Michael Steele on How Biden Should Respond to Trump and to Kenosha

Michael Steele is the former lieutenant governor of Maryland who went on to become chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2009 to 2011. He’s a regular mainstay on MSNBC these days, and is a possible candidate for governor in the future in Maryland. 

I met Mike in 2006 when I covered the Maryland legislature, and we’ve stayed in touch since. We were ostensibly going to talk about the Republican convention, but we ended up spending most of our time talking about Joe Biden’s response to President Trump’s attacks on him, and to the protests and unrest in Kenosha Wisconsin in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake. 

Our conversation took place on Thursday, and shortly after we finished speaking, Biden put out a lengthy statement responding to attacks on him by Vice President Pence during a speech on Wednesday night. Pence and Trump and the Republicans are using support of Democrats for racial justice to accuse them of condoning violence. And even though Biden has condemned violence repeatedly and did so again Thursday, there has been a hesitation among Democrats in general to call out violence. 

"Democratic leaders, from the nearly invisible mayor of Kenosha up to those on the presidential ticket, are reluctant to tarnish a just cause, amplify Republican attacks, or draw the wrath of their own progressive base,” George Packer wrote in a piece for the Atlantic titled, “This is how Biden loses.” Packer said that Biden needs to go to Wisconsin in person and meet with the Blake family. 

“On the burned-out streets, without a script, from the heart, Biden should speak to the city and the country. He should speak for justice and for safety, for reform and against riots, for the crying need to bring the country together. If he says these things half as well as Julia Jackson did, we might not have to live with four more years of Trump,” Packer wrote, referring to the eloquent please for justice and peace from Blake’s mother. 

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