August 24, 2025

Michael Steele went from RNC Chair — at a time when the Republican Party looked very different — to MSNBC analyst. I sat down with him to talk about his journey leading a major political party and the federal takeover in Washington, D.C.

I hope you enjoy reading it.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marc: Michael Steele, welcome to Defending Democracy.

Michael Steele: Hey man, I've been looking forward to this conversation.

Marc: You and me both. I feel like you and I got a lot of ground to cover here but I want to start with your backstory because you have a really interesting one. You wind up becoming the lieutenant governor of Maryland as a Republican. You wind up becoming the RNC chair. And now you are a host on MSNBC. You're covering a lot of ground.

Michael Steele: Dude, sometimes I wonder how the hell I got here, but here I am. I was born at Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George's County, Maryland, raised in Washington, D.C. That's my home. I love D.C. So you can imagine how I feel about what's happening to the city right now with Trump. I grew up at a very transitional time in the country and my politics was formed by my environment. And oddly enough, I emerged a Republican out of all of that, which shocked the hell out of my family, as you could probably imagine. That journey for me has been one of always discovering and pushing myself and learning. And that's why a guy like you, and I've run into many folks with your intellect and your sense of appreciation of history. 

Those things have always been informative for me and it sort of created this journey through my time as an Augustinian seminarian.You imagine I was very proud when Pope Leo was elected as the first Augustinian Pope. I was in the Augustinian order at Villanova and spent a few years there and then wound up coming back home, getting married, settling into law and not really looking at doing anything in politics. And next thing I know, I'm a county chairman in Prince George's County, state chairman, and then a lieutenant governor. And I'm like, what the hell happened? I can play the partisan game. I can be a hard-charging Republican when I need to be. But I learned a lot about public service. And I think a lot of that's oriented in my time in the seminary. What drew me into that life was this idea of service. When I left, my question was, how do I continue to...