Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna McDaniel responded to calls to resign after a presidential candidate directly told her to do so during Wednesday’s third GOP presidential debate.
Even before the debate, prominent conservatives on social media suggested that Mrs. McDaniel step down. But those calls were punctuated by GOP candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who directly criticized her during Wednesday’s contest and said she was responsible for the underwhelming performance by Republicans during Tuesday’s elections.
Characterizing Republicans as the “party of losers,” Mr. Ramaswamy said that “since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022” with “a red wave that never came.”
“We got trounced last night in 2023, and I think we have to have accountability in our party,” he added, before asking Mrs. McDaniel to go onto the debate stage and resign.
“I’m sick and tired of this Republican establishment that has made us a party of losers,“ the candidate also wrote on X. ”Where is the accountability for years of losing: 2018, 2020, 2022 and now last night? I’m calling on @GOPChairwoman to resign tonight.”
Also during the debate, Mr. Ramaswamy took aim at the mainstream media and NBC, which was hosting the debate. He questioned why the RNC would tap NBC, a corporate news outlet that has shifted to the political left in recent years and has promulgated Trump-Russia collusion claims for years.
“Think about who’s moderating this debate: This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk. We’d have 10 times the viewership, asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about and bringing more people into our party,” he stated.
It wasn’t just Mr. Ramaswamy who has been critical of the RNC head.
“What, exactly, does Ronna McDaniel do, besides lose? The only thing she SHOULD do is RESIGN. Effective immediately,” former Fox News contributor Monica Crowley wrote on X on Tuesday.
Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, on his “War Room” podcast, also called on her to resign this week.
“If Matt Gaetz can vacate Kevin McCarthy, I think it’s time for President Trump to vacate Ronna McDaniel,” popular account DC Draino wrote on X on Wednesday. “Only he has the power to do it at this point.”
Some lawmakers also have started to question her leadership.
“I think Ronna McDaniel’s got a lot of things that she’s got to answer to and she’s got to do it fast. You can’t just say it’s the state parties, even though some of these elections Ohio, Kentucky, the state party has a lot of answers that they need to bring as well. But Ronna is the head of the table. She’s the RNC chair. She’s got to step up,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said in a recent interview.
“She’s got to bring those answers because there does have to be accountability for not just what happened in the last couple of cycles but what we are going to do in 2024.”
Ronna’s Response
During an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, the RNC chairwoman dismissed Mr. Ramaswamy’s remarks and calls to resign.“This Republican-on-Republican infighting—I’m not running for president so I’m not in this primary—isn’t helping our party,” she answered. “We lost races in 2022 because of vitriol within our party. 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.”
Mrs. McDaniel also downplayed Mr. Ramaswamy’s suggestion that the RNC made a tactical error by allowing the third debate to be hosted by NBC. The previous two debates were hosted by Fox News and Fox Business, respectively.
“We’re not going to win elections if we sit in the echo chamber of Republican, Republican media, and don’t talk to other voters about these issues,” she claimed. “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 and took a look at one of our candidates and said, ‘Maybe I’m gonna vote for them.’”
The Epoch Times has contacted the RNC for comment Thursday. Mrs. McDaniel, the niece of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), has served as the organization’s chairwoman since 2017, and she was reelected to a fourth term in late 2022—fending off challenges from lawyer Harmeet Dhillon and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
So far, former President Donald Trump has not commented on the calls for Mrs. McDaniel to step down. However, he has been publicly supportive of the RNC chairwoman, although the former president has been increasingly critical of the RNC for holding the debates and said future ones should be canceled.
President Trump didn’t attend the third debate, again saying that it’s pointless given his dominance in the polls. He also did not attend the first or second debates.
