Michael Steele

Thank you both.

I'm just going to put the question to both of you.

Speak to me about this moment, because I hope, at least I tried to capture at the end there, what it meant for me

as a Black man, to see the image of the first Black president and the first lady displayed that way and how it brought back so much that many of us have already gone through.

So, Eddie, I'll start with you, and then Janae, please share your thoughts as well.

That that nails it for me, Janae, because we've seen the president target African-Americans before.

And we know profoundly what that has sounded like and look like without any repercussions.

So what what kind of reaction did you think he hoped for from this post?

And that is such an excellent point.

And then I keyed in on two words, Eddie, that Janae used, particular venom, a particular venom that he reserves for black female journalists, a particular venom that he reserved for the Central Park Five, a particular venom he reserved for a number of African-Americans who got in his way.

And in the end,

He thought that, well, he could just assuage the black community by, you know, offering up some gold LeMay sneakers because, after all, we value that more than our own dignity.

Which led me to this point in listening to the Republicans come out today in response to this.

My estimation in listening to a lot of it, this was a big time to cover their own ass.

because they're in a heated political contest in their district as much as they don't want to admit it.

Yeah, they may not have a whole lot of black folks in their districts, but they do have a whole lot of white folks who are bothered by what they heard as we played with the three-time voter of Donald Trump coming in.

What's your make and take away from this?

I mean, you know, the party piece is that's shot and gone.

But when you look at now how we should contextualize when we hear these folks come out and basically do the thoughts and prayers in this instance, how should we be reading this going forward?

Because at the end of the day, actions mean a lot.