Former GOP chief knocks his party for focusing on Jan. 6 instead of issues Americans actually care about
The House Republicans brought back the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol this week after handing over 40,000 hours of surveillance video exclusively to Fox personality Tucker Carlson while claiming transparency. It's something that Republicans are questioning, noting it brings up things that make the GOP look bad.
Former Republican Party chairman, Michael Steele, argued that it draws attention to the GOP for issues that Americans don't actually care about. After running for office on issues like the economy, inflation and crime, Republicans haven't done anything to deal with those issues. Although, one Congressman bragged he did a 60-second speech on the House floor about the economy.
Meanwhile, Republican senators aren't playing, in fact, some are outright furious with Carlson for trying to pretend the Jan. 6 attack was nothing.
"I think you'll have moments where the Senate Republicans will come to the mic and say a discordant word or two that's in opposition to what you're hearing coming out of the House," said Steele. "But you're not going to have this unified front on matters of importance, things that matter like this. McCarthy doubles down, triples down on his decision saying, 'Yeah, I gave it to everyone.' Well, no, you didn't. You didn't give it to everyone. You gave it to one person and one network that's now got a whole week to do the thing that we all know he's going to do, and that is to try to rewrite the story."
He said that it's nice for Senate Republicans to call out the lies and call it dangerous, "but until there is a collective effort throughout the party to push back on this and until McCarthy is standing there — 'You know what? That was a mistake. I shouldn't have done that.' You're just going to see more of the same in a different form."
Meanwhile, he explained, there's no governing going on.
"You have the seeds of anarchy," said Steele "You have the seeds of disruption. Remember, Trumpism, now MAGAism, told us from the very beginning what the playbook was going to be, to deconstruct the administrative state. What did we think that meant? What did we think that would look like? And then four years later, you know, to have 7 million more Americans buy into that narrative, and then just two years later when that power was taken away from the party in '20, to give it back to them in '22. How do you think this story ends when you're giving power to people who are telling you, 'we're going to deconstruct the very thing you believe in, the very foundation of our governing system?'"
He noted that all of that is evidenced by their embrace of Vladimir Putin and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro or Hungary's Viktor Orbán.
"There are more conversations not just here with you, Katy, but across networks, regardless of ideological bent, they are not talking about public policy and immigration and education," said Steele. "We're talking about this, and this is the next 18 months of our life, and we'll have a chance to put an end or begin to put an end to it in November."
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