Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele calls evangelicals who support Trump 'the biggest phonies of all'

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Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee

• Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, called evangelical Christians who support the president "the biggest phonies of all," in a new book by the journalist Tim Alberta.
• "These are the people who spent the last forty years telling everyone how to live, who to love, what to think about morality," he said.
• "And then this motherf--ker comes along defiling the White House and disrespecting God's children at every turn, but it's cool, because he gave them two Supreme Court justices."
• White evangelical Christians make up 20% of all registered voters and voted for President Donald Trump 77% to 16% in the 2016 election.
• Steele has long been at odds with Trump and the party he leads, but has remained a registered Republican.
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Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, called evangelical Christians who support President Donald Trump "the biggest phonies of all," in a new book by the journalist Tim Alberta.

"These evangelical [leaders] are the biggest phonies of all," Steele told Alberta in his newly published book, Alberta wrote in his newly published book, "American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump."

He went on, "These are the people who spent the last forty years telling everyone how to live, who to love, what to think about morality. And then this motherf--ker comes along defiling the White House and disrespecting God's children at every turn, but it's cool, because he gave them two Supreme Court justices. They got their thirty pieces of silver."

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White evangelical Christians make up 20% of all registered voters and supported President Donald Trump 77% to 16% in the 2016 election. The group makes up about a third of all Republican voters and, according to a 2014 poll, 76% of them say they're Republicans or lean to the right.

Steele has long been critical of the president and his administration and has previously called evangelicals hypocritical for supporting Trump. Despite sharp disagreements with the party he used to help lead, Steele has remained a registered Republican.

"I have a very simple admonition at this point," Steele said on MSNBC in January 2018. "Just shut the hell up and don't ever preach to me about anything ever again. I don't want to hear it."

Other prominent politicians, including 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, have also singled out the evangelical community for criticism. He's specifically called out Vice President Mike Pence, a devout evangelical.

"How could [Pence] allow himself to become the cheerleader of the porn-star presidency? Is it that he stopped believing in Scripture when he started believing in Donald Trump? I don't know," Buttigieg said during a CNN town hall in March.