Juno News - Michael Steele on the 2020 election and the National Popular Vote

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show welcome back everyone to the andrew lawton show this story

00:00:09.600 i find actually quite amusing so bernie sanders did a sit down with anderson cooper on 60 minutes

00:00:15.720 and he did the whole mussolini made the trains run on time thing with cuba where he said it was

00:00:20.820 unfair to say that quote everything is bad in cuba unquote and he had talked about the literacy

00:00:27.500 campaign that fidel castro put in and other things that cuba has done apparently so well and he does

00:00:33.920 this just so brazenly and you know for a guy who is the closest thing american political class has had

00:00:41.240 to a communist at least you can admire that he's so brazen about what he wants and what he wants to

00:00:47.260 implement in the united states but bernie sanders sits down and says out ironically that you can't

00:00:53.020 say cuba's all bad conceded that there was an authoritarian nature there but ultimately said

00:01:00.000 that cuba has just become such a pillar of success in so many other ways and what was interesting is

00:01:07.100 that this ended up earning bernie sanders not much love in the united states but he was on the front

00:01:13.200 page of the cuban newspaper in a favorable way i might don't speak spanish at all but grandma or grant

00:01:19.600 maybe it's just grandma which is the official organ of the central communist party committee of cuba

00:01:25.840 had very favorably written about bernie sanders saying that he recognizes cuba's contributions

00:01:31.700 in education and health now of course when he is praising a communist dictatorship the state media in

00:01:40.260 that communist dictatorship is very fond of bernie sanders but again i find it very fascinating that

00:01:47.060 anyone in the united states who is from cuba who has fled cuba they are just seething right now

00:01:54.040 there was actually a miami herald op-ed from someone who said i went to school in cuba under castro

00:02:00.120 here's what it's like bernie sanders from a cuban national who talks about the cheap propagandist

00:02:07.340 talking points that the american left pedals on cuba and how that is so at odds with what she experienced

00:02:15.420 and what actual cubans experience which is why they flee to the united states on javex bottles

00:02:21.200 you don't risk your life fleeing a country when everything is as hunky-dory as bernie sanders thinks

00:02:27.980 or a lot of the leftist politicians in the west that insist cuba is just this utopian paradise

00:02:33.740 but the thing that i find fascinating is that this guy's winning this guy's winning there was a time when

00:02:40.280 this would be like the kooky marianne williamson of the primary but bernie sanders is in the lead

00:02:46.840 the democrats are completely unfazed and if anything encouraged when he talks this way about things so

00:02:53.600 i have to unpack what's going on in american politics right now former republican national

00:02:59.120 committee chairman michael steele and i sat down last week when i was in miami actually which has

00:03:04.700 little havana this is where most of the cuban expats in america live or at the very least the

00:03:10.480 first place they touched down in america and my goodness the riots that well the opposite of riots

00:03:19.080 actually the celebrations in miami when fidel castro died should give you an indication that

00:03:25.620 the bernie sanders narrative of cuba is not accurate but i wanted to share my interview with

00:03:30.500 former republican national committee chairman michael steele we talked about what things are

00:03:34.940 happening in the democrat primary heading to november when the election takes place and we

00:03:40.240 also spoke about a reform initiative that is ultimately bipartisan but could help conservatives

00:03:46.300 to revamp the way americans vote in presidential elections embracing a national popular vote so here's

00:03:53.200 my sit down with michael steele i'm sitting down with the former lieutenant governor of maryland also

00:03:58.340 the former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele michael good to talk to

00:04:02.740 you thanks for taking the time it's great to be with you andrew absolutely good to see you man

00:04:05.920 let's talk first off about where we are in the course of american politics right now because i think that

00:04:12.480 it's been an eventful last four years certainly and as we look forward a lot of people i think on the

00:04:19.240 left are going down that same road that we saw before 2016 which is that well there's no way anyone

00:04:25.480 can vote for donald trump again and we have to do this and and then on the right you have i think a

00:04:30.360 lot of the resistance to donald trump from conservatives seems to have abated a bit in my

00:04:36.380 view and i'm wondering if you'd agree with that the people that were never trumpers that are now

00:04:39.660 okay well i guess it's not that bad yeah i think on the first point with respect to how the left is

00:04:45.980 approaching this election uh they they're they're turning into a clown show i was just the tip of i think of

00:04:53.180 what will be a very dangerous iceberg for them um not not just on the process size and just getting

00:04:59.380 the vote out but just generally in in their understanding of where the american people are

00:05:05.220 what the american people are thinking and how they feel about the upcoming election there's a lot of

00:05:10.680 mixed emotion about it in some quarters and they're very strong emotions in others there's no doubt about

00:05:15.320 that you have those who there's no way on hell i will ever vote for donald trump um and then you even

00:05:20.700 have those who voted for him in 16 who have peeled off but you still to your to your second point and

00:05:25.920 it's not just among conservatives among center-right independents for example um who are looking at this

00:05:32.700 and they are they're making a different calculation and assessment largely based on how they see the

00:05:38.120 democrats performing so you know the president in my estimation is in a very good position right now

00:05:43.660 uh he's very strong certainly on the economy he's over 50 plus 52 53 percent approval on the economy

00:05:51.920 i think that number is actually a little bit higher um his job approval is at 49 percent two points higher

00:05:57.520 than barack obama obama at the same point um in his first term so i think where the president is

00:06:04.340 positioned you can say look uh muller impeachment um all helped um because it it really spoke to a

00:06:12.640 narrative that conservatives were saying that you go down this road on impeachment you're going to

00:06:17.800 bite off something you can't chew and and i think that's what's turned out because the american people

00:06:23.020 at the end of the day it wasn't in their mind to sort of throw out a president so all of these factors

00:06:28.300 have played into where this election is at this point the democrats are now going through their primary

00:06:33.460 process the president is just sitting back and enjoying the moment um and we'll see um once there is

00:06:39.040 a nominee who that nominee is will matter how they perform in the upcoming campaign will make the

00:06:45.840 difference between whether or not democrats can recapture those bricks they took uh they lost out

00:06:51.280 of the blue wall um in 2016 and whether or not the president is able to build on the momentum from

00:06:58.080 um a good economy and the other things that have happened uh and and turn it into a victory in november

00:07:04.840 you mentioned that who the democrat is is a relevant question here and i was wondering if

00:07:09.360 you could explain a bit more about that because right now we see the democrats very much eating

00:07:13.640 their own and and people that in the past would have been i think very formidable candidates uh the

00:07:18.220 more moderate among them are are now absolute jokes to it it seems like the democrat right no you're

00:07:24.500 absolutely right and and so if if they want to go if they want to go land on bernie sanders uh

00:07:30.440 thank you very much uh january 21 we'll be watching donald trump uh re-inaugurate inaugurated

00:07:36.900 as the end of the second term if you want to if you want to dance with elizabeth warren thank you very

00:07:41.700 much donald trump will be the next president united states if you want to if you decide to take the

00:07:47.780 risk and go with um someone like a bernie sanders uh or i mean excuse me a joe biden or

00:07:54.280 or michael bloomberg that's a different dynamic you know i've i've said for a while now that the

00:08:00.960 nominee of the party should be of the democrats should be if they want to be competitive it's

00:08:05.440 not a guaranteed win by no stretch but they if they want to be competitive against trump uh joe biden

00:08:10.680 is the one who referring back to those bricks can grab those bricks back that they lost uh and that's

00:08:16.720 michigan wisconsin and pennsylvania uh in 2016 uh because he has he has that innate sort of

00:08:24.480 uncle joe charisma people know him they're very familiar with him uh yes he can be a little bit

00:08:31.460 out there on on various things but in their mind he's stable and the thing that a lot of i've heard

00:08:37.840 voters say to me as i've traveled around the country is look i'm i'm not worried about arguing

00:08:43.440 about the future of the country or the future of the democratic party or the future of the republican

00:08:47.180 party i'm looking at someone who can take me out of this spin zone out of this crazy space that we're

00:08:52.800 in right now i i want a more settled presidency uh that i can rely on and i don't have to get up and

00:08:59.000 spend every day and every waking hour of that day talking about what the president's tweeted or what

00:09:04.540 the president say so people are looking for some degree of of normalcy if you want to use that word if

00:09:10.920 you know go with that but that's gonna it's gonna be a tall order for them and and i think the you

00:09:16.680 know they've got to figure out whether they want to have whether they want to be woke or if they want

00:09:22.300 to win because that's that's your only choice at this point if you want to win then you're going to

00:09:28.100 identify that candidate and i think they're easily identifiable who can appeal to the middle of the

00:09:33.280 country who can speak to those farmers and to those blue collar workers to those moms who are sitting

00:09:39.340 around kitchen tables trying to balance budgets with two weeks left in the in the in the month

00:09:44.140 um and and no money right so that's real life and democrats have not been very good in my estimation

00:09:53.280 at speaking to real life they speak to the ideal life you know where you know everybody's on the same

00:10:00.460 page on global warming and we've got free education and we're gonna we're gonna harangue the hell out of

00:10:05.820 billionaires and grab all their cash because they don't deserve it they never earned it anyway

00:10:09.720 you know it's like you hear on the on the debate stage when they look at mike bloomberg well there

00:10:14.260 were workers that worked for you i was like look dude yes because he employed them you get it he

00:10:19.380 employed them when obama had said i think it was 2008 you didn't build that that was seen as a gaffe

00:10:25.460 but now that standard democrat policy the fact that well you didn't do that no right right no exactly

00:10:30.700 right so there is a in my estimation a complete misreading of the electorate that the democrats

00:10:36.120 have been um just they're very expert at misreading the public they did it with hillary clinton um and uh

00:10:45.800 and and to some extent they did it uh with obama in his second term um and and that's what gave i think

00:10:53.840 the fertile ground for a donald trump candidacy in addition to the sheer incompetency of republicans

00:11:00.640 to actually put the finger on the pulse inside their own ranks to figure out exactly how much

00:11:06.380 uh on the heels of the tea party movement the base had shifted and why that base was still angry

00:11:13.200 um we had when i was national chairman had mitigated some of that we had a i think a very good working

00:11:19.660 relationship with tea party um leaders around the country we elected a lot of their candidates

00:11:25.540 constitutional uh conservatives to to the congress um and the state legislatures um some have retired

00:11:33.160 since then um a few have lost their seats um but their frustration uh grew anew um after 2012 and boom

00:11:42.460 uh donald trump came in and sort of picked at that wound uh and and launched a populist um

00:11:49.320 not resurgence but um sort of energy that um they were like i can ride with that and so now even

00:11:59.300 internally for the republicans looking either after 2020 or after 2024 how does that ground shift further

00:12:08.660 to to sort of continue the progress of electing uh national office uh holders etc i'm actually glad you

00:12:17.260 mentioned the populism because i wanted to talk to you about the popular vote shift that we're seeing

00:12:22.780 mostly from the left i mean certainly the democrats are saying they want to tear up the electoral

00:12:27.100 college there is another way and we're seeing this in virginia most recently in other states

00:12:32.200 uh to have popular vote that uses the electoral college and i find it interesting because the most of

00:12:38.880 the resistance certainly that knee-jerk resistance to electing a president by national popular vote

00:12:43.640 seems to come from republicans because of the old narrative that you know your states like

00:12:49.460 new hampshire uh iowa wyoming are going to be overlooked but i think the populism aspect is very

00:12:56.260 interesting because if populism is where conservatism is headed in some form short term yeah that that

00:13:02.860 you'd think that would actually invite or welcome a popular vote you do and you and and it should but i

00:13:11.640 think what what then clouds that um conversation is a number of things that um you know we've talked

00:13:19.620 about and that is um ballot security and whether or not you know there this this new approach deals

00:13:27.900 with the fraud that can and has taken place um in elections um in the past and not just in the past

00:13:34.860 but in the recent past um and also i think there is you know this general idea that well

00:13:41.620 are we going to be electing the opposition you know well the idea of a national popular vote is that

00:13:48.160 every citizen has access to the ballot their vote will count their vote will matter um and it will be a

00:13:54.900 part of making a difference you then move away from the situation that we find ourselves in where

00:14:00.340 a candidate wins the the popular vote but then loses in the electoral college because that is the way

00:14:05.420 the current structure works what we're looking at with national popular vote is sort of creating a

00:14:11.120 level playing field where all 50 states are competitive why because guess what candidates now have to

00:14:17.040 campaign in all 50 states because you're you're building towards a national total not just winning

00:14:24.100 wisconsin you want yeah you can win wisconsin that's fine or you can lose wisconsin as long as you're

00:14:30.780 building a number that is strong enough to be added to what you're doing in california here's the other

00:14:35.820 thing that i think is very important particularly for um those jurisdictions uh in in the southwest and

00:14:42.680 the west particularly republican jurisdictions uh jurisdictions um and that is when you're in that space

00:14:50.540 all of a sudden now when eight o'clock comes on the east coast they're not shut they're not calling

00:14:56.780 the election they can't call the election because there's still three hours of votes to be tabulated

00:15:03.980 and and and counted um in in the west in western part of the country so for those particularly republican

00:15:12.100 voters who are sitting on on the one-on-one trying to get home or try to get to the voting polls

00:15:19.280 and at eight o'clock on the east coast in the past they they're you know oh yes we call the race for

00:15:25.420 they turn around and go home i'm not going to vote now because hell they just call the race for

00:15:30.300 the democrat or they call the race for the republican uh and i'm done um but now um you want to you want

00:15:38.000 that vote to get to the polls because that number no matter what it is is going to add to a national

00:15:44.620 numbers so when you look at these elections there's a whole new dynamic and donald trump to his credit

00:15:50.580 has said and acknowledged that if there were a national popular vote in place in 16 or 20 or in

00:15:57.400 any campaign he's in he would campaign differently he would be campaigning in states that right now are

00:16:03.460 either flower states or the states that they ignore because there's no they're not a competitive

00:16:07.660 part of the battleground uh calculation well and that works both ways i mean states that aren't

00:16:13.200 battlegrounds because you know you're going to win them and states that aren't battlegrounds because

00:16:16.440 you know you're going to lose them so and so in the end you've got uh you know california new york

00:16:20.880 which are the biggest states in the union that get no uh real campaigning from either the democrats or

00:16:26.020 the republicans right right and and so to that point as an example if you know typically there are

00:16:32.660 let's i know that i'm just going to play with the numbers so go with me here if there are 3 million

00:16:36.840 californian uh californian uh independents and republicans who vote for the republican candidate

00:16:42.940 in a typical presidential election um and you now have the opportunity where you've got a million

00:16:49.960 people on their way to the polls at five o'clock to go and now all of a sudden you've got four million

00:16:55.220 now you've just added another million to your national total and if you if you and you couple that

00:17:01.480 with places like new york new jersey florida ohio and elsewhere all of a sudden now you can see

00:17:10.380 just where you have now created margins for you to win as opposed to well okay i got three million

00:17:17.700 votes in california whoopee um so it for me again it changes the way the game is played it is something

00:17:24.820 worth looking at and i think on the heels of the uh certainly in the in the democratic primary in

00:17:32.580 iowa and in the mess that is i mean first off let's just do away with the caucus system people can we

00:17:38.500 can we just be honest and say the idea that you're going to engage in the least democratic uh aspect of

00:17:45.720 voting where you tell people you have to be in a location between hour one and hour four and if

00:17:51.960 you're not there at hour four plus one minute you're not there we're going to lock you out you

00:17:56.460 can't vote that to me is undemocratic and no secret ballot it's really the only area where there's no

00:18:01.840 secrecy of who you're voting for you're literally standing in the corner right so talk about peer

00:18:07.000 pressure and your neighbors are oh you standing there for trump or you standing there for biden or

00:18:11.900 you standing there for you know so it's it's it's ridiculous go go to you know a a primary system

00:18:19.240 i think when i was national chairman i advocated for a national primary um pick a day in april pick

00:18:26.560 pick four weeks in april and each week you have four region you have a regional uh a primary over

00:18:33.600 those four weeks and you're done by the end of the month and you know who your nominee is going to be

00:18:38.260 um and so there are a lot of options and opportunities i think the democrats are certainly

00:18:43.260 going to look at that i think republicans should revisit that as we did when i was national chairman

00:18:48.240 and made some recommendations um on how our primary should unfold um in order to again the goal is to

00:18:54.880 get out as many of your voters as you can't possibly can to identify new voters um and get them to the

00:19:01.600 polls do you like a popular vote because you think it would favor conservatives or do you just think it

00:19:07.280 would dampen an electoral edge that right now the democrats have in your view under this under the

00:19:12.680 status quo oh i think it favors i think it favors conservatives i think it it it plays to the ideal

00:19:19.220 that the the nation as as a whole um is a center-right nation uh and i think that in a lot of

00:19:26.560 communities particularly when you're when you're looking at minority communities hispanics and african

00:19:31.020 americans the presumption is that's an automatic democratic vote i can tell you firsthand as a black

00:19:36.160 man that's not true i can tell you firsthand as the former uh county chairman state chairman in

00:19:41.480 maryland as well as national chairman that's not true um and we have i i believe very fervently

00:19:49.020 still within us the capacity to make the case to a cross-section of voters that uh they will find

00:19:56.020 appealing and this in this new format allows us the opportunity again to go into places that we have

00:20:03.780 just regressed from um because oh it's a blue state you know or we're not going to win that state

00:20:09.480 well now you're going to play and guess what guess what else is essentially important here

00:20:13.980 going back to that california example with those million that million extra voters who decided to

00:20:19.840 continue on to the polls as opposed to turning around and going home at five o'clock that helps your

00:20:25.520 down ballot it helps your down ballot candidates as well because now you've just added a fresh one

00:20:31.260 million voters for governor and for the u.s senate and for you know county commissioner and and so

00:20:38.380 forth so i think for for republicans we need to you know look at it very objectively it it makes

00:20:46.640 constitutional muster it it it meets all the constitutional requirements it's a compact amongst

00:20:53.680 the states no different than the lottery compacts that we're very familiar with certainly those in the

00:20:58.640 western part of our nation um who are in a water compacts um you know uh know what that's like

00:21:05.600 if you're sharing the colorado river um so it is it's it's a form of cooperation among the states

00:21:12.760 where they say look we're going to agree that this body of us that total 270 electoral votes

00:21:21.200 agree that whoever wins that national popular vote that that grand national total we agree to commit

00:21:29.380 our our electoral votes to that candidate because that why because that candidate will have competed

00:21:35.360 in all of our states that candidate will have competed in in most of our communities and i think

00:21:42.340 that more than anything else is how we begin to re-engage uh citizens in the most important uh franchise

00:21:49.180 they have michael steel thank you so much for chatting really appreciate it man i really enjoyed it thank

00:21:54.260 you you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

Juno News - February 28, 2020

Michael Steele on the 2020 election and the National Popular Vote

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