Trump Will Lose but Won't End the GOP, Boehner's Former Press Secretary Says
Former press secretary for Boehner, Ryan and more was on "Powerhouse Politics."
— -- John Boehner's former press secretary, Michael Steel, has joined the club of Republicans denouncing Donald Trump. In a Time Magazine op-ed today, he wrote that the GOP presidential nominee is "not a Republican."
Trump should be considered a one-time fluke, according to Steel, a Georgetown Institute of Politics fellow who served as Boehner's press secretary in the House and a senior advisor to Jeb Bush's presidential campaign.
"He's a third-party populist candidate," Steel told ABC News' Jonathan Karl and Rick Klein today on the "Powerhouse Politics" podcast. He said Trump "captured the nomination of the Republican party because of a five-car, six-car pileup in the establishment lane. He essentially was able to hijack the party."
Despite concerns to the contrary, he added, "I think his influence in the long term will be fairly limited."
When asked if he thought the race for the White House was over, Steel responded, "Yes. Yeah," citing the diminishing chances of Trump's win in traditionally Republican states like Utah, Georgia and Arizona.
"It's hard to put together an electoral college scenario that isn't laughable that results in his victory," he said.
But Steel has hope for 2020. He said he doubts there will ever be another Republican candidate like the billionaire showman, because "he will have lost a very winnable election" and ruined his image as a winner.
"I think that, absent Trump, we would have had a very exciting and interesting primary that would’ve resulted in a candidate who could easily beat Secretary Clinton," he said.
Steel is also optimistic, but cautious about the House's down-ballot races this year.
"There will be some [losses] obviously," Steel said, adding that a weakened majority is "not on Ryan." He attributed prospective losses and a narrow majority for House Republicans to a good year for the Democratic Party, which is "organized in a way that we are not."
In his Time op-ed, Steel emphasized that Trump was not the end of the Republican party, and that it could rebuild itself in his wake.
For now, he looks forward to a "40-something generation of rising Republican leaders," like Paul Ryan, whose vice-presidential campaign he served in 2012.
"That's something," Steel said, "the Democrats don't have."