Former Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Michael Steele predicted on Saturday a bleak outlook for the GOP as he explained his lack of optimism for the current leadership in the party.
During a TV interview on MSNBC's Symone with host Symone Sanders, Steele said that Republicans like Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois are "fighting to hold the ground that we have the best we can" within the party so that there is something to build off of in the future.
Steele criticized the GOP, pointing out that the current leadership is "feckless and committed with [former President Donald] Trump and with Trump himself."
Meanwhile on Wednesday, the former RNC chairman said on MSNBC's The ReidOut that it will not be easy for the GOP to move on from Trump even if it is eager to do so as it tries to focus on other potential Republican candidates for 2024 such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
.@MichaelSteele explains his lack of hope for this generation of the Republican Party.
— SYMONE (@symonemsnbc) December 3, 2022
“We’re fighting to hold the ground that we have the best we can...but with this leadership that’s feckless and committed to Trump and with Trump himself [laughs].” pic.twitter.com/8omE5tY2ze
"They want all of us at this point to fixate on, 'We're past Trump, we're no longer doing Trump,'" Steele said. "'Oh, Trump was bad. Oh, this bright, shiny object down in Florida. Let's focus on that in Governor DeSantis.'"
Trump's popularity has been declining in his own party, especially after the poor GOP performance in this year's midterm elections that saw Democrats maintain their majority in the Senate. Republicans, meanwhile, retook the House of Representatives in a narrow victory.
Most of Trump's endorsed candidates lost in the midterms last month, including Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in Arizona.
The former president has also been under the spotlight as he is being investigated for keeping highly classified White House documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, which were retrieved by FBI agents in August after an approval from Attorney General Merrick Garland. However, Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said that any classified documents that he took had been declassified.
The House select committee in charge of investigating the Capitol riot is also trying to find out whether or not Trump had a role in the events related to January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the Capitol building in an alleged effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
The future of the GOP now depends on who will be ahead in the rivalry between Trump and DeSantis for the party's nomination for president in 2024.
Still touting his Make America Great Again agenda during his rallies in different parts of the country, Trump officially announced in November at Mar-a-Lago that he was running again for the presidency.
Meanwhile, DeSantis has not officially announced his intentions to run, but has emerged as a top potential candidate. His reelection victory in his home state, that came after expressing his conservative values through his campaigns and battling against "woke" ideology, made him an appealing choice for the GOP. However, it is still hard to determine who would take the lead.
"It's hard to imagine the elections going much better for Ron DeSantis, or much worse for Trump," Sean Freeder, an assistant professor of political science at the University of North Florida, previously told Newsweek.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's media office for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Fatma Khaled is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. politics, world ... Read more
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