Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele endorses Joe Biden for president

In an ad posted to Twitter by the organization, Steele held up a ballot, saying it was “how we restore the soul of our nation.” He called Biden a “good man” and Sen. Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate, a “trailblazer.”

“America or Trump?” he asked. “I choose America.”

In the past, Steele has expressed skepticism of the efficacy of Republican opposition to President Trump. In March 2016, Mitt Romney delivered a speech denouncing then-candidate Trump. Prior to the speech, Steele appeared on MSNBC.

“I don’t know why they think this is going to work in the first place,” he said. “I don’t know who they think this is going to influence in the second place. Keep in mind, Mitt Romney lost 3 million Republicans who did not even bother to show up at the polls in 2012 to vote for him because they did not support his campaign. So now, to double back and to go after the very guy who has brought them back into the party — I mean, you cannot lose sight of the fact that regardless of what you think about Donald Trump and feel about him, the establishment is going to need this man even if he’s not the nominee because he’s bringing voters back in who’ve not been a part of this process and have not participated for some time.”

However, in October of the same year, Steele expressed his displeasure with Trump, saying he would not vote for him but that he wouldn’t vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton either.

In an op-ed for NBC, Steele said that he still believes in the ideals of conservatism but that Trump has not lived up to them.

“Rather than binding up the nation’s wounds, Trump exacerbates division,” he asserted. “Rather than standing up to the world’s dictators, Trump cravenly seeks the favor of thugs. Rather than fostering free enterprise, Trump embraces economic principles not only outdated in Lincoln’s time, but made even worse today by a leader who lost close to a billion dollars in a single year running a casino. Rather than seeking to build on the legacy of the Republican Party’s founders, of which Trump is surely ignorant, Trump has posited a single purpose for the GOP — the celebration of him. Consequently, America has watched as the Republican Party stopped pursuing its animating principles of freedom and opportunity. It has given up its voice on things that mattered and instead bent the arc of the party towards the baser motives of one man, who is neither a Republican nor a conservative.”

Steele served as chairman of the RNC from 2009 to 2011 and is the only black person to have served in that position.