And hey hey folks it's Michael Steele, yes it's the Michael Steele podcast welcome once

again so glad you could be with us and of course you know what the drill is I gotta

put it up front you gotta catch me on Apple Podcasts, ditch your tune in or wherever

you get your podcasts on and certainly you can follow me on Twitter at Michael Steele.

Lot going on right now but I wanted to take a little sidebar to drill down on something

that many of you who have either heard me on MSNBC and there's various programs there

or on radio and certainly on my podcast know how I feel about the current state of religious

leaders in this country from my own faith the Catholic Church to what we see going on

with evangelical Christians to say I'm at least disappointed and I think a lot of Americans

are would be an understatement particularly when it gets into the realm of politics.

So I had the pleasure of being on Morning Joe and watching and listening to our guest today

and he blew my socks off because he's written not just a compelling book but an important

book that really gets into the heart and soul of this issue about evangelicalism and evangelicals

and how they've basically abandoned their mission in favor of President Trump.

Our guest today is Ben Howe he is the author of the Immoral Majority Why Evangelicals

chose political power over Christian values.

Ben welcome to the podcast man.

No thanks for having me I really appreciate it.

You to set up this conversation let's start it this way and your book sort of lays it

out rather directly.

You found yourself as a writer and filmmaker becoming disillusioned at what was happening

with religious movements that you'd called home for example you know the evangelical community

...