Former RNC chair Steele: GOP would control Congress if it had its 's--- together'

Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele last week said he thought the GOP would have more power in Congress if the party "had our shit together."

"Do Democrats understand how freaking lucky they’ve been that the Republican Party is so batshit, Trumpy crazy?" former Republican presidential candidate Joe Walsh asked Steele on an episode of his podcast “White Flag," released last week, referencing former President Trump.

“I don't think they recognize that if we had our shit together, this wouldn't even be close,” Steele said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “would be sitting there with about a seven or eight seat majority” in the upper chamber, “and the House would be closer to the numbers that I got in 2010,” the former RNC chair said. 

Republicans' anticipated red wave failed to materialize during the midterm elections last year, and GOP candidates lost out in several key races — including some candidates hand-picked by Trump. Democrats were able to hold onto their Senate majority, and Republicans won a slimmer-than-expected hold over the House.

Walsh asked on the podcast, “If not for how batshit, anti-democratic, pro-authoritarian nutbag, nutball, the Republican Party is, the Democratic Party on policy is in trouble, aren't they?” 

“I think so,” Steele said. "I just look at the fact that here you have a president ... how do you not, narratively, position your party with the country after the bipartisan success?"

President Biden is running for reelection in 2024, and Trump is running for another four years in the White House after losing his reelection bid to Biden in 2020. As the current and former president poll at the front of their respective party primary fields, the race could end up a rematch of their 2020 contest.