Former Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Michael Steele said on Saturday morning that he is “fed up” with Republicans‘ claims about the 2020 election being stolen from Donald Trump.
In the wake of his 2020 election loss, Trump, who is now the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, repeatedly claimed that Joe Biden‘s election victory was fraudulent, despite there being no evidence to support such claims. During his presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, last month, Trump said, “I don’t acknowledge” losing the 2020 election.
The former president said while in Columbia County, Georgia, to survey the damage left by Hurricane Helene on Friday, “I only can hope that [November’s election is] going to be free and fair, and I think in this state it will be and I hope in every state it will be and I think we’re going to do very well but right now we’re focused on this, we’re not focused on the election.”
Trump faces federal charges and state charges in Georgia, where Biden won by a razor-thin margin, for his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claims the cases against him are politically motivated.
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The clip of Trump’s statement in Georgia was played on MSNBC‘s The Weekend Saturday morning. In reaction to the clip, Steele, who is a co-host on the program and is a vocal Trump critic, told his colleagues and lawyer George Conway, who was a guest on the show, “Here’s the thing I think for everybody out there to wrap your silly little head around—is the fact that fair and free elections, that’s never been a question for us because we have redundancies in our system that are a check to make sure that it is a fair and free election.”
“But riddle me this, Republicans,” Steele, who served as RNC chair from 2009 to 2011, continued. “How do you corrupt the top of the ticket without corrupting the rest of the ballot? Because that means a lot of your behinds shouldn’t be in Congress right now and shouldn’t be in the Senate because of that unfair, corrupt, rigged election.”
There were 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021. On that day, Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., to stop Congress from certifying the election results. Before the riot erupted, some GOP lawmakers objected to Arizona’s election results and after the riot, some objected to Pennslyvania’s results. In total, 139 representatives and eight senators voted to sustain one or both objections.
Some notable names of the representatives who objected include Mike Johnson of Louisiana who later became House speaker, Steve Scalise of Louisiana who later became House majority leader and Elise Stefanik of New York who later became chair of the House Republican Conference. The senators who objected were Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Rick Scott of Florida, Roger Marshall of Kansas, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Ted Cruz of Texas and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming.
Steele asked Conway, also a fierce critic of Trump who created the Anti-Psychopath PAC against the former president, “How can I fraudulently elect Joe Biden, but not fraudulently elect all the Republicans on that same ballot?”
Conway joked, “It’s magic.”
“How the hell does that happen America? Tell me that! Bring that stupid into clarity for me ’cause I don’t see it,” Steele said. “Please stop buying [Trump’s] crap!”
The Weekend co-host Symone Sanders-Townsend then said Steele “is fed up,” to which the former RNC chair replied, “I am fed up with it.”
Newsweek reached out to Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, via email for comment Saturday afternoon.
Meanwhile, when asked during his first White House press briefing as president on Friday if he’s confident November’s election will be free, fair and peaceful, Biden said he is “confident it will be free and fair,” but said “I don’t know whether it will be peaceful. The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous.”