Speaker, come up to the question mic. Say your name, your university, and your nice, concise question. We are very fortunate today to have Michael Steele with us. He is a former chairman of the Republican National committee, and former lieutenant republican Lieutenant Governor of maryland. Mades elected in 2003 and history as the first africanamerican elected to statewide office in maryland. As chairman of the rnc, he was charged with revitalizing the Republican Party. A selfdescribed lincoln republican, under steeles leadership, the rnc broke fundraising records over 198 million. Republicans won 63 house seats. The biggest pickups 1938. Since biggest pickup 1938. His commitment to Party Building and grassroots organizations at the state and local level produced results. As the Lieutenant Governor of maryland, mr. Steeles priorities included improving the quality of the Public Education system, expanding Economic Development in the states, and fostering cooperation between government and faithbased organizations. Furthermore, mr. Steeles ability as a communicator and commentator has been showcased in his current role as an analyst for msnbc. He has appeared on face the nation, the colbert war, and the daily show. In addition to his work on television, mr. Steele can be heard on his Radio Program on sirius xm. To haveery fortunate Michael Steele here today and i am going to hand the podium over to our guest. [applause] michael thank you. Good morning. Happy new year. Audience good morning. Happy new year. Michael it is so good to see you up and alive. We have a simple way to start this. Donald trump is still president. Happy new year. [laughter] michael welcome to washington. This is it. Have a good day. [laughter] michael no really. I like that, he is out. There are so many places to begin the conversation. Be a do want it to conversation because it is a lot more fun that way. I would rather hear from you and what you are thinking, feeling, expecting, afraid of, happy about, rather than droning on about stuff you already know. Or the you know four think you know. But i want to frame the conversation a little bit. One of the things that is not getting picked up in the drama that is the administration and the consistencies the inconsistencies that exist right now within my own party, it is as it struggles with his internal reality of governing. Leadership. Leadership. You are all leaders. You just dont know it. , thisf this effort conversation, certainly this program is to light that flame within you. So that you see it. Others may see it. Others may even appreciate it. You may have someone say to you, you should run for office, or you should think about doing this with your voice, your ideas. But leadership is a lot more than that. Leadership requires the kind of sacrifice that, quite honestly, our leaders today are afraid to make. For me, as someone who has been an elected official, a party official, a grassroots guy, that is very, very disappointing. Part of the opportunity i see right now is to reignite that flame in all of us, so that we understand fundamentally what our Civic Responsibility is. As citizens. It is not to be cheap. It is not to be sheep. It is not to be sheep. It is, in our own way, to lead. How we do that day in and day out matters. How we do that does lead to results. Often times. I think before you even get to all of that, you have to understand fundamentally three words, and why those three words are the flame, the ignition, the energy, the fuel of your leadership. And they are we the people. We the people. See, what we have started to do in this country, and it is something i have watched over willyears, is that we elevate this young lady in our community and say, she is going to run for office. And we get behind her and rally her and she comes up with Great Campaign slogans and makes beautiful commercials. And she says all of these wonderful things that make no sense but everyone goes [applause] michael great. [laughter] michael and everyone gets in the groove of the campaign. She hasnt given a friggin thought to what she is going to do the day after she is sworn into office. We the people sit back on our fat behinds, go back to our lattes, and daily whatever we are doing, and turn it over to her and say, ok baby, do your thing, see you in two or four years. The responsibility of leadership is there for both candidate, now elected official, and for us, the citizen. We are the check. We are a government of checks and balances, are we not . Right . Executive checks the judiciary, judiciary checks everybody. Right . What excess think that we arent a check on the very people we wect, and the very people elect are also a check on us to make sure our expectations and our desires and our wants dont outstrip our ability to actually get things done . And that part of this for me is important as i have watched the thistwo years, and watched leadership style emerge. This realitytelevision, in the moment style. I was all about disruption when i was rnc chairman. I love disruption. I think anything that disrupts the status quo is good when done right. Meaning, it is not destructive. Because there is a big difference between being disruptive as a leader, and being destructive. Where you are tearing down, not building up, not creating the kind of synergy that is going to be important for a foundation to stand on, to do future things. One of the things i remember as rnc chairman was having a conversation about the Health Care Bill at the time. It is now actually known as obamacare. One of the things that we were trying to figure out was how do you make the case to the American People about what this means and how it impacts us . How it impacts them . Of course, there was the typical consultancy stuff, where they want you to go out there and say these things, but that is not actually write and we cannot go out there and scare people out of health care. Or in to health care. We have to inform them, but we have to make a principled argument. What i realized was there was this title even in that situation, where you felt like you had some control over the outcome, where you kind of lose your grip. Where the other forces say, dont do the sensible right even though this is a partisan position, dont do the thing that will actually create a landscape where there is a conversation. But rather, throw the firebombs. It is about raising the money. Keeping the grassroots engaged and active. If i have got to scare people, make them angry and pissed off, if i have got to tickle their funnybone to get them engaged what does that say about us . What does that say about you . I tell people all the time as people sit and moan and groan and complain about this administration and the president s, i say, baby, he is a reflection of you. He reflects you. Right . Dont give me, he lost the popular vote. That is not how we were elected how we elect the president. That does not change the circumstance. I wish i could blame someone else for my lack of hair, but baby, this is who i am. [laughter] michael i cannot blame anyone else. Understanding the situation as it is helps you understand and define your leadership and how you step into the moment. When i was a young man i have i still a young man no, i am am not. I spent a number of years in a monastery studying for the priesthood. So it was a very powerful, exciting, formative period of my life. Went in right out of college. And i learned a lot because when i stepped into that environment, i was immediately thrust into a world in which three things became very, very important, an important focus for me. Poverty, chastity, and obedience. Because those were three things i promised in this new life. And what i discovered in that journey from then to now is how those three things worked and how those three things actually shape my leadership and define my leadership because they are not what you think they are. They really arent. Lets start with a fun one, chastity. All right . Everyone thinks chastity is about sex. No, it is not really. The biggest sex organ is what, not between your legs, it is right here. It is what it is. Some folks would say, i dont know about that. But no, trust me. [laughter] michael it really is right here. And chastity is how you show your love. For someone. It is how you define your relationship with someone. Certainly in a religious setting, the obligation, the commitment that you make when you lead a chaste life is not to be unencumbered by a oneonone relationship with someone, certainly a physical relationship with someone, but it is how you define love for others. How you are chaste for everyone. Loving each person equally, showing respect, showing a connection for them. I can then help them and be more accepting of that person. Whether they love me back or whatever, that is not what it is about. All right . Obedience. Obedience is, again, not about bad boy, good boy. Obedience is about how you listen. How you listen to someone, particularly when you dont want to listen to that person. When you have had it up to here and the day is like, really, i just dont think about a priest and a confessional, how obedient you have to be in that moment hour after hour listening and loving. Being chaste in that moment for that person and being obedient to that person i listening to them and trying to understand and appreciate their concern, their issues, their problems. And then there is poverty, and poverty is not about the absence of having a nice car, having money in the bank. It is not about that. Poverty was about being poor in spirit, dying to self. Setting yourself lower than the people you serve. Being a servant leader. And so as i moved from that period of my life into more public life, i brought those values with me, and they had they have been part of the architecture of my leadership ever since, as Lieutenant Governor, as rnc chairman. How i find ways to listen to people, to be obedient, how i find ways to love them when i want to smack them upside the head, to be chaste in that moment, if you will, and how to be poor. Elevate someone else even though i am the chairman, i am the Lieutenant Governor. I am not the most important person in the room. The most important person is that individual who is seeking help, that individual who requires assistance, that individual who has a problem, that individual who just wants to say, hey, i like what you are doing. I think a lot of our leaders have lost that aspect, those aspects of what it means to be a servant leader. The first thing i just sort of want to drop with you is that. I look out in this room, and i see the future of our country. Not 30 years from now, folks. Get that crap out of your head. I am talking about what you will do when you leave here today, when you go back to your universities and the institutions that you are affiliated with, your communities. How would you assert those three values, if you will . In the relationship you have with the people you encounter . And if you go on and decide to do something next year like run for office, or you start managing your own company or whatever happens in your life, how do you then elevate those principles and show them as a sign of contradiction in the world in which you live . Show your capacity to listen, and in that listening, hear and understand and love someone as you find them, not as you want them to be. And then be willing to do what is necessary to help them improve the state of their life, the condition they are in, but just listen. Because even in that simple moment it solves many problems. I remember once i gave a speech to a group of young adults. These were men and women in their late 20s to late 30s. They were in this particular program where they were getting their ged. They had a tough walk, and they were trying to get themselves back together, so one of the first steps was to get a high school diploma, get the ged done, then we can transition to other things. I gave this talk, and at the end of it, this young woman was sitting there, and she was very upset. Started crying. I was thinking to myself, lord, what did i say . Got this woman crying, the government is going to call me. I went up to her and i asked her what was wrong. She shared with me the fact that she has a little boy, she has a job, and she is doing this program. The problem is when she does this program, when she comes for this class and seminars, she is away from work. When she is away from work, her boss refuses to pay her her salary. So her paycheck is coming up short, and because her paycheck is coming up short, she is behind on her rent. And because she is behind on her rent, her landlord just sent her a notice of eviction. So she is trying to figure out how she is going to get herself together, how she is going to care for her child, and how she is going to try to continue to improve the quality of her life through this program when she is on the street. Because at the end of the week, she has to leave her apartment. That is a poverty, chastity, and obedient moment if ever there was one. And so what i did was i got on the phone to our secretary of housing and i said to him, i said, look, please tell me in this big thing called government, we have a program for this problem. That there is a way in which we can put resources to work that can help. Long story short was we found a program for her in which it supplemented her income because her employer was not paying her her full wages. She graduated the program, she stayed in her apartment, she got a job. She and her kid were going to be ok. That comes from listening, loving, and doing. And as leaders, that is all you are asked to do. You have to figure out how to do it, and you are going to make mistakes in doing it. So i know i could have come up here and sort of waxed poetic, and we will get into q and a and get into all the crazy that is this town, but i just felt that it is important that as we come into this new year, and as you are finding ways to embark on your own individual journeys, whatever your aspirations are, know that you are part of this ideal called we the people, and that you have a responsibility that goes with that. It is not just voting. It is not just, you know, reading the newspaper and being up on the news. It is about how you civically engage as well. It is how you become part of many solutions, solving as many problems as you can. And you may never hold elective office, all right . You may never run a business. You know, you may never do anything that has you out front in the public eye, but always know that you are still a leader, that there are people who watch you and learn from your example, that there are people who will listen to you and learn from what you say. And that is an awesome, awesome thing, and is an awesome responsibility, and is one that i think a lot of us as citizens have forgotten. We have grown lazy. We have grown bored with ourselves. That is why donald trump is so damn entertaining, to be honest. He shaped this very he shaped his viewing audience into a voting audience. We are in a reality tv presidency where all those qualities are not necessarily important anymore. All right . We dont have to listen because it is fake news, all right . We dont have to do because it is partisan. This is my tribe, that is your tribe. We dont mix. All right . I dont have to care because i dont like you. You dont like me. And i dont think that is what our Founding Fathers and mothers as you know, the women were, ok, george, get up. [laughter] michael you have got to go to philly, get up. [laughter] michael so that is not what they wanted. And it is not what i expect of your generation or any generation. So, that i think to me is the way to start our conversation. I am going to leave that seed with you, and i will be happy now to kind of throw it open, and we can go wherever you want to go in the q and a, because trust me, there is a lot to cover. But i just want you to think about that as you go from here. Yes . My name is alexandra polaski, and i go to Suffolk University in boston. Mr. Steele six feet of snow your way. I know. But i think i can speak for all of us by saying we thank you and appreciate you for your time today. Mr. Steele sure. I wanted to talk about the gop tax bill. You recently came out and said that you were kind of shocked by the fact that the plan is kind of setting us and our generation up for quite a bit of debt, additional debt, and i was wondering, could you expand upon that . Can you add any other critiques of the gop plan, and additionally, kind of also how some of the gop leaders handled this situation in terms of listening to their constituents, but then also kind of putting party over common good . Mr. Steele sure, lets start with that. That is the first fundamental flaw in the process. This was not public, it is not something that engaged the American People, as we saw eight years ago with obamacare, same thing. Washington does not work when the republican tribe and the democratic tribe decide to play in their own camps. And we have too many examples of that. And we also have examples of the opposite, when you stop and look at the 1986 tax bill with Ronald Reagan and tip oneill at the respective helms. That was an 18 month process that ended with a bipartisan support and votes. And everybody, everybody got a little win, everybody got a little bit of pain. I remember being in a particular industry at the time. I was doing some work in finance area, and they wiped out, completely wiped out what i did. Ok, fine, Something Else to do. So everybody had a little pain, everybody had a little gain. The problem that i have with this bill is there are a couple things that i found to be disconcerting. The first and or most was how disingenuous we were about the impact and the cost. Remember, i had a hand in electing 63 members who came to congress on the idea that they would not grow the size of government, they would not spend one dollar that we could not afford, and they would not increase the national debt. The debt had grown to close to 10 trillion under george bush, which was a real problem for fiscal conservatives, and led to some of the big shellacking we saw in 2006 and 2008 where the Republican Base said, enough. Right . And then of course it doubled under barack obama. By the time we go to 2010, these individuals said, enough, again reflecting what they had heard from their constituents back at home, that they were concerned about the debt being placed on future generations. Look, i will just be straight up. The 1. 5 trillion that they just created, that is not my problem. Sorry, it aint, it is not my problem. It is your problem. It is your kids problem. A child born today owes the federal government over 55,000. So, if you dont think that is a problem, cool. We will go on our merry way and see where things end up, but all of a sudden because you have a republican in the white house and you have republicans in charge of the senate and house, to throw away a fundamental principle that we had been beating up everybody over for the last 10 plus years, to me was holy disingenuous. Disingenuous. I had a problem with this created that much debt without how are you going to pay for this . How do you make sure that bill is covered . The second part of it was, i had a real problem with the weight of the bill. Permanent tax cuts for corporations look, i am a corporate guy, i love it, great, wonderful, but your tax cut is not permanent. It is not. And in fact you will have a battle by the time you get to 2024, 2025 over whether or not they make those tax cuts permanent. A future congress and president will have to have that conversation. Why . And so, to sell this has something that it was not was problematic, and i think those two pieces for me were of such a magnitude that i found it very hard to go out and say yeah, this is a great bill. There are features of the bill i like, but there is there are features i dont like. State and local tax is going away. Again, lets call it what it was. Can we just be honest and say this is to screw blue state democrats. That is all it was. I mean, ok. If we cant be honest about this stuff right in front of us, you know, i just dont understand why everyone is, it was not that at all. This was good Public Policy. Well, ok, fine. Tell that to people in california or new york, florida, and elsewhere. So, those aspects of the bill to me were really problematic. Thank you so much. My name is rick vales. I am from Miamidade College in southwest florida. What future to social conservatives have in the Republican Party, not just in the age of trump that in the aftermath of roy moore losing the alabama special election . Mr. Steele the future is going to be wherever they want it to be. I consider myself a social conservative. I will not beat you up about it. There are aspects of Public Policy where we should be mindful of a certain principle and ideas, and im willing to have that debate and fight over those issues. That is what you do. That is what any republic, and the democracy, any Strong Political environment would welcome, but what i saw in this last election with respect to particularly evangelical voters was disheartening beyond words. I am sorry, i am a straight up kind of guy. You dont preach to me for 30 years telling me how to live my life, who to love, what to do, what not to do, where to live, what kind of person i should be and then in this election cycle and certainly in the case of roy moore say that is my guy . Oh, hell no. [laughter] mr. Steele that is not how this works. And to me, all credibility, particularly in the case of roy moore, all credibility was lost, and that is going to be something that is going to take some time in my view to rebuild because please, i do not come up to my face preaching. Do not. Because that to me was just such an insult to back someone with the kind of credible evidence of his personal behavior and say that i have to stand with this guy, or we have to support him because of some damn vote in the senate . Are you kidding me . Principles nowr have become, whether or not we have a vote in the senate . So we throw all of that out . That makes no sense to me, and i think it is going to come back thiste republicans hard year. I think women in this country looked at that and went ok. Thank you. We know. Got you, got two. We have got you covered in november. We will show you. If you dont believe me, just look at virginia. 13 out of 16 seats were won were won by women. What people do not appreciate, what has happened in the course of the last year, folks looked at the womens march on washington the weekend after the inauguration and thought, it is a oneoff. A lot of people just upset, cannot accept the election. Ok. So what i did was i just stayed in touch with folks. I listened to what they were saying and i watched. And what i saw was organization, instruction, identification, support for women to run. And i applaud that. I want to see more women running stuff. Because the men really have shown they cant seem to get it right at this point. [laughter] mr. Steele hello, am i off here or what . I think that that is it is a balance in the system that we need. I would particularly like to see more republican women run. Because the way our narrative of our Party Changes when white men stop being the ones defining who we are, to be honest. And i think that that is, that balance when i look at Republican Leadership and see a woman standing there knowing all the other women who could potentially serve, that is a problem. When i look around the country and see how we are out promoting and supporting people of color, women, etc. For various office i mean, when i was in office be focused deliberately on that. Hispanic elected governors, we the members elected to the house, state legislatures, black judges in texas. When your mind is there an focus, it can happen. All the stuff on social conservatives and how it plays out, doesnt matter to me at this point. They tour the card up. They have been going through a massive period of upheaval since the last election. Do you think the Republican Party has lost its position . I dont think it has, but it hasnt helped itself. There have been real problems there could be real problems going into campaign is here. The other thing to understand about some of the dynamics with the base of the party and leadership, is why have republican leaders, why havent republican leaders, mccain and others not mccain but mcconnell and others, sort of really put their foot down with the president . They go back to their districts and see the president at 60 plus. I do the math. The guy is popular in your backyard, not going to slam him. That is unfortunate but that is the way politics works. You see, until you see a drop off for the president in state, and you saw that in alabama. Why alabama worked, little notice in alabama race, was a change in the numbers. This makes my point. President obama president trump, for a significant portion of the year, was 63 plus approval in the state of alabama. On the day of the election, 48 . So what that said to me was, that drop off, all right, the 15 point drop off, was a sign of something. We are talking alabama. So we are not talking, you know, something that is weighted more towards democrats are weighted more towards independents. No, this is a conservative state, and conservatives dominate in the state. And so that told me there was a problem, leakage, seepage. Where was that seepage . Among republican women. So i think when the party is kind of looking at that, and you are seeing trendlines, that is where you will see a change in behavior. It should not be that way, because if you are a principled individual, going back to how we started our conversation, it should not matter what the poll numbers say, whether the president is popular in your district or state or not. What should matter is how you assert your leadership and how do you inject your voice into that conversation about x, y, z, and that will be a real struggle for republicans going forward. For one eye they are watching the numbers, the other i eye you will see that play out in crazy ways towards november. I am just with the harvard extension. Special counsel what do you mr. Steele special counsel. Yes, sir. What do you think about the attempt to get trump fired, and if we get a report, what do you think, and the report implicates him in criminal activity, what do you think the current gop congress, republican congress, will respond with . Mr. Steele it is a little bit complicated. In the sense that we dont really know what mueller knows where he is really going. I have said from the beginning that this was never about collusion. I dont even know what collusion is. I dont know what it looks like, how you do it, and that is the problem. Not illegal. But other things are, and that was the moment that muellers office said, we want to take a look at financial records, the thing about a good criminal enterprise is not the crime. It is how they pay for it. It is the money. It is always the money. That is the trail he seems to be on now. Yesterday certainly, mr. Bannon gave us a lot more fodder for that particular argument. I think in terms of what mueller does, if mueller comes out and says, i would not be surprised if Robert Mueller does not indict the president or find any criminal wrongdoing, i would not be surprised at all. But if he does, what it will do for the congress is put it back on its heels because then they have to make a very harsh political calculation. Do they do like former u. S. Senator baker and go down to the white house and say, mr. President , or do they jump on the trump fake news narrative . Sort of play it off as fake news and it is not really real. Harder to do given that mueller, despite what you may see and hear and read in the newspapers, is very wellrespected and regarded in this town. Trust me. And a lot of the bs by republicans, they should be ashamed of themselves because these are the same people the were singing his praises and lauding this man for his character, his qualities, his capabilities a few years ago. So you want to dismiss the fake news, any republican who slams Robert Mueller, just know theyre lying. All right, because, trust me, that is not how they really feel about him. That is not how they have ever felt about him. Donald trump certainly does not change that for them. The politics, again, getting back to the poison that is coming from our politics, will take that very, very hard to navigate once the decision is made, whenever it comes out. Look, you have already have some folks pleading guilty. Come on, you have four people i give up, yeah, we did it, sorry, guilty. Some say, well, theres nothing here, no legal i do not understand why we are having this, it is crazy. It is not believable. So, something will come. What it is we do not know yet. I applaud mr. Mueller and his team for keeping this so close to the vest, as they have. I think when it is all said and done, republicans are going to find themselves in a very tight spot, regardless of whether or not the president is formally brought into this in a legal way. Because of the reputation and work of his team, it does matter. There is the fbi agent who was musing about the president he gets to do that, sorry, nothing wrong there. No prejudice there because all they are doing our following facts, and they have got to take that before a judge who will then see if there is any bias in that. He is looking at the evidence, too, and you will have to justify that to get the indictment and get the investigation to go down the road that, in fact, that it has, which tells me that that was not part of any of that. Mueller did the right thing by getting him out of there, because he knew the politics and knew how it would play politically. Yes, maam . My name is rebecca reeves, a senior in King State College in new hampshire. I am in a group of student democrats at how do you think the Republican Party can engage millennials, especially young women . What will impact millennials the most . Mr. Steele very good question. Well, lets start with engaging millennials. The one thing i love about millennial, millennials generally, is just the intuitive nature that you have about things. The instincts you have about problem solving. My way of describing it is millennials look at a problem and ask one question is is there an app for that . [laughter] if there is not, they create one. They create went to feed the poor and hungry. They create went to deal with issues within the community. And i think that that is something that is a very powerful tool, resource, for our community at large and going into the future, to have that kind of, sort of, intuitive look at problem solving, which is not the environment which i came out of. If there was a problem, you never even got to asking about an app because you are too busy creating other problems to solve that problem. [laughter] so it is a very different approach. That being said, i think what i find opportunistic is the fact that in many instances, millennials tend to be a little bit more apolitical. In other words, the parties do not mean as much to your generation as they did to the generation before or the generation before that or certainly my generation. And that will redefine how we engage politically, when the r and the d matters less, as i think it should, but i have always believed that, even as a partisan. The less emphasis we place on the party and the more we place on philosophical ideals and policy, that is how i think we can win the day, make the case and win the day. For example, looking at things, that entrepreneurial spirit that defines your generation, we are all about that, all about creating that space in which entrepreneurs flourish and thrive. It is not just about tax policy, but it is also about how that is integrated with health care, how it is integrated with wages, and i think we can lead on these things, the environment. I remind my party a lot about the fact that we walk away from our history on some very basic things that i know are very important to millennials. Civil rights, for example. We were in the forefront of that for many, many generations. We walked away from that. Environmental policy again, on the forefront of that for many generations, walking away from it. We forget. The republican present a republican president created the epa. We treat the epa today like it is a cancer on the political system. We do the same with Voting Rights. We were champions of Voting Rights, and we cannot even get the damn Voting Rights bill out of the tour and voted on for renewal. The last time it was done was under a republican president , george bush, and it was done, yeah, moving on, protecting the rights of citizens and their ability to vote. So those things metal to millennials in a way that we have not seen and to a degree we have not seen in other generations. I think being able to speak to that in an honest and authentic way will be important. Unfortunately, i do not think we can do that right now, to be honest. I think there is a possibility of losing that vote early enough right now, sort of grow it. Because as you get older and more established in your political thinking and ways, i want to be part of that. I want the party to be part of that and be competitive with the democrats. I do not want to cede that to democrats, that argument or that ground. I do not have to be less conservative a be a rhino or any of that other crazy bs. I just need to be true, authentic, an honest, and layout that this is how we seek america growing and being prosperous. We see a role so strongly that we are comfortable enough to give it to you and be there to help you do that. That is not the messaging i hear right now. It is to say, hey, goes up with an republican guy, but then they look and say, well, wasnt he the same guy who supported the pedophile, and it becomes a very hard argument. Ok, this will be real quick. We can do this. I do not have an app for it, but we can do it. Good morning. I wanted to know if you see a strategy to operationalize leadership against populism, and can we use that to return to that kind of conservatism . Mr. Steele i have not given up on that train. That is a good way to look at it. Look, i do not have a problem with populism. I have a concern about nationalism. I have a concern about the distortion of certain values and principles that i think are foundational. And that is why i think certainly theres are the ones that can reanchor that in a real sense. I like the idea of competing against this emergent philosophy, if you will. The canonization of american politics, which we now see as even at odds with the very person they promoted and supported. So that tells you something about where that wants to go. I think we need to be prepared for that fight. So i am asking all of you to stand your ground. You either want to fight for an america that Still Believes in with a lady in new york harbor stands for. You want to fight for an america that Still Believes that as citizens, we are all equal and have an equal say and access to opportunity. That my neighbor is not my enemy, that the press is not there lying to me every time they write, say, or show me something. If you want to fight for that, then ok, lets get engaged. If you do not, then rollover because you are about to get it to get it appeared trust me, it will not be fun. I am from Hofstra University in new york. I have a question on civic engagement. Do you think there is a chance people will want to get a big what we the people, when many individuals believe that their voice does not have a say . Mr. Steele i think they do. I think they cant. I have that hope because i am looking at a roomful of people that i have hope in, to be honest. It is literally that, we the people, and if one of us false down, we have to eager them we have to help them figure out to get up and keep walking. Those are the crossroads we are at. That is really where we are here do you either have some freak and compassion about someone or something, and then you act on that compassion or you are just going to be a stone. Youre just going to move on and let it go, and i hope you do not do that. I really do. Because this wonderful wacky experiment we call america still has meaning, still has value. Yes, its past and history is ugly and tortured, painful, this, that, but it is also one of the most fundamentally important things that we have to offer the rest of the world. And they want us to offer it. I mean, i talked to diplomats and leaders from around the globe. These folks still look to us, and they still look to future generations of americans to help the world, and the world wants to be a part of helping us, too. So i think there is a lot there just a fight for, and i hope all of you will find a way, in the words of thurgood marshall, we all, you know, bend down and pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Right . We all do that. But every once in a while, we need some want to help us. And that is where you come in. Thank you all very much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] mr. Steele thank you. Have a very good year. Be disruptive, not destructive. All right, thanks. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspans washington journal, live every day, with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up friday morning, we talk about the prospects for entitlement reform, which includes medicare, medicaid, welfare programs. The guest will join us. Then, a roundtable a roundtable on entitlement reform to guests. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal, live