Chairwoman McDaniel of the RNC expresses concern over party infighting.

November 9, 2023 TruthUSA

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, dismissing calls from presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy during Thursday night’s RNC debate for her resignation, said the GOP must stop “infighting” as it is “not helping” the party.

“This Republican-on-Republican infighting — I’m not running for president so I’m not in this primary — isn’t helping our party,” McDaniel told CNN after the debate Thursday night, The Hill reported.

“We lost races in 2022 because of vitriol within our party,” she added. “We need every Republican and then some to win elections. And the Republican voters want to hear us talk about the border, fentanyl, Israel, our kids, crime, inflation, and they want to see us take on Joe Biden.”

Ramaswamy blasted McDaniel during Thursday night’s debate, hosted by NBC News, saying that after she took over as the RNC chair in 2017, “We have lost in 2018, 2020, 2022 … we got trounced last night in 2023. And I think that we have to have accountability in our party.”

Ramaswamy further offered to yield his time on stage to her if she would “look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign.”

Ramaswamy also criticized the “corrupt media” in his opening remarks and said there should be more conservative moderators, not NBC News, moderating the debate because they would be “asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about.”

McDaniel rejected that argument as well.

“We’re not going to win elections if we sit in the echo chamber of Republican media, and don’t talk to other voters about these issues,” she told CNN. “Tonight, people maybe for the first time watching NBC heard that 75,000 people died of fentanyl last year. Maybe they learned things about our party that they haven’t heard … that’s what we have to do as a party. And if you can’t take a tough question, then you probably shouldn’t be running for president.”

McDaniel also addressed the criticism she’s facing after Tuesday’s party election losses in Kentucky and Virginia, as well as Ohio’s vote for an amendment to the state’s constitution to allow abortions.

She said her committee is a federal committee that is not as involved in state races, but noted that the candidates in the lost contests were being “pummeled with advertising” that lied about their stance on abortion, and “they did not respond.”

“If you do not respond, a lie becomes the truth,” McDaniel said. “Our candidates need to be conversant and able to get on TV and articulate where they stand on abortion, and talk about other things.”

She noted that many party consultants are advising candidates to “ignore” the abortion issue, but “if you watch the Virginia ads, it was about abortion, abortion by the Democrats and crime, crime from the Republicans. We are going to need to talk about this issue because women across this country care about this issue. I know this because I am a suburban woman.”