Ex-RNC chairman Steele: Carter Page still talking to the media ‘because he’s stupid’

Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele on Tuesday said former Trump adviser Carter Page continues to do interviews with the media “because he’s stupid” during a panel discussion on MSNBC.

The analysis from the network contributor comes after Page appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” for an interview with co-host George Stephanopoulos.

To set up the discussion on Page, MSNBC anchor Hallie Jackson played back a clip from the ABC interview and asked for Steele’s reaction.

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“Carter Page was out again on TV and was talking about this whole thing. He was out on ‘Good Morning America.’ We’ll play a little bit of that discussion,” Jackson said before cutting to the clip.

“These are your words: ‘I served as an informal adviser to the staff of the Kremlin.’ You’re advising the Kremlin,” Stephanopoulos said in the clip.

“I would say a lot of people advise — we were part of an informal group,” Page responded before the clip ends.

Jackson then asked Steele, “Why is Carter Page still talking?”

“Because he’s stupid,” he replied. “He’s clearly not listening to any legal counsel.

“It’s a guy who thinks he’s playing a game: ‘Well, I didn’t say that. Well, I said that. I didn’t mean that,'” Steele, who served as RNC chairman from 2009-2011, continued.

“It’s crazy; it makes no sense. I’m sorry, it’s just so silly.”

Page also told Stephanopoulos that he “never spoke” with Trump “anytime in my life,” adding that he “never” had emailed or texted him either.

But a video clip unearthed by Scott Dworkin, the founder of the anti-Trump Democratic Coalition, shows Page stating otherwise in 2016.

“I made a commitment not to talk about the internal work that I did at the campaign,” Page says during a Dec. 2016 press conference in Moscow for the U.S. presidential election.

“I’ve certainly been in a number of meetings with him and I’ve learned a tremendous amount from him,” he added at the time.

Page, 46, is the main figure in a controversial Republican memo released by the House Intelligence Committee last Friday alleging surveillance abuses at the Department of Justice and FBI.