The Press Box - A Trumpy NBA Finals, Pat McAfee’s New Deal, and Scott Pelley’s Interview. Plus: MS NOW’s Michael Steele

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Joel takes over the Tuesday slot. Bryan and Joel start the show by discussing Pat McAfee’s reported extension with ESPN (01:11) before talking about Trump’s attendance at Game 3 of the NBA Finals (14:52). After that, the guys dive into the Scott Pelley–'60 Minutes' situation, including Pelley’s interview with The New York Times (26:02) and what Bryan would have asked Scott if he had interviewed him (40:28). The show ends with an interview with MS NOW’s Michael Steele (54:35), where he and the guys talk about the 2024 DNC autopsy (59:04), why he hasn't become a Democrat, why he almost became a priest (1:26:10), and so much more. Michael Steele is the coanchor of 'The Weeknight,' airing weekdays at 7 p.m. ET on MS NOW. Beginning Monday, June 15, Steele and his coanchor Symone Sanders Townsend will welcome Luke Russert as the newest coanchor at the roundtable. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Guest: Michael Steele Producer: Bruce Baldwin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's Brian Curtis. It's Joel Anderson here on a Tuesday. Hello, my friend. We got producer Bruce Baldwin on the dials today. Coming up, Joel on the press box, what do we make of Scott Pelley's FU interview after he was fired by Barry Weiss? Donald Trump did some pre-gaming at Madison Square Garden

before the big fight on the White House lawn. its primary day for the very embattled Senate candidate Graham Platner in Maine. Plus, MS now host Michael Steele joins us to talk about all kinds of things, from Republican rot to hip-hop Republicans. But let's start here, because we got some breaking news just before we hit record today. Andrew Marshan reports that ESPN and representatives for Pat McAfee are discussing an extension to his contract that would pay him more than $60 million per year.

Crazy man. Sources briefed on the talks told the athletic. $60 million. I mean, who makes, like, Ronaldo makes that much money? There's not even a lot of athletes that make $60 million a year. No. I mean, TV people that make 60 million. I'd love to know who that is.

I remember once a point of time, I remember hearing that Jim Rome made about 30 million a year. Yeah, that was always a weird one. Yeah. I never knew what to do with that figure. I mean, that seems like a lot, maybe in the heyday of sports talk radio, but that seems like a whole lot of money.

Yeah, yeah. No offense to Jim Rome. Yeah. But $60 million a year, I mean, that's more than Tom Brady. that's more about Tom Brady yeah that's more

than any news anchor you know again like I don't yeah what I mean that's does LeBron James

makes $60 million dollars in a year I would think he'd be in the neighborhood right yeah but I mean certainly

with endorsements and everything like that yeah right but it's television money that's just a crazy amount of money that's just I mean just

they I've read stories in awful announcing that they're going to be announcing layoffs at ESPN at some point this month. I guess they got to be able to afford Pat McAfee. Now, as Marchand notes in his piece, McAfee doesn't take all $60 million because he uses that money

in part to pay people who work on a show, which he owns, by the way. ESPN doesn't even own the show for $60 million. My question to you is this. What has Pat McAfee done to deserve that kind of money at ESPN? I think they just want him to be the face of the network in spite of it all, right? That like he represents the 180, the turn from the, you know, woke era that I was employed for, you know, when it was more, you know, Pablo, Mina, Dan Lebitard, folks like that. And this is an investment in that.

And it's in spite of the money itself, in spite of the numbers themselves, because there's not any evidence that he's pulling in a whole bunch of listeners or viewers. And in fact, I remember there was a release that ESPN had in April, right, talking about their quarter one numbers. And the show is listed, SportsCenter, Get Up, NBA Today. They only use linear numbers for them. but with Pat McAfee, they added in YouTube numbers

to make it seem like they were the same numbers as the TV numbers. They lumped them together. And I'm just like, all right, I guess they just, they want this to seem like a success and damn it, they're going to make it a success.

100%. I mean, there's a scramble drill every time there's a press release to talk about how great those numbers are. Burke Magnus goes out and does a whole car wash. We're so pleased with the numbers.

Yeah. They're unbelievable. Yeah. He's killing it on YouTube. Yeah. Look over at this metric over here. He's crushing it. Yeah. Yeah. They're just, they're bound and determined to show us that, hey, man, we're getting our money's worth. This is working out. And it's really an interesting thing because, like, ESPN has decided it's going to work. And it's sort of a metaphor for America in that like, hey man, CBS News, for instance. And we're going to talk.

talk about that. Very wise, they're supporting her. They're saying that she's executing the vision of David Ellison. Elon Musk and Twitter has lost actual people that are using it. It's like filled with bots now, right? But they still try to sell a success. And I sort of see ESPN in the same way that they're saying it doesn't matter if we're laying off people. It doesn't matter that people are shifting to other forms of media consumption. Pat McAfee is going to work, damn it, and it's working. We can show you some numbers, even though these numbers are kind of funny. What boggles my mind is that ESPN is always shopping at the high end now. Yeah.

They don't make stars anymore, right? Yeah. And again, I've asked Jimmy Pitaro about this directly in his office. And of course, he denies that that's the case. But you look at what he's done and his successes, to be honest, getting Joe and Troy in there, getting inside the NBA in there. Those are wins, however you want to say it. getting Pat McAfee inside the network before other people running television networks

understood that podcasters could bring something to linear television, to linear television companies that was harder to gin up inside. Like I give him credit for figuring that out. You and I might have picked another podcaster to bring in there, but I think he understood something

about how the media was changing before a lot of his cohorts did. So I give him credit there. But at some point, you can't just keep buying Rolls Royces all the time. Really? The point, well, you can, but wouldn't it be much more efficient to say, we've still got a lot of people working at ESPN. Why don't we make them into podcast stars?

What don't we make them into YouTube stars? Why don't we just create stuff instead of outsourcing everything to Omaha? Why don't we go find those people we really like who aren't making $30 million or $60 million a year and figure out a way to get them onto that tippy top tier of podcasting. The thing is, even when I was there, podcasting was just sort of a tertiary concern there. It just wasn't something that they put a lot of energy in. And I'm looking at their pod page now.

Most of them, you know, get up, first take, Adam Schefter Show, which I imagine is probably produced by, you know, Omaha, Rich Eisen show. That's not something that they came up with. Rich Eisen came with that already. So, yeah, I mean, they just, instead of trying to build stuff and this was happening, even when I was there almost a decade ago,

they're just getting existing properties. And, you know, maybe that just cuts out startup money. Like, maybe they're just like, instead of like trying to build an audience paying for promo, all this other stuff, let's bring people that already got audiences. And I guess that's one way, to do it and maybe it'll work because there'll always be people that are doing great somewhere else. And if you're ESPN and you've got the money and you've got the platform, people will probably

going to work for ESPN. And so maybe they just think they can do this in perpetuity. I understand. It's just so expensive to do it that way. Yeah. It's just crazily expensive to do it that way. And honestly, I think you're right about them bringing audiences in. I think that's part of it. But to me, this all starts with this anxiety. And it's a well-founded. anxiety that ESPN the call letters do not stand for the same things for a younger generation that they stood for our generation. Right. That that's not just 7-11 for sports or X-Rox or whatever brand you want to come up with.

That like, you know, somebody who's younger is like, I just watch, you know, Josh Pate or I just watch McAfee on YouTube. Yeah. And again, I like, to me, that's, you know, if you're Jimmy Petarro, if you're, the people running the company, it's smart to go out and just say like, okay, this is going to be driven by personality now. We can get big sports rights and get people in the door, but there's going to be certain people who just never pay for anything. They just want to watch stuff on YouTube. They want to listen to people on podcasts. They'll follow Stephen A. They'll follow Pat.

They'll follow Mina. They'll follow whomever. But I'm just like, at some point, it's got to be somebody else, right? There's got to be a plan B that by the way, you don't even have to choose. You can execute these two plans at the same time. I guess, but it feels like they've kind of lost their ambition to do sort of different stuff in that way. And so I assume that they think that they can continue to do this forever and that they never have to develop. They never have, it's kind of like the Yankees, man.

You know what I'm saying? Or like a lot of the Rams. They're just like, we don't have to draft anybody. We're going to get players that we know a good. And we're not going to spend a lot of time worrying about that. And that is a philosophy that is sort of working. But my thought is, and this has kind of happened a long time at ESPN in particular, who are they competing against?

Like, why $60 million? Who else was in the right? Who did they have to beat to get the $60 million? Probably Pat going independent. Yeah. I think that's the competition. I think, again, I think it goes back to that anxiety that he goes independent. it and that people that came into his, you know, came into him through YouTube or wherever

they came from, just leave. Because ESPN, again, just means something different to them than it meant to us. But I mean, you could probably get somebody to recreate those numbers, dog. Like, that's the thing. I think so, too. Yeah. Like, it doesn't even have to be like that. Because, I mean, the 60, like, we started out saying, what is he done to deserve 60 million?

And again, I'm not trying to cast any aspersons on pay. McAfee, obviously, like, he's a star, like, and people have identified. You're trying to cast some aspersions. Let's just be frank. Yeah, well, I mean, I would, you know, yes, maybe, but, uh, maybe. Yeah, but I just, that's a, that's a lot of money. And I feel like you could get somebody to pull those numbers. The evidence is that there shows right now that you have that are pulling in those sort of numbers. And I bet if you just went through any podcast, list ranking or whatever, you could find somebody not in your end that is doing that for a lot less than $60 million.

I think if I was paying that kind of money for a podcaster, I would want that podcast to be giving birth to other podcasts. To be a podfather, if you will. Okay. Which we've seen, we've seen various people do around the universe. Colin Cowher, Dan Lebertar. Sure, Simmons. But with Pat, it all just seems to be about Pat. It seems to be about projects for him, right?

like it's going to lead to hey he has an alt cast in the national championship game he's you know doing prime time specials whatever he's doing but it's like it's another thing for pat yeah i was just thinking about like if they spun off like an a j hawk podcast the cigar lounge with a j hod yeah yeah i was like oh man he'd be great i think he's always been a solo actor who's been trapped on that show personal yeah right yeah i mean it's just like i see his head again i i i've seen i i i see i i i see i in recent months, I have seen A.J. Hawk actually talk. But yeah, it'd be nice to see who would be in his minor leagues,

who he could build up and spin off. Now, part of that reported 60 million is also Pat McAfee's work on Game Day. That's to me where he's always made the most amount of sense. Because he's good on that show. He's very good on a show. He solves a problem of who am I actually going to listen to on a pregame show? not many people in that world there's a couple on Game Day

but there aren't many people in the entire television universe that I actually like lift my eyes to the TV screen and watch rather than just passively consuming. You know the kicking contest that to me is like Padage is absolute best. Right and it sort of feels

in the Lee Corso app right like you kind of it passes on that torch and they do he does have a rapport with Nick Sabin and if you want Nick Sabin next to him presumably for, I don't know how many more years that'll be because Nick Saban's 74 years old, but he gets along with them.

And so, yeah. Yes. It used to be father's son, Herbie, and Corso. And now it's father and wayward son, Sabin and McAfee. Football coach and kicker. You know, you're the kicker on my son. And I totally understand ESP wanted to keep that attack

because if McAfee takes his show and leaves, he's probably not going to be doing game day. Right. And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, we just had this huge personality leave that show. We're already being challenged by Fox. Big new kickoff. Getting people to watch college football is really, really important to us.

That show functions in an advertising vehicle for all of our games. That's expensive inventory. We pay for the whole playoff, et cetera, et cetera. I totally understand that. Maybe one goes with two and that's how you wind up with a figure like this, but $60 million. Money, dog. I mean, he's one of the highest paid people in sports in the world.

world. Like, that's the thing. It's not just me in the world. There are not very many athletes. He's making, I mean, just a, he was a kicker, dog. Like, he played professional football and he got so much wealthier in media. It's crazy. That's absolutely crazy. Congrats to him. Yeah. I want to talk to you about game three of the NBA finals. Oh, man. It was a very special guest. We're not talking about Jeremy Lynn. No, we're not talking about Tracy Morgan either. Oh, man. Not Ben Stiller. It's not. No, no, not Timothy Schaernerner. We're talking about Donald Trump.

Yeah. Donald Trump went. Yeah. And they turned those streets in Midtown. We call it mid. Do we call, do we call MSG Midtown, south of Midtown? I think so. Yeah.

They turned the streets around MSG into a security perimeter. That looks so sad. It's really, like you see in the pictures from there, Throughout the day, I was like, man, that that's not what a week ago that we thought we were going to see around there. No. And I'll say this. If we have secular grace for Donald Trump, my, how should I say this? Like my tears for rich Knicks fans who are trying to get into the game are pretty, you know, they can fit in a thimble.

Like I'm not too worried about those people, right? Those aren't the people trying to get into that into game three of the NBA finals. You know, a $4,000 get in price. Oh, yeah. This is a special group of people. So, you know, again, the people had shops around there, the people who wanted to just kind of stand outside the guard and celebrate. Yeah. I feel sympathetic to them.

Oh. The other sympathy, it's limited sympathy. Yeah. I mean, I knew people who live in New York, they were like, before this was going to happen. And they're like, oh, you know, I'm not going to pay those tickets. But I'm going to just stand around outside. Maybe we go to a watch party kind of soak in the vibe around there, which is cool on a regular season night against the Wizards. Yeah.

So just imagine what this was going to be like. And all of a sudden, just couldn't do it there. I guess we could go to Bryant Park. They had a watch party at Bryant Park. Again, I don't like to challenge you that many times over the course of a single podcast. but is it really cool outside MSG on a regular season night when they're playing the Wizards? Is this the same New York that I lived in for a decade plus? You know, look, man, the one game that I saw Madison Square Garden was like it was against the Wizards on a Wednesday night.

You were standing outside, though? You didn't go in? Oh, yeah, I went in. That's right. Come on. That's right. That's right. I would not do that because that's just me.

But, you know, if I was younger and wanted to get a little vibe, get a little mixy, that seems like a good place to get it done. We were excited to see how the telecast would handle Donald Trump's presence last night. Yeah. I want to give you three moments. The inside the NBA gang plus Ramont were on the court before things started. I almost said kicked off. It's not football season yet. Before things started.

And Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA, got asked about Trump's appearance by Ernie Johnson. Here is the commish on the prez. I found out because Jim Dullen invited them to get to the game, and he said yes, and he's welcome to be here. I think that what makes sports so special, especially when there's so much that divides people, is it something that we have in common, and we should look for those things that we have in common and build off that. And I'll also say about President Trump, you know, I've been with the league for a long time.

I ran NBA Entertainment years ago. He did an I-Love kids game spot with us. He was a fixed year at NBA at Madison Square Garden. you guys remember all of you when you played here not draymond but back in the old days he had courtside seats he was here all the time he was at draft so he's a genuine nix fan we should ask him there somebody should ask him to do his all time you know have you played that 82 and o game brian yet have you i've seen all the tweets about it but i haven't indulged dabble it's kind of we should ask him to build his uh somebody should ask him to build his all-time nick's team

you know see what since he was a coach but uh but to but to this point and i just had to it for second. I understand why Adam Silver has to play this game. You can't turn away the president. I was in a college football championship game when Alabama played Georgia and Trump showed up. Like if he wants to come, you kind of got to let him come.

Like there's just no way around that. I just kind of think it's a course we can all come together over superficial things. I mean, yeah. I like basketball. I like sex and tacos. You know?

right yeah like oh cool we came together on that but that really doesn't have anything to do with like why people are like adamantly opposed to him uh as the president but i i get why adam silverans play but i just whenever people say that well this is something we could come together on yeah sure fine and also don't trump does not want to bring us together through sports no that is a very good point he was on the tarmac afterwards slagging stephen a like he doesn't he doesn't care He wants to watch sports. He wants to be seen. He wants to enjoy the spoils of being president. He doesn't want to bring us together through this. Come on. Does he want to bring us together through anything? I mean, to be honest.

No, he does not. Yeah. He's made that clear. So, yeah. That brings us to moment number two and refutation of what Adam Silver was peddling there. Donald Trump was booed during the national anthem. Lives and bright stars. I saw a lot of people say that that's some of the loudest booing they've ever heard.

The hearing it on TV doesn't quite capture it. I love the Mike Breen no-cell right afterwards. We said nothing like a special anthem to get the crowd fired up. He was not touching that. Have you ever heard people booed during the national anthem before? I was thinking about that. Like, I've heard booed, but like, usually people stop because this is a very sober, somber moment. Sure.

But, and I've never heard people just interrupted, like, multiple people, thousands of people interrupted with booing. I've just never heard that before. Moment number three, Brin came back to Trump during the game. This was the first mention of his name during the actual broadcast, little over eight minutes left in the second quarter after the Knicks went on a run. tonight President Donald Trump becomes the first sitting United States president to attend an NBA finals game

longtime Nick Ben certainly liked what he saw here this a great run by the news I texted you I can't remember what point it was before that they before they had mentioned Trump like it was maybe early in the second quarter and I just just in case I hadn't missed it

and you said no they had mentioned his name and even though they eventually came around to saying it. Doesn't it just seems silly and beneath a program on a national broadcast to not mention the president? Like he's, he, you know, America did

vote for him. He is our president. Like, there's just no getting around it. I just, I don't understand like playing footsie with it, you know? How would you think, how did you think ESPN should handle it? I mean, I just think that they should have said, hey, he's here. There's a lot of, it's contributed to a lot of the

the security members. and difficulty getting in here. He hasn't been to a game and so long. They could have talked about what Adam Silver did, like the video of him at the last next game, that kind of stuff. But, you know, it is the first sitting president to go to the NBA finals. That seems like a pretty big deal. You wouldn't have thought if you had to look back at all the presidents,

like maybe you would have thought Obama would have been that guy. Like he was a huge hoops fan. But that Trump is the first one, that seems notable. and probably you should talk about it even if you consider it to be divisive because he is the president. I usually want more rather than less, but I think I was fine with this, to be honest.

Really? Yeah, I think I was, I think it was fine. I think it was like, let's just, let's nod at it. Let's acknowledge that he's here, and then we can all tweet about that picture that made him look like he was asleep. Oh, man. During the game.

I think that was fine. As I mentioned, Donald Trump was on the tarmac, talking about Stephen A, because someone said that Stephen They said it's your fault if the Knicks lose. They will blame Donald Trump, and this was Donald Trump's response. The commentator Stephen A. Smith, we were talking about running for president. He said he would blame you if the Knicks lost the game.

How do you respond to that? I think he's a nice guy. But you need a certain aptitude to run for president. You need a high IQ. I'm not sure that Stephen has that. I don't think he does, actually. Stephen A, what he said, had nothing to do with him running for president. He just wanted to call him low IQ.

low IQ is such a great dog whistle. Like it's replaced woke and a lot of precincts. And like a friend of mine said that Trump goes to that like it's his fadeaway jumper, man. Like just it's a. Like Brunson's fade away. Yeah, it's fade away, man. Like he goes to it, man. It's, uh, I mean, it's, I consider it to be a racist, but I know a lot of people will disagree with that.

But, uh, you know, Stephen A, of court responded, which I didn't, I, were you surprised as Stephen A responded? Not that he responded. I would have given you even odds that would have been on his serious politics show rather than on get up. Or excuse me, on first take. It started out like that. Let's play a clip of that, please.

Brunson played better when you weren't there. McKell Bridges played better when you weren't there. Josh, Carl Anthony Towns played better when you weren't there. Landry Shamet played better when you weren't there. The crowd was festive, hyped, and more intimidating when you weren't there. Businesses were thriving before. you showed up. Parking garages

were being fed before you showed up. There was noise reverberating off the walls of Madison Square Garden before you showed up. And this is what you've done. I thought you were in New Yorker, Mr. President. I thought you came. I thought it mattered to you.

Gotham City, the New York Knicks, the erasing of a 53-year drought. I thought that mattered to you. This is what you've done. I mean, that's a good, that is a real good way to not talk about how Jalen Brunson is getting his ass kicked by Stefan Castle. He looks so happy. He looked mad at times, but really he looked happy. Like, here we go.

Oh, yeah. I found it. I can combine Donald Trump and the Knicks. What a combo. I mean, man. What a moment for Stephen A. That's right in his wheelhouse, man. And he did, I got to give him credit.

That was a really good response. I thought. Shams Sharani reports that Donald Trump is not expected to attend game four due to scheduling conflicts and obligations, which did not exist at all during game three, because everybody had agreed to pause the war for two and a half hours. Do you think that if Don Jr. had gotten married on the same day as game three, which why you think you would have gone to? You know the answer to that.

Yeah, game three, of course. All right, let's talk about 60 minutes. Okay. And more particularly the Scott Pelly interview. Scott Pelley talked to Lulu Garcia Navarro of the New York Times, of the magazine section of the New York Times. The embattled magazine you hear about every once in a while now. Embattled.

You know, the magazine showing why we still have a magazine. My first question for you, how did someone who is such a good reporter someone who is so righteous in so many ways, how did this person go to Texas Tech? Oh, man. Come on, Brian? I had my news band voice on there.

I mean, you fooled me. You thought I was going high and mighty. You did the Steve Sarkeesian, you know, just this Texas Tech thing, man. Come on, come on. Some good folks out there. Let me ask you two real questions. And let's split this up, because I think there's two things to talk about here.

What did you think of the interview itself and the questions that Garcia Navarro asked? I mean, I thought Garcia Navarro did a really good job a comprehensive interview. I mean, I'm sure there are people that will say that she was biased in some sort of

way, but I thought she did good follow-ups, like asking for specifics on Barry Weiss injecting falses and bias into stories. I thought she a few questions, given the benefit of the doubt,

like just saying, hey, because she had not been trying to be fair to the administration, right? Like, that's,

you know, giving a bit of, like, getting Scott Pelley to consider the other side. So I thought she did a very good job. What did you think? I agree.

I was jealous. I'm really jealous of that interview. I bet. She asked good questions, and she did something that was really smart, which was she simplified her questions. sometimes you have somebody in the chair like Tucker Carlson who was being interviewed by her not that long ago where I think you need to kind of figure out step one step two step three oh he's going to say this so I need to come back here yeah in this case she didn't outsmart herself the questions were very basic this is a guy with a story to tell he had not told it yet there were some specific things to ask about like what Barry Weiss had tried to do to one of his story something he'd nodded at one of those 19 memos that came out of

CBS news during all this. If you write an email at CBS, just assume that it's going to come out, that it's going to be for the eyes of the public. Want to get Sabarro? That's going to be printed by Ben Mullen or somebody else. Second question, what did you think of Scott Pelly during the interview?

I thought he was good as well. That, you know, it was, I thought that he sounded. reasonable. He sounded like if I worked at 60 minutes, I would have been proud to have worked with that guy. I did think he came off as a little naive in some points and maybe even overly generous at others. I mean, I think that Barry Weiss's stewardship of CBS is the reasons people have complaints about it has not very much to do with inexperienced. I think that's a part of it, but I don't think that's even primarily why what's happening there.

But, you know, yeah, that's what I thought? What did you think? Let's play a little sound, and I'll tease out some thoughts here. Okay. We'll start with this clip. Scott Pelley, what metaphor would you use to describe the feeling of being fired and seeing 60 minutes put in danger? Well, if we want to talk about it at an emotional level, the best thing that I can imagine in terms of, describing it is that it's it's like your spouse was murdered dramatic metaphor i mean he he says

it's dramatic later too i well anyway i probably would not have used that i don't think that's a good metaphor but go ahead play a little bit more of the clip we'll get back to that there's some moments of the day i feel fine there are some moments of the day that um i just frankly uh fall apart when i least expect it not that there's any particular trigger but i do want to be clear uh that that I do not feel sorry for me. I don't care about me. I'm fine. I care about these people that I left behind,

the people who are still trapped there. And this institution that I love so much. You know, is somebody who's been laid off and had to leave a couple places, and I've never worked anywhere for as long as he's worked. I get it. The day after you left your job and you're trying to log into a computer or you want to go look at your emails.

And it's really sad. Like you can, it's, it really is somber. I can only imagine what he felt realizing that he wasn't going to be able to walk back in that office again. 37 years. That's a long time. Yeah, he said he's been married 42, like as a way of like sort of showing how long. That's to give 37 years of your life to one place and to have it ended like that. I can understand.

I mean, I still think saying watching your spouse be murdered is overstating it a little bit, but I can get feeling very devastated about it. Here's what hit me is, and I had a friend, a friend of ours who texted me and thought it was really, really overwrought. And I think some people that even sympathize with Scott Pelley, certainly no fans of Barry Weiss thought that. To me, it hit me because Scott Pelly is the kind of guy who would never use language like that on 60 minutes.

Right. He would never say Donald Trump is murdering the federal government. He would never say Donald Trump is incompetent. And yet here he is. a guy whose whole job is not to be anguished on camera looking anguished. And, you know, there's a little bit of the man from TV in there, just the way he talks and even the way he emotes. Yeah.

But it was powerful to me. And I think if you listen to this whole interview, what he's most upset about is Tanya Simon, the executive producer being fired. Yeah. And the way she was fired. She's, as he says, CBS royalty in a way, her dad, Bob Simon will. was a correspondent for 60 minutes who covered all these wars and then died in a car accident on the west side of Manhattan.

But, you know, here's this woman and she's like basically told to get out and leave. And, you know, to me, there's a real human story there that goes beyond Barry and 60 minutes and television, which is here is this person who was just told to get out and they're gone. And these people won't explain to me why they fired her. Yeah. They won't tell me why. And that's why I stood up in a meeting and asked. That is something I've been wanting to get an answer to.

You know, again, by conventional television metrics, the ratings are up. She's doing a good job. Yeah. And that really hit me, you know, on a personal level. I understand this performance involved in the he's a television guy and all that kind of stuff. But I don't know. It resonated with me. You know, it does to me.

And I bet a lot of people that listen to this show, uh, or just people in general. They can relate. I mean, that is the story of America right now. There's a lot of people just getting laid off, getting walked out of their office, and there may not be a good reason. It's like, well, AI has replaced you,

or, you know, you read a story about your CEO, getting some sort of ridiculous bonus, and they got to lay you off. And it's something that we all could sort of relate to. So, yeah, so it's within that spirit that I could understand why he may have felt that way. Because, again, I've not worked anywhere at 30. I've barely, you know, I've barely lived that long, right?

So I can totally imagine having it ripped out. I mean, if you ever, there's sometimes like you'll be in town somewhere you've worked and want to go by that newsroom and just realize, oh, I can't do that. It just doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It's not there or whatever. I had to leave for whatever reason. And that can be, that can be really depressing.

So he got some, we got some answers on what he said, he meaning Pelley said that Barry Wise did to one of his stories. He had implied that she tried to inject some changes into it. Again, last minute changes just like happened with Seacott. He was doing a piece about Minneapolis. This was episode 18 of this last season, which ran on February 1st about the protests there, about the killing of René Good. He said that he got word filtered back to him that Barry wanted to,

protesters in the piece to look more violent, wanted Renee Good. as described as driving toward the officer that wound up shooting and killing her and he was like, we're not doing this and that almost put the show in jeopardy because those changes came so late on a Sunday. This is not a piece where you're like, let me just rewrite the lead one more time.

Oh, yeah. Stuff has to be locked. Here's what Pelley says the real problem with Barry Weiss is. The bigger problem, Lulu, frankly, is not any kind of political influence. The problem was the incompetence. You don't break a deadline.

Now this is four hours after. That episode of 60 Minutes came within 19 minutes of not making air, the entire hour of 60 minutes. Do you buy that? I mean, my whole thing is like, I almost think people are outsmarting themselves. Trying to figure out what the real problem with Barry Weiss is. It doesn't have to be one thing.

Yeah. It can be that she's part of this effort with David Ellison to get CBS News more in tune with the Trump administration. It can also be that she's injecting her own politics into CBS News. And it can be managerial incompetence. Yeah. It doesn't have to just be one. It's not like, oh, it's actually this. What if it's all of them?

Yeah. And that worse? It's, it probably is all. I mean, yeah, because obviously she was put there with some sort of a mandate

because you don't, you don't bring her in unless you want, you have something specific in mind because she's just, she was not a TV person. But also, like people that have worked with her and there's been stories about how the management of free press, she's not a good manager,

right? Or that it's something that she's still learning to do. and has really strong opinions. Still learning. It's just so great. Like, you're like, well,

you're running CBS News, you know, can we get an extension course on how to manage people here? It's kind of too late for that, right? I mean, bro, I just,

I can, the thing that I always and just sort of flummoxed by is not having any experience whatsoever in the medium and going to Scott Pelly and being like, uh, no,

do it this way. And I've got some ideas for this. And in a program that is successful. Like, Not even a, you know, just not even feel a little bit chastened or humble by being, you know, in the presence of these reporters that have done the job that you don't even know how to do and that she feels comfortable doing that. So, yeah, man, I think it's, like you said, I think it's all of these things. And maybe if he had more time to think about it, maybe it would come out. That was his first interview.

So maybe he's still sort of sorting through, right? One more cut from Pelley here. Garcia devaro did something smart which she read a comment that Donald Trump had made about Pelly Trump made these comments to Miranda Devine on the podcast Podforce One

sure you're a big fan here Trump's comments Look, Scott Pelley's a stiff and he's afraid and he's part of this, you know, gang of crooked stupid people that don't care about our country Here's Pelley addressing the latter charge I've never worn the uniform but I've been in combat for this country

in Afghanistan and Iraq Kuwait been shot at spent nights in foxholes filling up with water in the desert I'm not aware that the president of the United States has ever done

any of those things for his country please correct me if I'm wrong you become a journalist because you love the First Amendment. You become a journalist because you love the country. And while all the other descriptions that the president used about me might be applicable, not that one.

Very good dramatic newsman build and punctuate the ending. Absolutely. Oh, that's pure newsman. And a little grandiose, but at the same time, like, sometimes you just have to come out and say, I promise, the reason I'm not doing this job is because I hate America. Oh, yeah. I mean, if I had been in a foxhole in the desert filling with water, I would be offended at the idea that somebody would accuse me of that.

So I totally get it. You know, one thing I wanted to ask you, though, Brian, because I know you said you were jealous, right? And I told you this all fair before. I was like, man, you know, I think you were. one of the best interviewers in the business. Like, you know, there's not three people better than you at this. What would you have asked, Pelley? Two things. One was he said he'd never heard of Barry Weiss when she was appointed to run CBS News.

Didn't know much about Nick Bilton, neither. I would have liked to have known this. If you did not know who she was, truly didn't know who she was. I mean, maybe you're just saying that because that makes it look bad. But if you really didn't know who she was, shouldn't you have taken your celebrated reporting skills to find out who she was, if only to protect yourself and protect your television program? Because television is a political game.

Mike Wallace, RIP, knew that. Morley Safer, RIP knew that. Scott Pelley knows that. Right. We'd love to think in journalism, you do great work, you do it the right way, and you will be rewarded with money and opportunities. Bullshit. That's not how any part of this business works. Yeah.

And for him to sort of, you know, and again, I don't know if it's because the story sounds better. We're like, I'm giving these people the benefit of the doubt. And I just wanted to know what plans they had for CBS News. Maybe he truly thought that. But if you did, you were leaving yourself. very vulnerable. Right. Because these are people who have never worked in this business before.

They were coming in. They had a mandate to change things. And to me, I would have been like, shouldn't your instincts as an investigative reporter tell you, I need to know more about these people. I need to set up the firewall right now and not wait for her to be sending me notes about how to describe the direction of Renee Goods tires. Right. That's number one.

The second thing is this is he said, you know, I didn't want to be fired. I think when we heard about him standing up at that meeting and going toe to toe to toe with Nick Billton, we were like, well, he was done, right? He's lighting himself on fire to defend his colleagues to make a point. But he's out the door. And he was like, no, I actually still wanted to work at 60 minutes. I mean, to me, I think I would have just wanted to push back on that a little bit. And also asked a question that I think applies to Leslie Stoll, Bill Whitaker and John Wertheim, too, who announced on Friday that they're coming back to the show, which is. aren't you worried that your gravitas will be used as a shield by Barry Weiss and Nick Bilton while they do whatever they want to this program?

Because guess what? There's going to be other correspondents, maybe four more correspondents on that show. They're going to take the notes from Barry Wies. Nick Bilton, he's going to take the notes from Barry Wice. So you could wind up being on a show that's not really 60 minutes, but your Scott Pelly aura could be used to make people think it's still the old 60 minutes. Yeah. And I think I would have wanted to explore that a little bit. Yeah. I mean, Nick Bilton, if I'm not mistaken in one of those emails to the staff there indicated that they've already got correspondence in mind.

Right. can't wait to meet these new correspondents because Pelley said, oh, then I know that some of us are going to get fired then, right? And so, yeah, like those people are going to do what Barry Weiss tells them to do, and Nick Bilton tells them to do because they owe their careers to those people. Yes. And, yeah. They're brought in for that purpose. Like, you're not going to bring in somebody else who's going to ignore you. That's not.

Why would you do that? They're never having a staff meeting like that again, right? Like they've already did like, no, no, they're definitely not going to bring in anybody who's inclined to embarrass them publicly in this way again, right? I don't, far be it for me. I'm not revered or, you know, talented or whatever enough to have been Leslie Stahl, Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Wortham. Stop that. But no, no, I want to say it. But I would not, you know, I'd understand that they want to protect the 60 minutes and the brand or whatever.

but I think they should take a cue from what Scott Pelly said. That's over. 60 minutes is not that it's being murdered. It's dead. Yeah. And I understand it's hard. It's easy for us to say like, hey, go quit your job. Right.

And also, I do think, I believe all those people looking at the people who are not on the air and being like, I want to protect the people who are here. Yes. I want to do everything I can. And if I can, if we leave, what if they just fire everybody? You know, like, what if they bring in everybody, you know, from the PAs to the producers to everybody? What if they're all new? What if they're all part of this new regime? And like, I understand that.

I totally understand that. But I think that the tension between that, between protecting them and giving cover to something you do not agree with, journalistically and ideologically and everything else, that's an interesting, that's where I would want to probe just a little bit more. Sure. We'll talk about Grand Platinum before we get out of here. Oh, man. I want to run over our studio time in here because I'm in the big pig studio today. And I bet there's a famous person coming.

They've already had Spielberg. I don't think he's coming back. No, I mean, we got our content from the maestro. It's primary day for Platner in Maine. He's probably going to win. Yeah. I guess, you know, Janet Mills is still on the ballot. What a weird situation that was where she suspended her campaign.

But then somebody came forward and said, you know, she didn't, she didn't quit the campaign. She just suspended it. So you're welcome to vote for her because she's going to be on the ballot, even though she stopped running for Senate. Grand Platner's got a lead. Been two major stories about him, one in the Wall Street Journal by Tarini Party and Aaron Zittner, that came out May 30th. Days after Graham Platner announced his main Senate bid, they write. His wife informed the campaign about a potential problem. She had previously discovered on the oyster farmer's phone sexually explicit texts with several women, according to people familiar with the matter.

Yeah. So Plattner and Amy Gertner were married in 2023. Those messages were found by them and dealt with in whatever way they want to deal with them earlier in their marriage. Fast forward to 2025 and Amy is coming forward to the campaign and saying, hey, this is out there. there is this something that's going to come up? New York Times followed up on that and quoted several people. Lindsay Fiefeld, who is a conservative in Virginia, was probably the most profound of these accounts.

And she said that Platner, quote, regularly grabbed her by the shoulders, sometimes hard enough to leave marks, also described an incident where he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn't get out, quoting there from the piece, Platerner denied those claims. She also had a really interesting thing where she said Platterner knew about his Nazi tattoo

before he claimed he knew it was a Nazi tattoo. And even had a message, I guess it was in a group chat from August, where she was telling her friends, Plattner, quote, has a Nazi tattoo on his chest. This is before Platner said he realized that it happened and then had it come. covered up. Yeah. But she somehow had a message knowing that. When Platner was asked about that by Chris Hayes was like, well, no, she didn't tell me. She knew what the tattoo was. Anyway, what in the world does this do to the Maine center base? I know Maine is a small state, man. There

really isn't anybody else. You know what I mean? Like, I think there's that thing. That's one thing that occurs to me. But the other thing about this is that I'm just surprised people are pretending to care about this stuff anymore. The Donald Trump has reset the parameters so much. We live in a whole new world, man. Ken Paxton is his wife divorced him on biblical grounds. And it didn't really matter. He's been like we don't.

I guess maybe because Democrats are more inclined, they feel the need to police themselves in a way that seems. almost quake, like of the Gary Hart era of politics. And I just feel like we're way past that now. Like, no, I can't believe people are pretending to give a shit about this. But maybe the, maybe the people that have to vote for Grand Platner have to care about it and feel like it's necessary to care. But I'm just surprised. That's a distinction I made. There's somebody in Maine who cares about this.

Yeah. Probably. And there's probably people that are like, should I vote for Susan Collins or Grand Platner? I think those people exist. they seem like they exist in Maine of all places. Yeah. And they are generally sorting out what to do with this. There's also a media element to this,

which all these people who exist among us now in podcast land, who are like, my job is to get Democrats elected. Yeah. And it's just fascinating to hear them process this. If you come at this, not from a moral standpoint, but just like we want to win the election standpoint. I mean, it's, you're like, well, do you care or not? You know, what?

And what do you make of this? You know, what, like, there's all this reporting out there now. This is somebody, again, I went back and listened. I don't know why I did this. And I don't know why we pick on Tommy Veter on this podcast, but I went back and listen to the interview he did with Platner. And this is after the Reddit post had come out. It's also the first, I think, shirtless Platiner pick.

And maybe there's more now. I kind of know where we are. But just listening to him do that interview and just like, oh, you know, there's a reporter and actually, oh, you know, these people are making so much a deal out of this. This is what happens, you know, when you filter candidates through people who want to help candidates get elected. Right. Rather than journalists who are like, I'm just going to go try to find out who these people are and what they're about. Right.

Yeah. And I also think that it's going to hurt. We're going to see more of this going forward because, I mean, I mean, because, you've got these dueling. these dueling initiatives, right? They're like, want to see people hire, want to see people elected, and also it's just like, hey, look, I just want to win. But people are like, no, I really care about this

and we need to make sure that this person is airtight. But I don't think that that's almost futile because so much of life is happening online now. Yeah. Like I did all these pictures of him. Like, they will never know what I was doing in college. Like, you know what I'm saying? You know, all that.

there's no pictures of it, there's no text, there's no internet stuff. Like, that's not going to happen. But the thing that is interesting to me, and I'm trying to remember, can you tell me how many stories you've ever seen where people have had to interview all of their girlfriends before, like, in absence of like a sexual assault claim, right? Because sometimes, like, people would do, oh, his relationships will win. But there's not a sexual assault claim here. Now, there is an allegation of violence, so I don't want to downplay that.

But I'm, I have you, how often have you seen that? It was, it was really strong. The time story especially was very, very unusual, I think. Yeah. I felt like it felt like a button got pushed when the journal got their story out. Yeah. Because they had been talking to those women for a number of months. Yeah.

And then all of a sudden, well, that's out there. So now here, let's now this is a, this is a topic and let's talk about it. And to me, it's like, you know, what's fascinating too is this campaign has so many strands running through it from mental health. health, you know, somebody coming back from war, authenticity. Your point earlier about Trump resetting the parameters on what is or isn't acceptable behavior, you know, his cell to the people of Maine has been, I came back as this very damaged person from war. This is what disillusioned damage.

You know, what you see on Reddit was that person and I've been working on that. And I'm not perfect now, but I'm better, not better now. right and this is and it's a mark of that I'm a real person and I'm actually talking about this rather than pushing it all away well now we have even more stories that he can talk about or not talk about I guess he gave the interview to Chris Hayes who was also kind of by the way apologizing you know like oh we usually we're on here talking about income inequality but I have to ask you only you know come you can just ask him the questions yeah I mean I presumably in Maine there's not very many voters so like you know a few

10, you know, a dozen thousand folks can make a real difference here, but I imagine the Susan Collins campaign, which probably was going, you know, didn't seem like it had a lot of juice. This all seems to have really

helped that campaign out, I imagine. Absolutely. Oh my gosh. I mean, I think they're, and then they'll be interesting to see what the results are tonight. And I guess there's a plan B where you could kind of push him out by July if he agreed to be pushed, Anyway, much more to talk about on this.

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create the best beauty products for all people. Visit laurel.com to learn more. All right, Michael Steele is one of the anchors of MSNows, the weeknight, which you can watch on weeknights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time. In his pre-television life, Steele was Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. He was chairman of the RNC, among other jobs. We're happy to have him here. Michael, welcome to the press box.

Hey, it's great to be with the fellas in the press box. All right. Nice to see you guys. Thank you so much, you know. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on. Five months until the midterms, Michael. Yeah.

As you look around, what do you see Democrats doing right? What do you see Democrats doing wrong? What I see them doing right is they've won 37 special elections. They beat my record in a midterm, as a matter of fact. I think I topped out at 35 when I was R&C chairman in that 2009, 10, cycle. So they have been able to pull together a very unique narrative around affordability. I think they should continue to lean into affordability. What I see them doing wrong is sometimes they have a tendency to get in their own way, to overthink the problem that's in front of them.

and the only problem in front of them is how many seats can we pick up. And so stay focused on the endgame. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, and I mentioned this on our show, and Simone, of course, gave me the look. Oh, there you go, I'm going after Democrats. I'm like, I'm just trying to save you from yourself. But, you know, the reality of it is they have started to drift off of the affordability issue to lean into corruption.

because, you know, Trump had done something else stupid. And, you know, they wanted to, you know, sort of level up the sheer corruption of it. And, yes, we know we have a very corrupt president in the White House. I mean, that's obvious on so many levels in so many ways. But my argument was don't now put up a different narrative because corruption is in the eye of the beholder, number one, okay? And you may think, you know, building a monument to yourself and having other people pay for it, but you give them a contract on the back end for the money, for the check they just wrote to build the thing that you tell everybody is privately funded is corruption.

But you know what? Someone else may not. And so it gets a little bit weedy. And so you want to stay on the top line of the thing that people know and they experience it. What are they experiencing fellas? They're experiencing $5 gasoline. They're experiencing the price of beef, an homage to Simone, who's tracking the price of beef daily. And now that you've got this damn flyworm that's going into beef and eating up the beef, oh, Lord, I can't wait until we get on talking about that.

But the cost to people is what's in front of them. Now, if you want to talk about corruption, and I think to a degree, should. What I would do is what, you know, some of the strategies I employed in 2010 is I'd make the other thing tied into the thing that I'm pushing. So if you want to talk about corruption, every time people hear you mention the word corruption. You know what they think of? They think of I'm paying high gas prices because of that corruption. I can't afford to do X, Y, and Z because of Trump's corruption. In other words, take that piece and say,

this is what a president is doing. Instead of focusing on the things that are important to you, he's off patting his own pockets in the pockets of his family and the pockets of his friends. Meanwhile, you're paying $5 worth of gas. And so you narratively connect people to another storyline, but you do so in a way that every time they hear the bottom line

or the key word or whatever, they think about the fact that this is happening. I'm in this situation because of this thing that they're doing. You may not know this, Michael. We're Texans. And so the price of beef and barbecue is very near and dear to our heart. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. But, you know, speaking of the things that you think that Democrats are doing wrong,

you were also really critical of the DNC's decision to release that 20-20, for autopsy. So if someone who was the former leader of the RNC, how would you have handled that sort of report? I would have thrown in the trash can and moved on. Well, first of, I never would have, I never would have ordered it. You know what the hell the problem is. When I came into the RNC, I did not need to spend a million dollars to know that we couldn't speak to black people, brown people, gay people, white people, even poor white people. We couldn't, we couldn't speak to them. I didn't need to spend a million dollars to tell me that our fundraising was out of whack. I didn't need a million dollars to tell me that 38 out of the 50 state parties didn't have a website that was

functional. Right? So I'm going to spend the million dollars on the things I need to spend the money on. And so this whole thing that, you know, oh, we got to sit back and be reflective about what we did wrong and we got to pay some consultant to come in and tell us what we did wrong, to me, is nonsensical. Call me old school. But okay, if you want to do it, let's play. So they go out and they spend this money and they do this report and they come back with a pile of crap. Why is it a pile of crap? Because everyone said it was a pile of crap. And in fact, you then put it out with all the mistakes in it, the bad punctuation, the misspelled words and all of that, all of a sudden now you're getting in your own way. And you're getting in your own way. And you're getting in your own

narratively. And so now the Republicans go, oh, let's talk about their autopsy report. We don't want to talk about what Donald Trump did today. We want to talk about the autopsy report. And so I think from a number of those standpoints, it becomes vitally important to recognize the value of the thing and whether or not that becomes a distraction. But don't you think that that, the Democrats have a legitimate, like, dispute about what's actually wrong, though. Because it seems like even... Yeah, I'm not going to dispute what the report said, but did you really need to spend all that money to know that? Right.

Did you really... And the thing about it was, what was it dissecting? It was dissecting Kamala Harris's campaign. Right. What does that have to do with the DNC? Well, they didn't talk about Gaza, right? But they didn't run her campaign. That's right.

That's right. What they ran were party operations on the ground across the country. What they ran were fundraising operations that funneled money to support the candidate who happened to be running for president, and as well as the candidate happened to be running for governor of fill in the blank state. All right. Focus on your mission. The presidential campaign and all of that operation had nothing to do with the DNC. So sitting there and talking about how Kamala Harris ran her campaign, that's not valuable to the DNC. Because guess what?

Kamala Harris may not be the nominee of the party in 28. If she is, okay, then maybe hand her that autopsy. But if she isn't, what did you spend all that money for? Focus on your mission. Your mission as a party is to do two things. And as a party chairman, exactly these two things. Raise money and win elections. Not one election, not just the presidential election, but every election in which you have candidates on the ballot.

And so you need to look at how operationally you do that. And so that means in this county over here where there are 600,000 people and we have a candidate running for the state legislature, what's our operation? What did we do right? What did we do wrong? did we support that candidate? Was our county party well organized to do what it needed to do? How did we support our county party? How did the state party support the county parties?

How did all of that get supported by us? So, yeah, I hear it. I get it. I understand it. But the focus on a presidential election so narrowly as to sort of opine about, you know, what Kamala didn't do and what they campaign didn't do right and and the whole all the drama around Joe Biden leaving what that to do with the DNC. Speaking of running a party, when you were chairman of the RNC, you were witness to the birth of a

couple of different ideological movements, if we can call them ideological. Which one of these do you think had a more profound effect on the direction of Republican politics? The Tea Party or Bertherism? Well, neither one, actually. Because the rot that would be tantasized into Magas started long before Tea Party and birtherism. It goes back to the 1930s. The Republican Party throughout its modern day history has struggled with episodes of fancying itself as a a populist nationalist party.

It danced a little bit on that pinhead of the 1930s in response to FDR because they had no response. Typically, the party kind of falls in at Red Hole when it's got no response to a big policy idea, the New Deal, the great society, civil rights. And the irony with civil rights was we were once the champion of civil rights. That's kind of how the party was formed, right, back in 1854. But the, you know, so that that rot was, it was long there. Now, you know, what birtherism represents, without Trump, there is no birtherism. Let's be clear.

Not manifested the way it was and definitely not as long as it went on. I mean, I had conversations with Donald Trump directly. I said, dude, why are you doing this? You just need to stop. It doesn't, you know, he doesn't do it. because it works. And that there told me a lot about, not Donald Trump,

which I surmised pretty quickly, but a lot about the party and what it was willing to do for power. And the sad irony is once it got the power, once it gets the power, it doesn't know how to govern. I mean, George Bush eschewed that process, skewed that sort of baseline ugliness,

and tried to refer, immigration, got together, the legislation, did the hard work of bipartisanship, and the hard right idiocracy killed it. Flash forward, the gang of eight again, pulled together after great strife, concern, and consternation in the country, quite frankly, with immigration, with our borders being overrun and no real controls and no real effort by an administration. administration finally got together and came up with a plan and Donald Trump wanted something to run on. So the hard right idiocracy killed it.

Healthcare. I still find it ironic how Republicans talk about Obamacare since they seem to forget that Obamacare was Romneycare, which was, guess what, the heritage plan in the 1990s. That was a Republican plan. Obama took a Republican plan and actually implemented it, which is something Republicans couldn't do. And then they got pissed off about it and then wanted to go after him. Personally, when you can't govern, that's what you do. And here we are sitting today with an administration that can't do jack,

except go to a war that nobody wants nor understands why we're there. But the president has time to go to a next. game and have and have people who are supposed to be negotiating peace at the game instead of in the Middle East, it's time to go to, you know, says, oh, I can't, I can't go to my son's wedding because we've got to do war this weekend. But he went and played golf. So, you know, priorities. But that's what the party has allowed itself to be led by. And it will continue to flounder until a leader steps up and does that that wonderful scene out of what was that movie with Cher, which he snacks the crap out of Nicholas Cage.

Moonstruck? Moonstruck. Snap out of it. Yes, right. Snap out of it, right? Until that happens, this thing remains adrift, unfocused, undisciplined, irreverent, irreligious, disrespectful, without form or substance when it comes to policy.

So, Michael, given, so you said the right starts in 1930. That means it goes almost 100 years. This is a century of this, and it's curdled into something that you consider to be a hard, right idiocracy. So, like, why not just become a Democrat? Like, do you still have hope? Because they ain't got their act together either. So I might as well stay where I am and fight through this.

So you believe that the GOP can, like, what is, what is realistically would it take for them to turn back from this? Like, you think that can happen? Just not this. This form of the party is done. It's, I mean, people were sitting back thinking we're going to go back to the days of Bush and Reagan. That's not happened. What I argue for at this point is a reimagination. of the core Republican values that have remained important,

where you're talking about, you know, entrepreneurship, free markets, you're talking about the rule of law and respect, not a corrupted sense of the rule of law, where, you know, I have the rule and the law, you know, because I make the rules, because I make the law. But that understands and appreciates the dynamism

and the popularism of this populous nature of this country, and is willing to lean into that. A party that was, you know, that was born out of the idea that the words of our Constitution and all men created equal meant something broke off from a Whig party that refused to acknowledge that or was afraid to lean into that. And they boldly moved into that. And on the heels of all else went toward a preserve a union over this idea. and that we could preserve this union while freeing the slave.

And then once we did that, we would put into our law, into our Constitution, the rights of those men to be free. That's the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment. So that value proposition for me of freedom and liberty as well as recognition of how our country is of and changed still matters. The party was not formed to over, over issues related to, I guess, abortion or transgender or that's, those are policy prescriptions. Those are things you go back and forth and every community is going to have a point of view and a national government sometimes ways and it creates a federal law to sort of get everybody to settle down and say, y'all, we're going to do it this way, right? But that's fundamentally not what the party was found. Party wasn't founded

as a Christo-nationalist party. America wasn't founded as a Christian nation. I know that upsets a lot of people when they hear it, but go back and pick up the damn history book for once in your life and read the damn thing and understand it. And don't, you don't read me, just read the Federalist Papers. Just read the founders. You know, I mean, come on. I mean, so if we stop, If we stop with this sort of, you know, highly offended. Oh, my God, I'm so offended because stop it. You talk about the ultimate snowflakeery. It's just, it just drives me nuts.

So I don't need that in my life anymore. I joined the party exactly 50 years ago this August. And I've been in the fight. There's some good stuff, some bad stuff, some ugly stuff, some highly racist stuff, all of it. Been there, done that. I know what it is. And I accepted it for what it was, but I always believe that I could assume a position, a role that would help move the party forward because I believe fundamentally that it had something of value to offer. I think Trump has corrupted that to the point where there is very little left of value to offer.

So now we need to reimagine something else. But how do you do that? Do I do that by going and standing outside the tent and trying to craft that? No, I figured I was here first. I'm going to stay here for a little while longer until I'm ready to go on my terms. And the Democrats have just never spoken to that for me. And I worked with a lot of Democrats.

I endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. I endorsed Kamala Harris in 24, not because I believed in their views on policy X, Y, or Z, or that somehow I now prove, of open borders and all the other BS that would come out of Republicans who are too damn afraid to acknowledge that the guy that they'd hitched their wagon to was the cause of the death of the party. But I did so because of the fundamental belief in the foundation of the country and what it stood for. And that in this phase, there is no policy. There is no position that is greater

than salvaging the Constitution, the rule of law, and our democracy. And when you have a threat to that, we all should take responsibility in defending. And that's not party. That's country. And, you know, nationalists call themselves nationalists for a reason, right? It's about how they view the country. They just use the politics and the party to get there. So, Why are you so upset when I take the position that, yeah, I'm supporting the country from the right side? Right. And I'm standing with people who stand with me in that fight. And so that, that for me is not a complicated question.

Never has been. And it's sad when I see so many others, certainly those serving in office right now, seem to be frustrated. Not wrong word, because they're not frustrated. seemed to be so eager, so quick to capitulate, to make the excuse, not to do the right thing. Because, oh, I can't vote for a Democrat. Oh, we can't let, you know, Hakeem Jeffries get a win. Well, you know, if the win is for the people who need the win, why is that a problem?

You know, give the American people a win for once. knows Donald Trump is get fat and happy and very wealthy off of, off of the pain that a lot of American people are feeling right now. And he's using the government against us to do it. Michael, let me ask you about another figure from the conservative past. Rush Limbaugh was a huge broadcaster in his time and I think predicted in a lot of ways the way that right wing media was going to go. What was your relationship like with Rush? I actually had a very good relationship with Rush. And Rush had done a number of events for me when I was State Party chairman back in 2000.

And when I was here in the county as a county chairman, and I got in a no rush through my work at Fox when I went to Fox after I left the lieutenant governor's office. I worked there for a couple of years. So I got to know Roger and the crew and Megan and don't recognize any of them. now, of that old crew. But Limbaugh, look, Limbaugh was the guy who gave voice to a lot of young conservatives such as myself back in the early 80s that really didn't have an outlet. We didn't have a platform. We didn't hear our voices reflected in news broadcasts in the nightly news or in newspapers. And to the extent that it was, it was often our viewpoints were criticized or, demean. And so people need to understand why this happened in the first place. Because when Uncle,

you know, I was thinking Uncle Miltie, but that's not Walter Cronkite, you know, when he got, gave us the news and, you know, that's the story, you know, everybody believed it, his words. And so what a of, you know, conservatives back in the day recognized was, hey, well, we have a different point of view on this policy. We have a different perspective on the war. We have a different perspective on the economy. You know, what about us? It wasn't just what was happening on Capitol Hill with elected officials, which is why what happened in 94 with the contract with America and the Newt Gingrich Revolution was so important because that was finally the revolution that had begun in media with talk radio reaching the floors of the United States Congress. And that's where it began.

That revolution doesn't happen without talk radio. It doesn't happen without Rush Limbaugh. And you could not like it, you know, and think it's all bad, but it wasn't all bad. The contract with America was a 70% approval with voters out there. Voters liked the idea of what Republicans were proposing at the time. But that voice that Rush offered up with talk radio created a seedbed. What has become unfortunate, as we've seen with a lot of things, and you can go into examples and details.

things get taken over because people show there just how human they are, right? How corruptible they are. Their greed sets in. Their power hunger. I mean, suddenly think about it. If you are on the outs and now you're on the end and people are listening to you, you're getting followers, which weren't followers in. There were listeners back in the day.

And you're getting all of the sponsors are coming to sponsor your show. All of these things build up. Your head grows and you want more and you get more. All of that feeds a narcissism that takes over and it becomes corrupting. And that, you know, I saw that happen with a lot of things that I've been involved with and that I've not been involved with over the years. I remember Occupy Wall Street started at the same time as the Tea Party movement, right? Y'all remember Occupy Wall Street.

What happened to it? It got corrupted, how to get corrupted, because people instead of understanding what the protest was about and actually living up to the guiding idea of the protests, got into these camps into these little villages that were being created and started robbing each other and assaulting each other and fighting each other and creating all kinds of havoc. And that became the distraction. I knew the Tea Party was done when I went to a rally in 2012, 2013,

long after I'd left the RNC, and I saw my first Nazi sign there. pro-Nazi sign. I was like, oh, okay, there we are. And everybody, look, I had one guy when I was chairman who was, I think it was the chairman, either Chicago or Illinois of the Tea Party movement. And so we were, you know, getting ready to set up our big national push at the end of the 2010 cycle. So in that fall, I was going to go in and rally the troops. He didn't want me to come in. You know why? Because he wanted all the money for himself. And I was like, dude, that's not what this is about. I'm not here to raise the money. I'm here to raise votes.

But he wasn't about raising votes. He wasn't about making the case. The thing had already begun to turn in that instance. And I saw examples of that. So, you know, all great voices, all great movements start out in a certain way. And if you are not able to sustain that initial energy, that initial purpose, it becomes corrupted. And when it does, you are. So I actually have to ask you this then. So if given all of that, like you've seen this, you've seen the change of the party, you've seen this curdling, can a responsible

American cast a vote for a Republican anymore right now then? Yeah. I mean, and that's that, yes, it can because not all Republicans are MAGA, not all Republicans are like the crazy stuff that we have to deal with every day. There are Republicans who are running, who are, you know, in your legislature, you're in your city council, maybe the mayor of your town, who are good people. I mean, I get a lot of phone calls and emails from elected officials and candidates, particularly guys who want to get into elected life, who are trying to navigate. How do I navigate? How do I navigate? Maga. Their problem is I can't, I won't survive a primary. So, you know, where people are allowed to,

to, you know, switch over and, you know, like in Virginia where you have open primaries and you just, you just go vote or other places where you're allowed to, you know, switch your party affiliation, you go vote in a Republican primary or a Democratic primary. Go and support those candidates. get them through the primary so that you can support them in a general election. They're there. It's just that, you know, the narrative has been so consumed by one brushstroke that no one else thinks, you know, that there's anyone else out there. Right. Well, Michael, who are those Republicans?

Yeah, who are those Republicans that are running for office standards? Like, you're like going into these midterms and you're saying, okay, I believe in democracy. I don't believe, you know, I would like the economy to turn around. I don't want to be at war with Iran. Who is a Republican that you can look at on the ballot going into the bid terms and say, I can feel comfortable voting for that person that they will not be corrected by Maddo or Trump? I'm not going to speak to what you would be comfortable doing because I don't know what you'd be comfortable doing. What I'm saying more broadly to people is don't sit there and act stupid.

That every Republican you know, you know a Republican in your office who's not mine. And you probably said to that person more than once, gee, why don't you run? Right? My point is everybody knows that this is not the be-all and the end-all. That there are people out there who are going to put their names on ballots this November in your community. There are people who are on ballots in races right now. Some have, quite frankly, switched and run as a... are running as independents in primaries for general elections.

Others have gone through the battle, did not win, but they're going to try to come back. Next cycle, they're going to keep at it. My point being, you just need to look where you are and see the value set of those folks. Look, John Cornyn is such a Republican who was on the ballot, right? There are a lot of John Corners who are running, but what happened? A small percentage. What was the turnout of Republican voters in that Republican primary? Pretty small.

Pretty small. Right. So that's what happened. That's what's happening all across the country. And I keep telling people, and my advice to the candidates is, look, what you need to do is grow the rest of the primary voters, electorate. If you have a hundred, take 100 Republicans. Right. And only 18 of those Republicans consistently vote in every Republican primary. You know those 18 are going to show up. You may get five of those 18, six of those 18, right? But you still have 80 that you haven't touched. Go talk to them. Get them to go vote in the primary. Give them a reason to vote in the primary. Get them excited again about the primary process and the opportunity to put someone like you.

on the ballot in the general election and to vote for you in the general election. You know, so I think for me that is a very important part of this process. You know, naming an individual candidate is not going to do anything. What people needs to, because you don't live there, you don't know that person. What I'm saying to people, look at the people in your own backyard, the Republicans that are already serving, size them up, assess them for what they are. And I guarantee you, you'll find that most of them are not like the ones that you're reading about or that you see sitting at a Knicks game. Last one for you, Michael. I thought we'd get out of politics here for a second because I read that when you were out of college, you wanted to be a Catholic priest.

Yes. And even entered a seminary. Yes, I entered the Augustinian order. Augustinian order. What was the appeal of living the life of a priest? service. It was, I wanted to be a priest since I was in third grade. So it was something that was very much a part of my DNA in that sense. It was something I intuitively knew as a young kid. But, you know, you grow up, you've got to go to the process. There were a number of times where I

wanted to, I was going to enter a high school seminary and the priest in my parish were like, no, go to high school, experience the world. Now again, we're talking about a world that was changing. The Vatican had just been around at that point probably about eight years. You've had explosions culturally, politically. The war in Vietnam was winding down. Wardigate. had happened. So there was a lot of stuff like that. So this idea when the Pope had opened up the windows of the church to the world to then go, go close yourself off to it at such a young age, as the priest was explained to me, didn't make sense. You need to understand what it is that you want to do and why and how you will serve. And I did. And so that got me all the way

through college, but the Augustinians taught me in high school. And I really leaned in to St. Augustine and his journey, his own personal journey, St. Augustine was a flawed human being like all of us, who would become a doctor of the church. But before all that happened, his mama was trying to get him on the straight narrow between the concubines and the liquor and the wild living. His mama prayed for him every day now. I didn't do any of that. Maybell would have whipped my ass. I've been that brings some concubine up in the house.

No, that was not going to happen. But I did appreciate very much that that human journey, that led him to the church, that led him to seek a deeper relationship and understanding with God. And that appealed to me, and it still does. And so when I left, graduated at Hopkins, my friends went off to med school and law school and all kinds of other wonderful careers. And I entered the Augustinian order and started my journey. went to novitiate, received the habit, made promises of poverty, chastity, obedience.

And in that journey, in the course of that journey, that part of the journey realized that God was calling me to a different life of service. And I left right before simple vows and came back home, kind of got my head regrouped and entered Georgetown Law School. And the rest of they say, it's been crazy fun. This is my final question, Michael, because I mean, I'm a hip-hop fan, you know, as I'm a child of the hip-hop generation. I remember when you at the RNC, you talk about taking Republican ideas. Yeah, hip-hop Republicans, yeah. And it caused the controversy at the time, but I don't know.

I mean, it kind of feels like Donald Trump may have actually sort of done that. I mean, if you just look at all- But Donald Trump had always been, Donald Trump has always been hip-hop adjacent. Donald Trump would know hip hop from a hip replacement. So let's just be honest about that. He's a user. So he gets, you know, he'll get close and he'll do a great pretend like he knows what you guys are doing. Yeah, I can, you know, I'll throw some gold lemae sneakers and I'm all good, right?

So that's Donald Trump. That's what he was. The brothers liked him because he would flash the cash and the gold and, you know, that aspirational, I guess, back in the day. But what I was talking about was something a little bit more connective and a little bit more personal because I understand and understood then and understand hip hop to be something more than just music and it's something more than just culture. It is economics. It is about how you create what I would call it called at that time legacy wealth. And we saw that generationally, you know, emerge as artists became moguls.

And they began to take control of not just their music, but the enterprises they were running. And that for me was a very Republican thing because it spoke very much to the core of what Republicans talk about, or at least my brand of republicanism talked about, was entrepreneurism, ownership, right? legacy wealth. If the Rockefellas can pass it off generationally, so can we. We have done so much for so

many others. We built this country, right? We built culture, music, art, infrastructure, science, math, you know, we farmed your fields, we raised your kids. And what do we have to show for it? poor educational opportunities, inner city poverty, go through the list. And out of all of that comes this idea, this music, this sound, that, yeah, you know, white folks figured they could monetize, but black folks knew better because they knew we owned it. And so that's what I would speak to and make that at the core of the conversation about looking at taking that idea of ownership and legacy wealth and tie it to the kinds of policies that's going to protect that. That's going to sustain that for you. So generationally, you can pass it on.

And the next generation in your family can live from the fruits of that. and then grow and produce and pass on as well. So yeah, it was controversial. A lot of folks got a lot of joint Republicans didn't understand it. Democrats didn't want to. I didn't care. I made my point and it resonated. And I think it helped us win elections, yes.

But I think it also, at least for a very short period of time, opened up some lanes of conversation, which unfortunately came, It became closed and, you know, here we are. See, Hakeem Jeffries tried to say Donald Trump couldn't tell Carl Anthony Towns from Carl Rove, but I like hip hop from a hip replacement much better. Yes, I'm here. What the future speaker of the House tried. Michael Steele can be seen and heard on 7 p.m. Eastern Time on the week night on MS.

Now along with Simone Sanders Townsend and starting June 15th, Luke Russert. Yeah, Luke is going to be a great addition, folks. I've got to tune in. I'm telling you the first night's going to be. It's going to be a hip-hop rave. It's going to be a lot of fun. All right. Michael, thanks so much for coming on the press box.

All right, guys. All right, that's the press box. He's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic. By Bruce Baldwin, who came home to the press box just like Luke Russert's coming home to MS now. What a week?

David Shoemaker's here on Thursday. Going to hear his dulcet tones. Okay. And we got another Dave. Dave Weigel from Semaphore is going to be here on Thursday as well. Are you serious? Talking about whatever happens in Maine tonight. I got all kind of questions for Dave Wiglin.

I saw Dave Wigle at Whole Foods in downtown Silver Spring, and I wasn't going to say anything to him because I, you know, I don't know if he knows who I am. But yeah, it's too bad that I couldn't have been here for that, but maybe some other time. We'll be getting to know I'm on the cereal aisle here on Thursday. Yeah, I think we went to be, Yeah, I think we went like a soup or beans aisle or something like that.

It was very cool. Always an awkward place to meet somebody for the very first time. Joel, I'll see you next week with more lukewarm takes about the media. Looking forward to it, man. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old.

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