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I'm wondering what what negotiation did you do that said I'm going to accept this because when I leave this perch

this will have been made different because I was here.

Yeah I was very much a part of. In fact, the day I got elected, I was coming back into the hall after doing a press conference and one of the RNC members comes up to me, woman I'd known from when I was a state chairman and served on the executive committee, comes up, gives me this great big hug and she goes, I'm so excited for you, I'm so excited because now black folks will join the Republican Party and I looked at her and I smiled and I said I'm no pie Piper and that moment for me was very clarifying because it confirmed, you know, an aspect of this of this process. process I mean a lot of people just a lot of people think oh well they just elected them chairman I had to go through six ballots I had to go and stand up against a gentleman, a former then State Party chairman from South

Carolina who was still a member of a white-only country club.

I had to go through six ballots.

So this wasn't, oh, let's just put the black man in charge.

I had that man on my show Michael if you made a call.

I know you did.

I know you did. I know you did.

I know you did. I asked him about his white-only country club membership. Yes, indeed.

And I remember that.

I remember that very well.

So that's never been lost on me.

But the one thing I've learned over the years

and whatever I do, I wake up in the morning, I'm a black man. I go to bed at night, I'm a black man, I'm still a black man. I cannot walk away from that. And one of the more difficult aspects of leadership for me has been making sure that that is understood in everything I do.

So when I, you know, I coined the phrase hip-hop Republicans. Why? Because I wanted to send the message that I wanted to go into a space that the party had never gone to in recent history, but that we have a historical link to my community, right?

The Republican Party is the political home for black folks. That's where we started. That's where we got our voice. That's

where we started to make a difference in this country through public leadership. My party walked away from that in the late 30s and into the 50s and 60s.

And so part of me has always been standing as a sign of contradiction

to its current present and potential future

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