The New Conservative: Tariffs, Trade and Why Michael Steele Is Still a Republican (with Oren Cass)

The Michael Steele Podcast

The Bulwark

Politics, Government, History, News

4.8 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2025

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michael Steele speaks with Oren Cass, chief economist at American Compass, about who the "New Conservative" is, the case for tariffs, and how to build a trading system that actually works for Americans. Plus, what made Michael join the Republican Party nearly 50 years ago and the stereotypes and misconceptions about young Black men joining MAGA.

Check out Oren Cass' new book here: https://www.amazon.com/New-Conservatives-Restoring-Commitment-Community/dp/B0DXD6CB8M

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What is striking to me about the Trump approach, including what he says about DEI and so forth,
0:07.8	is literally how many times more 17-year-old black men are attracted to it than are attracted
0:15.6	to the version that attracted you. I mean, you know, I'm offering up gold and May tennis shoes
0:20.0	because you think young black men are in the sneakers.
0:23.0	We're going to, we're going to protect your right to smoke methyl cigarettes. Like that's a thing. I mean, the, the stereotyping and the sort of, I'm sorry, just just to jump in, that's, that's not the Trump pitch. In fact, Kamala Harris put out,
0:36.6	that was pretty much the Trump pitch. No, Kamala Harris put out a five point agenda for
0:41.3	opportunity agenda for young black men of which one of the five items was Bitcoin and one of the
0:46.7	five items was marijuana legalization. So I've seen what that looks like and that's not what the
0:52.2	Trump appeal was. But that's because, you know what the marijuana piece was?
0:57.4	Because black entrepreneurs, the young black men who went to jail because of marijuana laws,
1:02.5	now have the opportunity to benefit from actually being entrepreneurial in that space.
1:07.3	That's what that was about.
1:08.6	It wasn't plain that black people likes to smoke marijuana.
1:11.6	It's like, guess what? The thing that you went to jail for, you now can begin to build a dream around
1:16.4	because white kids are already doing it. That's what that was about. Hey, folks, I'm excited about the conversation this week with my guest, Oren Cass. It opened up some really interesting moments for me. And I hope it does for you as well.
1:45.7	Oren is the executive director of American Compass and author of The Once and Future Worker,
1:51.9	a vision for the renewal of work in America.
1:54.8	He is a contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times,
1:58.7	and his work also appears regularly in publications,
2:01.3	including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He's the editor of a new book
2:06.9	that's coming out on June 3rd, The New Conservatives, Restoring America's Commitment to
2:12.4	Family Community and Industry. And trust me, when we unpack that bad boy, it got real, real fast.
	...

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