Former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Michael Steele called former President Trump a “visceral animal” after Trump shared a video depicting President Biden tied up in the back of a truck and a string of attacks against judges overseeing his court cases.
Steele, a political analyst for MSNBC, said Saturday the concept of thinking before speaking “is way above Donald Trump’s paygrade, or I think, intellectual capacity because he’s a visceral animal politically and in business.”
“He feels that what he says is truth and I think that is part of the problem in this environment, is he thinks it’s truth what he’s saying,” Steele continued.
On Friday, Trump posted a video to his Truth Social site of a truck that had a printed photo on the truck bed that appeared to show Biden lying sideways tied up.
In recent days, Trump has also posted attacks on the judges involved in his criminal cases, most recently his hush money trial. Judge Juan Merchan and his daughter have been the latest targets of the former president. Merchan placed a gag order on Trump, limiting what he can say publicly about the hush money case, but Merchan and his daughter are excluded from the order.
Steele said he thinks the courts are attempting to give Trump the same treatment that they would give anyone else.
“But [Trump] has shown his capacity to not give a damn about that,” he said. “And so it still amazes me how much the system bends itself over backwards.”
Steele questioned Merchan’s decision making by excluding himself from the order. He asked “how many times” has Trump proved that he “is a bad actor in this space” before getting to this moment.
“I mean, I don’t get it at all. I’m confused about how the system still does not respond to the thing in front of it,” he said.
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, defended Trump’s post in an emailed statement.
“That picture was on the back of a pick up truck that was traveling down the highway. Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him,” Cheung’s statement said.
Biden’s campaign communications director Michael Tyler argued that this type of post is regular for Trump.
“This image from Donald Trump is the type of crap you post when you’re calling for a bloodbath or when you tell the proud boys to ‘stand back and stand by,’” Tyler said in an emailed statement. “Trump is regularly inciting political violence and it’s time people take him seriously – just ask the capitol police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6.”
Tara Suter contributed reporting.