Steele: Priebus ‘crapping’ on my legacy

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele continued to feud with his successor Reince Priebus on Tuesday, accusing the current chairman of “crapping” on his legacy.

“I kept my mouth shut for two years because, hey, I’m a party guy,” Steele said on WMAL’s “Mornings on the Mall.” “But you know what, at the end of the day, you say to yourself, they’re dumping on you, they’re crapping on your legacy, they’re giving you crap for stuff that they didn’t want to do in the first place — coalitions, expanding media, social media networks.”

{mosads}The feud between the current and former RNC chairmen has heated up in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, Priebus criticized Steele’s stewardship of the RNC, saying the organization’s credit cards were “suspended” under Steele because of his lavish spending. The RNC went into debt under Steele, who earned negative headlines when it was reported the RNC spent $2,000 in February 2010 at a Los Angeles bondage club.

Steele argued on Tuesday that Priebus was complicit in the RNC’s financial struggles during that time.

“The
bottom line: Reince Priebus was my right hand,” Steele said. “I mean,
what annoys the heck out of me is that for two years Reince Priebus was
in every room I was in, a part of every major decision I made for how
much money we would spend, what we would spend that money on, what the
priorities of the RNC would be.”

“And for him to stand up there
and pretend that he wasn’t in the room, that he had no say in the
decision-making process, and that the so-called debt that he inherited
was the one that — as a member of the RNC, he voted for, No. 1,”
Steele continued. “No. 2, he recommended to me to go into debt. And
for him to sit there and act like he had nothing to do with it and that
somehow he inherited this mess that he helped create, to me is just
pure B.S.”

Steele was also critical of a report Priebus commissioned on the party’s recent electoral failures, which determined that “drastic changes to almost every major element of the modern Republican Party” are necessary if the GOP hopes to remain competitive.

Priebus outlined a 219-point plan aimed at revamping the party’s image, electoral strategy and policy emphasis.

“So let me get this straight,” Steele said. “You spend $10 million dollars to find out that we have a problem? Hello? You know? Don’t get me started.”