatar for grack Avatar for cub_calloway

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: