Steve Deace Hits Trump as Lex Luthor; ‘No Moral Imperative...to Help’ Him ‘Finish Off His Memoirs’

May 5th, 2016 5:39 PM

Speaking with host Erica Hill on MSNBC Thursday afternoon, Iowa conservative radio talk show host Steve Deace reiterated his commitment to the Never Trump movement and after comparing Donald Trump to Superman villain Lex Luthor, promised that he feels “no moral imperative whatsoever to help Lex Luthor finish off his memoirs.”

When pressed by Hill about what he’ll do and if he should still support Trump due to his job as a conservative pundit, Deace doubled down and sadly ruled that Trump had “successfully capitalize[d] on liberal stereotypes of some vestiges of the right coalition and the truth is he has been proven correct.”

Deace hit the ground running from the start of the interview in disclosing that he’s just left a “dysfunctional” and “really bad relationship with the Republican Party yesterday” that’s caused him to feel like “that breakup chick in a Gretchen Wilson country music video” where “I just want to tour the country for awhile, play the field, relax, and just find myself again.”

Referring to previous reports on MSNBC about Trump and his supporters imploring their adversaries to join the Trump Train, Deace admitted that he’s been “laughing off the air because it's all the reasons why I am Never Trump” and “feel[s] no compulsion whatsoever, no moral imperative whatsoever to help Lex Luthor finish off his memoirs.”

“If we’re not going to advance any ideology, anything that I think is worth conserving than frankly, it's not worth me making enemies of nice people like you and other people here at MSNBC and other liberals. There's no point to it,” he added. 

Hill pushed back and wondered why he wrote in a recent column that America deserves to have the Republican Party die at the hands of Trump and Deace was unfazed based on the realization that “a majority of Americans want to walk away from the things that made us exceptional as a people in the first place” in favor of Trump employing “liberal stereotypes”:

I have watched Donald Trump successfully capitalize on liberal stereotypes of some vestiges of the right coalition and the truth is he has been proven correct. He has capitalized on code language and incendiary language....So if we're not going to argue about those things. If we're going to argue my megalomanic versus yours, my corporatist pond scum knuckle dragger versus yours — I’ve just got three kids at home, man. I’ve got a life to live. Other people can get, you know, can bring out their freak flag and fly it that for this for right, but I'll say no thank you. 

To keep the analogies going, Deace invoked Star Wars and the television show The Waltons to round out his appearance with conservatives opposed to Trump being the Skywalker twins facing off against their father and the Empire:

I think we're going to be like the Skywalker twins now, Erica. I think you got to let the Empire run its course. When people are bound and determined to make bad decisions, sometimes you just have to get out of the way....They just want this. It's like that episode in The Waltons where Jim Bob wants to smoke cigarettes and Grandpa Zebulon goes down to the corner store, buys every cigarette and makes him choke on them on Walton’s Mountain. I think we're going to have to let people choke on this until they're ready to hear something different.

The transcript of the segment from the 2:00p.m. Eastern hour of MSNBC Live on May 5 can be found below.

MSNBC Live
May 5, 2016
2:09 p.m. Eastern

ERICA HILL: Steve Deace is a nationally syndicated host on Salem Radio Network who supported Ted Cruz for president and has also said he will never vote for Donald Trump, Steve, good to have you with us today. 

STEVE DEACE: Thank you. 

HILL: You said you would never vote for Donald Trump. At this point, your choices look like Donald Trump and either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. So do you end up voting for a Democrat, do you not vote, how do you move forward in November? 

DEACE: You know, Erica, I don't know. You know, I just got out of a really bad relationship with the Republican Party yesterday. It's been dysfunctional for years. I'm kind of that breakup chick in a Gretchen Wilson country music video. I just want to tour the country for awhile, play the field, relax, and just find myself again and I've been listening to these reports and I’ve laughing off the air because it's all the reasons why I am Never Trump. I feel no compulsion whatsoever, no moral imperative whatsoever to help Lex Luthor finish off his memoirs. He can do that on his own time. If we’re not going to advance any ideology, anything that I think is worth conserving than frankly, it's not worth me making enemies of nice people like you and other people here at MSNBC and other liberals. There's no point to it. We might as well just be friends. I have no interest in taking sides in the self-actualization quest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They can do that on their own. 

HILL: So neither one of them works for you. You wrote in your column that Tuesday was the day the Republican Party died, characterizing it as a sad day for America by also deserved. Why would you say it's deserved? 

DEACE: Well, we as a people sadly have decided that — many of us anyway, not all of us. I think it's clear a majority of Americans want to walk away from the things that made us exceptional as a people in the first place and that's why I'm a conservative. It's not about pitting groups of people together and I've watched Trump do this and the thing that has bothered me the most, Erica, about this primary, is I have watched Donald Trump successfully capitalize on liberal stereotypes of some vestiges of the right coalition and the truth is he has been proven correct. He has capitalized on code language and incendiary language. I believe that values that started the country, founded the country, are worth conserving and preserving for the next generation. That’s why I get in the argument cause I think these values — and maybe I'm wrong. You might disagree with me, but I think these values are what's best for families, what's best for cultures and communities. So if we're not going to argue about those things. If we're going to argue my megalomanic versus yours, my corporatist pond scum knuckle dragger versus yours — I’ve just got three kids at home, man. I’ve got a life to live. Other people can get, you know, can bring out their freak flag and fly it that for this for right, but I'll say no thank you. 

HILL: So then, Steve, if you're saying no thank you to the discussion that's happening in many parts of the country now, we have to point out here, plenty of people are disgusted with the 2016 race on both sides. They don't like the language, they don't like the rhetoric, they don't like talking to their kids about it. I'm a mother of two young boys. I get that. Donald Trump, as much as he may not be the change you want, though, there are millions of Americans who are coming out, many of whom haven't voted in a long time and casting their vote for him. Could this, in some ways, be an important reset for the Republican Party? Could this be an opportunity for you and fellow conservatives to step in?

DEACE: Yes, it is an opportunity to step in, but I think often — you know, I think we're going to be like the Skywalker twins now, Erica. I think you got to let the Empire run its course. When people are bound and determined to make bad decisions, sometimes you just have to get out of the way. I think about some friends of ours who had a son a few years that got involved in drug abuse. They kept bailing him and kept helping him out and they got another call he was in trouble again and a bunch of us convinced them, you're enabling him, he will not come back to the light unless you let him hit rock bottom, so they did. Now several years later, he is just a really cool dude and just an around, all American young man, so people, they just want this. It's like that episode in The Waltons where Jim Bob wants to smoke cigarettes and Grandpa Zebulon goes down to the corner store, buys every cigarette and makes him choke on them on Walton’s Mountain. I think we're going to have to let people choke on this until they're ready to hear something different. 

HILL: Steve, I have — 

DEACE: This was supposed to be the revolutionary election and it's between Hillary Clinton and her donor. That’s not an revolutionary, anti-establishment election.

HILL: Steve, we only have about ten seconds left. What will you — A, if you're not going to talk about this, what will you tell your listeners to do in November and what will you discuss? 

DEACE: Oh, we're going to cover it because we have to, but I have no advocate and what it means if we've got to rebuild the foundations. That's what it means. 

HILL: Steve Deace, appreciate your time tonight. Tonight. It's still the afternoon. 

DEACE: Thank you.

HILL: Sorry, Steve. Thanks very much.