ANNOUNCER: Make the choice to begin anywhere in your life, and the journey has started.

And, along the way, be inspired.

Listen to the stories by joining the President of Howard University, Dr. Wayne A.I.

Frederick, on The Journey.

He's a former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, and former Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Currently, he hosts his own podcast and is a highly sought after political commentator.

Hello, my name is Dr. Wayne Frederick, and my guest today, veteran politician and political expert, Michael Steele, joins me for an insightful conversation about his life experiences and career journey.

Michael, welcome to The Journey.

Dr. Frederick, it's a real pleasure to take this journey with you, man.

It's an honor, thank you.

Absolutely, so let's start at the very beginning.

I came to Washington D.C. in 1988 to attend Howard University.

And one of the things that I still love about Washington D.C. is meeting people who are truly from D.C. (Michael laughing) Not transplanted here, came here by some other journey like I did, but people from here.

They have a uniqueness.

So, tell me what it was like growing up here in Washington D.C. and where your journey actually started.

Oh baby, I love the way you opened the conversation.

I'm a native Washingtonian and grew up in Petworth, right up in Ward Four, right off of Grand Circle, about two blocks off of Grand Circle.

Went to Saint Gabriel's Catholic Church there in the area.

Spent a lot of time at the Petworth Library.

I don't know why, I just like to look at the books.

(both laughing) But I grew up in that George Avenue corridor.

Went to Carroll High School about a mile or so right up the road from me.

So, my early concentration in the city was in that neighborhood.

But then, of course, Washington is just so many unique neighborhoods and so many unique communities.

So, it was a real great pleasure to kind of get out there and sort of experience the world in miniature.

Because, as you noted, a lot of folks are transplanted to D.C. certainly if they're working on the Hill, or in here for some lobbying firm or whatever.

So, it was really kind of exciting.

What has been, I think, disappointing at some point, but certainly interesting to watch, has been the transformation and the disintegration of the city in some respects.

And that has been something for me, as a native, 'cause my parents still live in our family home in Petworth, when I'm back in the neighborhood, you can see the changes and feel the changes in one sense.

And that's good, 'cause change is good, but then you don't really get the sense that there is a level of connectedness as we once saw it.

A lot of it, people bringing their politics in, and all this other stuff which, largely, they didn't do before.

So it's a real different vibe now, but it was a real good experience growing up in the city and seeing the world right there in your backyard.

Now, in terms of your schooling, what was your schooling like at the schools that you mentioned?

I also went to an all boy Catholic high school growing up.

So I know what that was like for me.

(Michael laughing) But maybe you can describe to my audience what that was like.

(both laughing) Like I said, I went to Saint Gabriel's and from Saint Gabriel's I then went up the street to Carroll, Archbishop Carroll, which was run by the Augustinians.

And the Augustinians founded the school, well, actually, they were brought in when Archbishop O'Boyle created the high school for boys.

And, from there, I didn't go that far.

I actually went up 295 to Baltimore to Johns Hopkins and did my undergraduate at Johns Hopkins as a pre-med major.

That didn't last long.

(both laughing) I don't know what the hell I was thinking I was gonna be a doctor.

That turned out to be my sister, Monica, became the doctor.

But I did international relations as an undergrad after my two year experiment at wanting to be a surgeon.

And then graduated from there and took a little detour, Mr. President, and I wound up entering the Augustinian seminary and studied for the priesthood for about three years, two and a half, three years at Villanova.

And then, up in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where I did my novitiate.

And left right before I was to take my simple vows, is what they're called, but take vows at that time and came back home to Washington, resettled in the neighborhood, and wound up going to Georgetown Law School and got my law degree there.

And, next thing I know, you're married, you got kids and, oh, you get elected to office.

And that's kinda how it's been running.

But, yeah, the academic portion for me was very much oriented here in the area.

Not traveling that far.

And even when I consider my time at Villanova, Pennsylvania, it was basically a two hour drive up 95.

So it wasn't something that you had to get on a plane to get to.

Right.

And, obviously, that part of your overall development, your faith, obviously, has been integral and also informed your politics.

Not just your life as a whole, but also informed your politics.

What about that period of time you use today in instructing how you go about your engagements?

Yeah, a lot of it.

I'll tell you, honestly, I could not have done the things that I've done the way I've done them without having that early orientation and anchoring around something that would ground me personally and philosophically.

That would prepare me to take on some of the challenges that I've had to encounter.

My attitude, my approach to my public service as an elected official, and even in my public service as a political official as RNC Chairman, was very much informed by my experience with the Augustinians.

And I still try to carry that Augustinian charism with me, how I live out my my Christianity, and how I live out, even though I'm not living a vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience, except for when my wife wants me to not spend money and be obedient.

It's still very much a part of that narrative.

So, I remember telling the staff at the RNC at one point, there was something particularly hot going on and I was really fed up with crazy at that point, and just lost my mind in the staff meeting, and, as I was leaving the room after basically blessing everyone out, I turned back and looked at them and go, and you're lucky I spent time in a monastery because this conversation would have been a lot worse.

(both laughing) And they're sitting there going, holy crap, I think we just escaped, right?

But it does, it really does inform.

And, certainly, in my time as Lieutenant Governor it had an impact in how I looked at public policy.

And how I thought I needed to not just do the political thing, but how I had to do the thing that was for the service of the people who had elected me.

And that was paramount.

And it still informs how I look at the world.

So, let's start with you're graduating from law school and what you embarked upon in between that and deciding to run for elected office.

Yeah, so the law school thing was fun.

I did Georgetown at night, which meant that I had a day job.

And I spent a lot of time, I was a paralegal in a prominent D.C. firm at the time, and really kind of living life.

I was recently married when I entered law school, and I'd been married probably about, well, probably about two years or so.

So, two to three years.

So, still kind of in that newlywed thing.

So you got that going on, then you've got law school, which is a whole other world by itself.

And, even more so when you're doing it at night, because you're working a full-time job.

You're in class at 5:45 till about 10 or so, and then, oh, you gotta go home and do the work.

And then get up the next day and start it all over.

So it was really a lesson in multi-levels of discipline.

So the discipline of time, and discipline of attention, because your family takes a real hit when you're doing these things and that's hard.

And then, getting through that, moved me into, and again, not really seeking out political office.

While I was involved in all those things, I was chairman of the county political party here in Prince George's County.

I was chairman of the Republican party here as a county chairman.

So I had all of those activities going on.

So I had this sort of really weird kind of multifaceted existence that was happening.

So the multi-tasking capabilities were very important as you can imagine.

But I managed to get through.

But it was never set with the goal of, oh, I wanna to run for office.

That was never really part of my plan.

I was a practicing, my goal was to be a practicing attorney.

And when I graduated law school in '91, I set out, started at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton doing corporate finance, international finance on a large scale and focused on doing the practice thing.

But, these other pieces of my life were also still taking shape and form.

And so, my political activity had sort of run a separate course and was speeding up.

Now, it was interesting because growing up in D.C., a lot of my politics was oriented, as you could well imagine, D.C. being, at least at that time, ten to one democratic, was oriented by democratic politics.

And, even as a Republican, a registered Republican, I had the wonderful experience of learning from individuals like former mayor Marion Barry, God bless him.

John Ray, David Clark, God rest him.

Joe Yeldell, who was a personal mentor for me.

Charlene Drew Jarvis who was my councilwoman.

And I got to know her and work with her not just politically, but in business, through my work as a paralegal and as a lawyer.

So I really got to see a lot of different sides of politics from the eyes of individuals who didn't come from my tribe, if you will, didn't come from my side of the political fence.

Which also shaped how I looked at public service as an elected official.

If you want something done, I gotta reach across the aisle to get it done.

Because, even when you have the majorities, and this was true for the Democrats who ran the city, they still had to deal with Republicans in Congress, right?

They still had to deal with Councilwoman Schwartz who was the Republican on the city council at the time.

So, it really kind of helped shape and form a lot of what would later become important features of my own public service.

Reaching across the aisle, the balance of faith, the sense of service, being a public servant, and what that really means, not just in the political sense, but in the gospel sense.

Yep, and when you did decide to run for office what was the first office you ran for?

Well, I didn't make the decision.

(Wayne laughing) One of the great ironies of my political life is that pretty much every office I've run for, I was asked to run for.

It was not, again, not one of these things where they're like, oh, I'm gonna set the course and I want to be this, that, or the other.

So, 1998, our candidate for governor, who had just run in '94, Ellen Sauerbrey, lost to Parris Glendening for governor in '94.

That was a very controversial campaign because there was some shenanigans going on at the ballot box.

And that's well-documented now all these years later.

But in '98 she wanted to run again.

And she approached me to think about running on her ticket for comptroller of the state of Maryland.

Again, I was a finance lawyer, had a quasi finance background.

I studied tax and laws in law school.

Which, actually, I was one of those guys actually liked tax class.

Professor Ginsburg, the late husband of former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was my tax attorney, a tax professor.

So, you learn it from some of the best, it was a lot of fun.

But she approached me about running, so I said, okay, I'll run, sure, why not?

Yeah, comptroller.

And I loved it, it was the first great campaign.

The great story from that election was I never made it out of the primary.

(both laughing) I lost in the primary.

But, here's the funny thing, Former governor Schaefer who was running for comptroller for the first time was running, was clear gonna be the democratic nominee.

And he and I forged a friendship during that primary.

And, whenever we would do these parades, or we'd do these kinds of events where all the candidates, we would always hang out together.

It left such an impression on folks that, to this day, people think that I was the Republican nominee that ran against the governor for comptroller.

(Wayne laughing) and I wasn't, I lost the primary.

But we both had that kind of out-sized personality and it was something that people remembered.

We developed a fast friendship that lasted right through my time when I was Lieutenant Governor and afterwards up to his death.

And it tells you a lot about how political actors of opposite points of view, parties, can still forge a public persona that the public will gravitate towards.

And that can be an effective tool in opening up opportunities to get good things done.

As luck would have it, I got to serve with the governor/comptroller when I was Lieutenant Governor because he was comptroller.

And our administration had forged a great relationship.

Of course, Governor Ehrlich had a good relationship with governor Schaefer, controller Schaefer.

So, all of these things kind of came together.

And so, that was the first official run for me, statewide, out of the box, out of the blue, asked to do it.

The next time I was asked to run was for Lieutenant Governor when I was state party chairman.

I was part of the vetting team for the governor.

I'd vetted all these candidates.

And, at the last one, former Senator Bill Brock says to me, like so what about you for Lieutenant Governor?

I said, what do you mean what about me?

I'm sitting here, well, how about all these people here?

And he's like, what about you?

Got on the ticket, I was asked to do that.

And then, when I ran for the U.S. Senate, I got a phone call from the President of United States asking me would I run for the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy when Senator Sarbanes retired, opened up the seat, and that was a hell of a run, too.

So it's been one of these weird kind of things for me to be asked to serve that way.

Looking at your career, the RNC chairmanship came about at a time, very interesting for Republican politics in particular, and not too much different from the time we're living in, with so much partisanship.

What about that experience as RNC Chair, you think, can inform the nation today as to how we move forward in such a divided country to bring us to the table to really discuss very, very important issues and to come up with solutions where no party has the monopoly on all of the answers.

Yeah, good question, tough question.

Tough because you're talking about a very different time.

Even though it was what, 10 years ago, you're talking a very, very different place and time.

Our politics, you look at it this way, you mark change between period A and period B which may be 50 years, and you go, wow, that's a lot of change.

But then you look at the change between 2010 and 2020, and it is like night and day.

I mean, and so you're looking, the timeframe is shorter as the change accelerates.

It's amazing.

Look, I inherited a party that was out, pushed back on its heels.

We just lost to Barack Obama in a resounding defeat in '08.

We lost the House in 2006.

I know the pressures and pains of that election in 2006 as a candidate for the U.S. Senate where the Republican brand, just to put it bluntly, sucked.

We were hemorrhaging voters.

We were hemorrhaging support, donors.

There was a malaise, to use that term from the 1970's, that had really infected the grassroots.

They'd begun to turn in on the party leadership, on the establishment.

And, of course, I get elected chairman, and I'm having this meeting and say, oh, now you want the black guy to run everything.

(both laughing) You got all this crap going on, oh, yeah, let's put him in charge.

But we turned it around.

And, in 18 months, we were able to, I think through a more direct conversation with the American people, talk about our ideas.

Look, we battled over Obamacare in 2010.

And, as the political head of the party, we charged that Hill and tried to try to win the day and we lost.

We did, we lost that fight.

And there were Democrats who would say they paid a price for that at the ballot box that November.

Okay, that's fair, yeah.

'cause I wanted you to pay a price for that, all right.

But that's the politics.

And a lot of people tend to look at the chairman of a party like you're somehow supposed to be concerned about all these other things.

No, we only have two concerns, two.

Raise money and win elections, that's it.

I talked to members on the Hill, Democrat and Republican, who are quick to point out they get in trouble if they walk across the aisle and have a conversation about infrastructure, or healthcare, or some other measures that they're trying to get done.

They're trying to get, it's great when you put a bill on the table that it has bipartisan support, that's important.

And, in fact, analysis, I serve on the bipartisan policy board and its analysis has shown that a significant number of bills that have bipartisan support have gotten passed out of Congress than any one bill by an individual Republican or individual Democrat.

So, it proves the point that the country, the Congress, we have to find that space in order to get some big things done.

Particularly now that we're still dealing with pandemic, we're reeling from a flat-lined economy for main street.

Wall Street's fine, but main street still has job issues.

And, on that note, I guess my last question is, one of the concerns I have as a university president, is I'm bringing young people here to try to transform their lives.

Part of that transformation is that they get uncomfortable.

That they sit and talk with someone they otherwise wouldn't.

You and I have sat next to each other on a plane and had great conversation every time we see each other.

I know, I know.

You remember that, huh?

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

We have great conversation every time we see each other.

The point being that, as you meet people, you learn more about people, you broaden your horizon.

You don't have to agree but, at least, you have to understand.

What is your advice for the young people who will listen to this?

Who would see you as a black man in the Republican party that does not always seem to draw them but, at the same time, they want to come to a university that has sent the first black woman to the White House as a Vice-President in the form of Kamala Harris.

What is your advice for those who are like you, coming into a university, thinking about their future, being itched by politics, wanting to make a difference, but also seeing the partisanship that exists?

Well, you put it perfectly as you opened the question.

Get out of your comfort zone.

You gotta be uncomfortable.

If you're not uncomfortable, then you're not learning.

If you're not uncomfortable, then you're not listening.

If you're not uncomfortable, then you're not speaking with truth.

You're sort of repeating what you've already heard.

Because, while we stay stuck with those who agree with everything that we think, and feel, and emote, et cetera, where is that, to put it in terms you appreciate, where's that academic experience?

Where's that environment where that thought is challenged.

And, for me, I've always been in that space.

I've had to defend at every turn, what I believe, why I believe it, why I had to go black folks and explain to them, yeah, I'm still black.

Just because I'm a Republican, don't mean I'm not black.

And then I had to go talk to white folks who saw me as a Republican and wanted me to sound and look like them in terms of how I expressed myself.

And what I learned very early on in my life is I gotta be who I am and I gotta be comfortable with that.

And I've gotta define that very early on.

So, when I walk in the room, I bring black in the room, right.

Because that's what I am first.

So that's where the orientation of your lived experience begins.

And everything else is layered in that, and on that, and around that.

And that's what you pick and choose, okay, so now I'm gonna do the business thing, I'll do that way.

If you're, okay, let's go back and hang out in the neighborhood, we do that.

But all of that has a core experience that you sort of bring to the conversation.

At the same time, though, you've gotta put yourself in situations where, yeah, you're gonna be a little uncomfortable.

When I was RNC chairman, I would talk to the state chairmen around the country and I said, get out of your comfort zone.

All y'all sitting up here talking about, yes, we want the blacks in the party.

Okay, what are you doing about it?

It's not a question of how many black folks do you know.

Please don't even, don't do that, all right?

That's not what this is about.

It's like what steps are you making and taking to actually spend time getting to know what's going on in the black community in the first place?

'Cause you can't just invite somebody up in here and not know where they're coming from because they're gonna bring stuff with them.

And a lot of that stuff is not gonna align with you.

The reverse of that is true as well, right?

For the students at Howard, this institution is historic.

Not just because it's old, right?

It's been around a long time.

It's because of who's graduated from it, right?

It's historic because you have someone right now representing Howard, Howard values, Howard principles, and ideals sitting up at the observatory, right, as vice president of the United States, who's in the president's ear.

That's historic, all right?

But, having spent time with Kamala, and knowing her personally, and knowing her well, she didn't do it by being comfortable.

She's not historic because she was comfortable.

She's historic because she has been in spaces where, yeah, it probably wasn't the best, but it was important to be there because she was there to make a mark, lay a word or two, and learn and listen.

And so, if you don't do anything else, learn to listen.

You cannot look at me and think, you know anything about me if you haven't listened to what I've said, right?

And I think that that's the truth we all have to deal with every day.

And you and I even talked about that a little bit.

It's how you have that experience of experiencing of someone else.

Well, thanks for being here.

And I think that's a great, as they say, that's a great grace note to end on.

I'm not gonna make you any more uncomfortable about the vacancy that's gonna occur in Annapolis anytime soon.

But, with that in mind, my guest today was Michael Steele, former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, and former Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

I thank you for sharing bits of your journey with us.

I'm Dr. Wayne Frederick, please join me next time on The Journey.

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For more information on this program or any other program, please visit our website at whut.org.

Thank you.