>>>
was the
tea party
the big winner out of the debt ceiling debate. are republicans going to get hammered when they go home for tying congress's hand in dealing with the economy.
michael steele
is the former
chairman of the republican national committee
and joins me now.
>>
great to see you in person. we're usually long distance.
>>
i know.
>>
michael, this has been a mess. and voters are angry at everybody. we're talking about the the poll when asked about congress people, people say repulsive, disgusting, messy. those are the answers that come to mind. that doesn't just mean democrats. is it going to be a pox on both their houses?
>>
absolutely there is. a lot of people like to lump the
tea party
and the
republican party
into one bucket, but you lose sight of what's really going on here. that
tea party
position or faction or group is outside of the party. so from their pers pektsive they're holding everybody's feet to the fire. not just in gop members, but house members and then more broadly speaking is the poll shows and others the
general population
is taked off right now. and everybody is when they get home are going to get an earful and then some.
>>
the
tea party
has done a lot of constructive things some people say because they got the conversation focused on cutting the budget. but at the same time their critics say that they have completely gridlocked the system. that you can't operate this way. and now going forward you have the republicans say we're going to point members to this supercongress committee that oppose taxes. you have democrats say we're going to appoint people who oppose any changes to medicare. if that's the case, you're going to have gridlock and you're going to have -- kwl that's not
tea party
. that is the nature of the washington system. it is built and magnified gridlock. it does as a ematter of course gridlock. what the
tea party
did is came in and took a hammer and chisel to that process and firmly planted their feet on principle on a particular patch of ground fought from that standpoint. look, whether you have the numbers in the house or senate or not. whether the
white house
wants to engage or not. everyone had to focus on what they were saying. it changed the nature of the debate. going do the fall when this committee comes on, that's going to be a test for the leadership to make sure they get a right combination of members in place to move this agenda forward. it's not just the
tea party
, it's the progressive wing of the economic party who's also --
>>
who voted more against this than --
>>
absolutely. there are competing interests here. they're pushing in the same direction. let's move forward on solving the debt problem, focus on jobs, get people back to work.
>>
but those are internally contractry.
>>
they are. they are.
>>
focussing on the debt problem near term is arguably not the right thing to do to get the economy moving and to get people back to work.
>>
i would agree with that. in fact, as chairman of the rnc we focused on the job front, the administration focused on
health care
. we flipped the
health care
, the administration at the end of that goes back to jobs. we go back -- then they want to flip to something else. that's been the problem this whip sawing back and forth on jobs. notice just this week the president's pivoted again back to jobs. the number one thing from february of
2009
to this date has been jobs. so to the extent that yor going to start that conversation in earnest, you're going to have to really engage the
small business
community, larger corporations to push this issue forward. it's not going to be resolved in washington. it's going to be resolved by banks and local communities,
small businesses
, having the confidence that they can invest in the economy.
>>
what about the national candidates?
sarah palin
is now really kicking
mitt romney
--
>>
she's slapping, isn't she.
>>
so afraid to deal with it.
>>
i have to stand with sarah a little bit on this. i've been really puzzled by the silence, deafen silence. this is a pathway up to go and stake some ground and line up an argument. why do you want to make the argument some time next year when you can lay the seeds you need to do that. so i think in the case of romney you see
sarah palin
having a few comments about that. certainly huntsman has come out and said some things. again, not really bold statements about creating jobs and moving the economy, but just kind of like me tooism or maybe i like that, maybe i don't. it's not the way to lead at this point.
>>
michael steele
, calling them as he cease it. thank you
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