YouSaid · the spoken record

Michael Steele

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82
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2016-09-22
most recent
2016-09-22
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1
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Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. Thank you for bringing that up. I saw the videotape of that campaigning, and if the brother could get a little bit excited about it, maybe I'd believe him.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “They have transformed the party internally, operationally through its platform. That is not Hillary Clinton's platform, as much as people want to live in that denial. It is not. I love it when I hear her say, I'm a progressive who likes to get things done. Yeah, right, sure. All right. You adopted the entire Bush foreign policy. How progressive is that? You've got Republicans. You've got neocon Republicans signing, kids sign the letter fast enough endorsing you and claiming they're going to vote for you. What do you think that millennial next generation Bernie Sanders voter sitting there having watched their father die in Iraq? Or their brother killed or dealing with all of that. Now sit here and have her go off and talk about being the progressive who gets things done and this is the agenda she's adopting. Trust me, more fun to come.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “The Trump supporters will say you didn't support him, that's why we lost. That's a fight. The corporate class will say Why did we nominate him? That's why we lost the hill and the political class will say the same. The activists will be further dismayed and frustrated. So yeah, I think that there's going to be a little bit of dancing to do inside the party. But having said that, shall I posit, my friend, that you too on the Democratic side have a little dancing that you will need to do in future years? So let us not think that this flows only in one direction because the last time I checked, Bernie Sanders was not going away, his millennial voters are pissed.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “It will go on until it's resolved. You've heard it. You've heard the conversation, oh, we didn't elect, we didn't nominate a conservative. That's why we lost. So they trashed John McCain. They trashed Mitt Romney. They trashed Bob Dole.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Why? Because it was the right thing to do at that time to settle the question for then what, nine million or so immigrants here in the country. He harkened back to the traditional viewpoint of the Republican Party, which has always been focused on the one thing. Sorry, folks, this is not, this is really weird for me, always been focused on the one thing that's been about assimilation. That is the history of our party. We've always been the party that's talked about that in the past. We've always brought that. We recognize the value of that lady in the harbor. As a principle, as an ideal. He understood that. But today, that would not play. So this battle, this consternation, this churning that you see inside the party has been ongoing since he left.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “We have been in slow walking in this space, David, since Ronald Reagan left office. We do not know, we do not recognize who that man was anymore. 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. The governor, the president who raised taxes, why? Because it was required in that moment in time to save a state, to save a nation from economic disaster. He signed off on supported an immigration policy. Why that opened up the borders, that gave an”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Okay, so if he wins, there will be an internal combustion of magnitude we haven't seen, largely because you're going to have a lot of people who've been against him and who have been fighting against that from happening, having to confront the reality that it has now happened, and that he is the one who is controlling in many cases their livelihood. That's going to be a problem. And if he loses, there will be a combustion unlike anything you've ever seen.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “He did. He did. But I would have stuck to it. There was in my, again, my view, no reason for him to do that. None. No matter the political climate, no matter whatever, you don't produce the paper. In that situation, you just don't, in my view. Some people may disagree or not. I don't really care, but that's what...”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “At this point, I'm not here to judge what's disqualifying for him or her or whatever. They're going to make up their mind. In my view, as I said earlier on, I thought it was a nonsensical discussion. I thought it was a discussion that was based on something that was race-based. I thought it was something that I found offensive as an African-American. Then and now, I still say, why are we having this discussion? But let me also say this. One of the more disappointing moments for me in Barack Obama's presidency beyond policy was the day he stood up and produced his birth certificate. Because to me, I found that to be insulting because it undermined him as a black man. It undermined his presidency. And my attitude was then, as it is now, finger the one that's broken That would have been the only public comment I would ever have made”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “One word why Why? I know why, politically why they wanted to get in front of the debate next week because they know that's going to be a question. So they wanted to, okay, let's work this out now. I understand that.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “We don't need to talk about that anymore. How about we talk about what's happening in Delaware? You do. You just can't leave it out there. So you leave it out there and it gets stepped on, trampled, and not worth the papers written on.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “You see this document? That's what we are. That's what we're doing. You not on this page? You have a problem. Now, a lot of people think that you can't do that as national chairman. Yes, you can. You can. In fact, it's expected of you to do that, to bring that in. Look, I had a candidate who ran for office, who made the public announcement that she was not a witch in 2010. All right? Remember that one? So I'm like, okay.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “But here's how it's going it's going nowhere, and here's why. Just very honestly, I've said this to Ryan, and so I'm not saying anything out of school. It was a smart document. I wouldn't have called it an autopsy, but it's a smart document It laid out fundamentally what the party needed to do. The problem is when you get an asymmetrical candidate who walks onto the national stage who on the first day he announces for president kind of throws all of that up in the air. Excuse me, come over here. Let's have a sit down.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “And he and I look when we do panels together. I say, yeah, we both got fired for the job. But that hearkened me back to Mary and Barry.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Was to build a grassroots network across the country around a conversation about the direction of the country, who we are as Republicans, what does that mean, who we are as a nation, to take and dissect the policies that have been put forth by the president. At that time, the majority, the big policy was healthcare. To look at the state of the economy, to focus the conversation around points that could be articulated and argued at the grassroots by my candidates, to groom them, to help them. We built a network. The reason we were able to win those 63 seats in the House was we built a grassroots network. You know where I learned to do that from Barack Obama. Because I watched what he did.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “For me, without freed of that, I had to deal with a majority leader, a minority leader in the Senate, and a minority leader in the House who then became majority leader later. Manual company. But the goal for me was very simple one.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Yeah, success. That's how we define it in America. Look, it is what it is. That's politics. I get it. I watch my buddy, Debbie Wasman Schultz, go through it this year. And I hear the groans in the room. I get it. But folks, unless you have the job, unless you're making the decision, unless you know all the facts, trust me, it ain't as easy as a groan. And it's a hard space to be in, doubly hard for her because she has the White House. She has a president of the United States who is the titular head of the party directing and orchestrating and demanding oftentimes out of the West Wing, not the president per se, but you know how that works. The political shop there wanting certain things to go a certain way. That is not a tough position to be in.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Me that I didn't know anything about policy and I should stay the politics. And I looked at them and said, well, clearly you don't either, so that's the problem. They didn't like me much. But what is funny about that is a year later, everyone was in the same corner I was in about Afghanistan. So, you know, it's just a matter of listening to the people and they'll tell you where they want to go.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “You don't have an answer for that. So you've got to be honest. And I think that's when I made the comment about this being Obama's war. And the reason I said that, and of course it got all screwed up because the president had recently at that time talked about a double down where he was going to take $500 billion or whatever amount and put into a war. He was going to elevate the presence in the war. So that's why I say the president is making a choice now to engage in Afghanistan in a way that I think we need to be concerned about. I got crucified that weekend. I had senators calling me Bill Crystal. Everybody ripped me a new one on Fox News, calling for my resignation, telling me to be fired. I was dead wrong. I don't know what I was talking about. I went into a meeting that next week in which I was berated by Senate members.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “But I made a statement candidate at an event in New Hampshire, New England, asked me about the war. And he was running, how do I answer the question? I said, first off, you always answer honestly to the voters. You tell them what you think, what you feel, how you perceive this. So they understand if that's worth the investment. So what would you answer the war? I said, well, if you're asking me what I would say to them is that this is unnecessary fight. We've spent a lot of money. We've lost a lot of lives. And no one can answer the question why. I said, You're going to go to Congress and they're going to ask you to vote on the question why.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Didn't set well with the neocons. I made the comment, this was funny just real quick, and I know I don't take too much time on the neo-”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “No No, that's why the healthcare debate for me was such an exciting debate. It really was because it was a chance where I could draw contrast. When Barack Obama got elected, I remember writing an op-ed in which I said, for the first time now in a long time, we can have an ideological discussion about policy because you're going to be on that side, I'm going to be on this side, now we can work this out. And it didn't play out that way, but that's how I saw it. And that's kind of the energy I brought into the job. And like I said, I can be part of someone I need to do. My bus tour, Fire Pelosi. Yeah, I was all about firing Pelosi. Yeah, I wanted to take back the Congress. That's the politics. My job as national chairman is to win elections, raise money. But I also recognize the role that I had absent a president, absent of Speaker of the House, that I could play a role in some policy. So yeah, I spoke out against the war.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I'm sitting there going, what party am I in? You guys don't even talk to each other. You have no clue. The folks in the morning just told me to spend all my time on that. You're telling me to spend no time on that. So at that point, I decided, you know what? We're just going to focus on policy.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Of strong conservatives like myself, we were sitting down at the table and he said to me, so as a new chairman, I'm on the job like six weeks. They go, so we really are excited about you being chairman, and we hope that you can push the social agenda, pro-life, against gay marriage, the whole thing, right? The whole social package, okay, I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing. Literally two hours later in a meeting in the same building with a group of Republicans, businessmen, cross-section of folks. Chairman, we're really excited you're chairman and we're looking forward to your leadership. We just want to say to you, the less time you spend on the social issues, the better.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “All right, people have a choice. People have a choice. And this idea that government or individuals or institutions can change that and corral that is just mindless BS. It doesn't work. What you need to do, and as I said, I gave a speech in Indiana at a pro-life convention. I said, what this conversation needs to be about showing light, not darkness, not criminalizing and penalizing and beating up these women who are making a very difficult decision. My mother had a choice. She made, in my view, the right choice. But I cannot sit here and deny that that choice didn't exist. And so we get caught up in semantics and words and all this crazy. And so when I would go into these meetings, literally folks, I had a meeting one morning in Florida to this day. I remember this in the morning, I met with a great”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Dude, come on seriously. Are you telling me God gave us? And so there's not a law on this planet that you could write where you don't have a choice. Don't believe me, check the Ten Commandments. How many of those have you broken just getting here today?”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Absolutely. Look, I understand the one thing, again, going back to some of the lessons I learned earlier on, I understand very much and can read the mood of people. People, if you just shut up and listen, they'll tell you what they think and what they feel. And we're the party was then and where I believe the party is now is not, look, I'm a pro-life Catholic and I think you understand why as an adopted child. So I know the choice my mother could have made. I know the choice that she did. So when I got into trouble, one of the first things I got in trouble for as chairman was doing an interview with DL Hoogley is about D.L. Hoogley, who's a buddy. He had a radio show at the time. I came on. He asked me about the question, and I did a GQ interview in which I said, you know, in it when I was asked, does a woman have a right to choose? And I said, absolutely she does.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Well, my observation was that's not where I wanted to go, and I wanted to make it very clear to party leaders on the hill, party leaders on K Street, that this chairmanship was not going to go down that road. When I got presented with talking points to go after Barack Obama on the birther issue, I said, hell no, I'm not doing that. I don't believe that. It's BS. That's not what we're listening to and talk about health care. Let's talk about cap and trade, which was a big issue at the time. Let's go out and talk about immigration. There are a lot of things that we can be talking about.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “When he stood up He was an American, he was a Muslim and all this crazy. Yeah. I mean, it was the finest moment by any presidential candidate, period.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “106 was an ugly year. Yeah, but 06 was a particularly hard year. They were fed up with the war. They were fed up with a lot of big things. The Republican base had gone away from the party, begun to move away. A lot of people talk about the Tea Party in 2009. Trust me, folks, the Tea Party began in 2004. The Tea Party began with Republican-based Republicans who had grown concerned about the level of government spending without accountability. The Terry Shivo case, remember the Terry Shivo case, the young woman on life support in Florida, where the Senate came back into session to pass a bill to force the family to keep this woman alive when the husband had made the very torturous and painful decision to let his wife find peace. They had had enough of that. That had become the Republican Party. And a lot of the base folks didn't like it.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “For a lot of folks in media and in politics when it comes to folks like me. Now you can hate what I say. You can not like my political perspective. And I get that. Like I said, let's go toe-to-toe and debate it. But then you cross that line that I think that editorial did.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “I find it outrageous. I brought it up. Everyone else thought it was like, okay, this is part of what? Why are you so upset? Why are you making such a big deal of this? And it is what I try to say to people that being a black Republican, there's an automatic difference in how you're treated and perceived, what they can say about you. There was a caricature of me on the web running for the U.S. Senate in 2006 with me in blackface, with big red lips and the sort of Al Joson look. There was at that time two other gentlemen running in the state of Ohio for Senate in Pennsylvania, African Americans. The three of us were characterized by either cosmopolitan, I forget the magazine, as the lawn jockeys of the GOP. This is acceptable conversation.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Who this podcast is this? Right If that had been written by Barack Obama, what do you think the response would have been?”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Not to be qualified for that job. So they write this editorial saying why I was not qualified and ended it by saying the only thing that Michael Steele brings to the ticket is the color of his skin. Okay, now I just have one question for you.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “In the state constitution, it says there shall be the office of lieutenant governor, who shall serve at the pleasure of the governor, period.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “So the weekend before the election, you know how newspapers go out and they put the editorials out about who they endorse. So my running mate was then Congressman Bob Ehrlich. And so we were running. So of course we're being Republicans. We're running against Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Of course daughter of Bobby Kennedy, who was the sitting lieutenant governor with Paris Glenden. So this weekend they put out the endorsement of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Okay, duh, hello, this is Marilyn. We get it. So then they tear down Bob in his endorsement, a non-endorsement. He's a Republican. That's enough. Then they get to me and very short paragraph. Which ended about why I was not qualified to be lieutenant governor of the state. Now, let me spell out for you what the qualifications are to be lieutenant governor of the state of Maryland.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “About 50 years ago. I gotten locked out of the house 50 years ago and then cemented the doors with the Southern strategy in 1968. So when I became chairman, if you want to know why I stood up in front of the press corps in DC and said that the Southern strategy is now dead, it is over. It's because I saw that in this moment it was an opportunity to do what I thought was important. I like to call turning the elephant, and that is turning the elephant towards a different future in which we go back to those things and remember those things that made this party not just competitive politically. But made it something that had value to my community. And we tried for 18 months.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “It is important to be the person who inherits the job. Now look, I get the joke. I'm not stupid. Okay, let's get the black man. We got this brother. Maybe he can deal with him. I had someone come up to me and say after I got elected that this is great. This is wonderful. I'm like, thank you. I said, now we can get blacks to join the party. I went, do I look like a pie piper to you? Do you think black folks go and wake up tomorrow morning, go, oh, hell, they'd elected a black man chairman of the GOP? Let me go join. And that's the problem. They think it's that simple. This is a relationship that is etched in history. This is the political home of the black community is the GOP. A lot of people don't like to hear that, but history is history. It is what it is. The fact that we walked away from that.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Figure this out. But yeah, it's important to understand and contextualize what this meant for the country to have both of us serving at the same time. And I'm not equating myself to Barack. Please don't understand, but it is”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Second worst job in America. And so you're sitting there going, a couple of times I'd like, let me call Barack and just say, brother, can we get a drink?”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “I've had this discussion with a whole lot of folks who don't listen, which is why the party has struggled. Look, the second part of that narrative of Barack Obama getting elected president inheriting a country in an economic turmoil was the first black chairman getting elected a week later to inherit a party in disarray and with a brand that quite frankly sucked.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Seriously, 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. That's not how this works. And what's gotten lost?”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “As president, as a black man, as a first black president, but between now and then, I'm going to do everything in my power to defeat him. Because it's not about the person, it's about the policy. And so it was interesting to see people appreciate that honesty in that moment because that's how I felt. And I still look at Barack Obama. I had then and have now a real distaste for the Berthaism discussion because that is nothing more than bullshit racism. Excuse my French. Because you cannot say to me that given the 400 plus year history of this country, that at the very moment that the country decides to elect the first black man president of the United States, you're going to ask for his papers? Seriously?”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Profoundly important. I was just about to say I was on a stage at the NAACB convention the August before the election. I was asked to come and speak and I did because that's what you do, right? So there's doing a little round. So it's me and like 11 hardcore D's, right? And I'm sitting there going, all right, so here it comes boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So you could tell that whole time that people were like wanting to lead up to the question about Barack Obama and they wanted to get my opinion on it. So they finally got to me and I said, well, let me tell you very, very honestly, I think this is an profoundly important moment for the country that as a black man, I'm extremely proud of what he's done to this point. And if he gets elected, I will be even more proud for him.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Doesn't to have that one term workout for you, fellas. I mean, you know, it doesn't. Look, it's disappointing on so many levels, and I go through a couple of them very quickly. So you set it up nicely. You have inauguration of the first African-American president, the United States. Boom, excellent. And I remember doing a meeting.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “And I realized in that moment we're not funding your campaign either. Because that's not what public service is supposed to be. Look, I can be partisan. I was a county chairman, state, chairman, national chairman. I can get partisan with the best of me anytime, anywhere. You want to throw down like that? Let's go there. But when you are in that space where you're looking to take on the obligation of public service and duty, that's the water's edge. That's where you have to pull back on the partisanship and recognize, I got to get some good things done for the people who trust me enough to send me to the state capitol, to the county council.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “It's a mixed bag. Some do, some don't. I had a candidate that I had sat down with in 2010 when we were going around the country trying to figure out, okay, what we got here, we got to go out and do this. And so we had all these candidates running. I remember meeting with this one candidate who was running for office, and I sat down with him. I said, so tell me about your campaign, what you doing, how's it going? And they were like, he was like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm excited about this. I'm going to do this, this, this, this, and he was going to the Senate, he was running for the Senate. So, okay. I said, so how are you going to get all that done? You know, Harry Reid is the Senate majority leader. It means the Democrats run the Senate. He just kind of looked at him. It's like, well, you're going to have to go work with the Democrats. I'm not going to Washington and work with Democrats.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Civic duty and responsibility has its rewards and its benefits, not in name identification, not in popularity, not in how much you're going to be able to make once you give that up. But every time you walk into a community hall and you can say to someone, I can help you with that problem, boom, that's the benefit of your being there. And a lot of our public officials have forgotten about that. And it's a lesson I took with me into the Lieutenant Governor's office”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “On a camera with a prostitute in a hotel in DC, and six months later got re-elected. Now, that's not a corruption of the political process. When you go and ask those voters why they voted for him, you know what they'll tell you? Because he helped my kid get a summer job because the mayor's office of filling the blank was there for me when I couldn't pay that bill. Public service, community service”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “Well, you know, they taught me about people, politics at the end of the day is ultimately about you. What has happened to our politics, it has become about us, the political leadership, the politician, the organization, the process, the infrastructure. You want to understand why Donald Trump and a Bernie Sanders resonates because for the first time in a generation you have political leaderships who are speaking against that windstorm, who are speaking against that mindset. Whether you like it or not, whether you're up or down doesn't matter, you need to understand in Maya's perspective why voters feel and are responding the way they do. And it has, for me, goes back to the lesson I learned from the former Dashiki wherein political activists who became the mayor of the District of Columbia. This was the guy I remind you who got caught smoking crack.”

    2016-09-22 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 81 - Michael Steele (Live) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source