Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), said Thursday that former President Trump’s lead in the polls despite facing felony charges is an “abomination.”
The former president leads President Biden by 0.6 percent in national polling, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s aggregate of polls.
“It says a lot about us, doesn’t it?” Steele said, responding to a question from MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, in which she asked if the former RNC chair could imagine leading the GOP through an election “where there’s a chance your nominee will, in fact, be a felon — and people don’t seem to mind?”
The discussion comes four days before the former president is set to go on trial in New York City for an alleged hush money scheme.
“It says a lot less about the party, than it does about us as citizens,” said Steele, an outspoken critic of Trump and regular on MSNBC. “That we even countenance this right now and that we put this man in the pole position to be the next president of the United States, having him leading poll after poll.”
“It is an abomination, it’s embarrassing,” Steele added.
The former RNC chair also said it shows a level of desperation, that voters believe Trump could somehow solve all their problems.
“America’s never looked to one person to do that — we’ve all kind of done that together in the past,” Steele said.
Trump will hold a rally and a campaign fundraiser in Pennsylvania on Saturday, 10 days ahead of the state’s primary elections and two days before the New York City trial.
The rally will take place in Lehigh Valley, a potential swing county President Biden won by about 14,000 votes in 2020. The fundraiser will take place in nearby Bucks County, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Bucks is another potential swing county Biden won in 2020, beating Trump by approximately 17,000 votes.