Transcripts For CSPAN2 Campaign 2020 Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel At... 20240713

[inaudible conversations] all right everybody. Good morning. Ni im linda, washington beer chief of the Christian Science monitor. I guess today is ronna mcdaniel, chair of the Republican National committee. This is a first appearance at our breakfast and were pleased to have her as she represents the thirdr generation of the Romney Family to appear at our breakfast. I didnt know that. Her late grandfather michigan governor George Romney was her guest several times. And we are now over 3900, it was in 1966. Your uncle, mitch romney now senator from utah has also appeared several times. This is a special welcome to you. Now a bit of background and she grew up in michigan and got her start in the Family Business early by helping her Mother Campaign for relatives. She went out west to byu for college but came back to work on her mothers 1934 senate campaign. After graduating she moved to dc and work for a Political Consulting firm and eventually return to michigan, got involved in state politics in 2012 and helped her uncle mitt romney, president ial campaign, and became Republican National Committee Woman for michigan in 2014 and 2015 she was elected chair of the Michigan Republican party. During the 2016 election ms. Mcdaniel served as a delegate to the Republican National convention for donald trump. Soon after his victory she was elected to succeed the rnc chair where she has been ever since. Now for the ground rules. We are on the record but please no live blogging or tweeting. In short, no filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway. Once the session ends at 10 00 oclock there is no embargo. We will email pictures from this breakfast to all the reporters here as soon as we wrap up. As you know if youd like to ask a question send me a signal and i will call on as many of you as time permits. Miss mcdaniel if youd like to make brief opening remarks the floor is yours. Thank you for having me. I do not know that history so that is special. From an rnc perspective we are gearing up for 2020. I think people dont totally understand what a party does and its something i run into a lot. Obviously we are here to elect republicans and it will be a very broad field for us in 2020 with 23 senate seats up on the republican side. We want to take back the house and reelect president donald trump. The first thing that we have to do is raise the fund to put ground game together as you have seen the rnc has exceeded a lot of our past fundraising goals and in october alone raised 25 billion and it brought us to a total of 194 million for the year and thats a record for the rnc. What weve been able to do with those funds is put ourselves in 18 states early and filling out a ground game when we do that we put a state director on the ground and work with our volunteers. The whole focus of the rnc is the tactical nuts and bolts, organizations, of how we engage voters and change their mind and it takes a long time to build out a structure where you can bring in 20 million which is our goal in 2016 with 750,000 to give you a perspective. This is a passion of mine. I started at a precinct delegate work at the state Committee Woman and im not doors, take my kids to knock on doors and i think it builds character and is a little bit of punishment for them. People are nicer to you when you take your children. It is common sense. If you volunteer knock on the door and say i lived in the street and my kids go to School Together and am concerned about the selection kind is happening in our communities and what are the issues that matter to you and kai talk to about the candidates its just more impactful when you knock that door multiple times before the course of the election you have an ability to have a dialogue and conversation that is more meaningful that makes a difference. Building that 2 million person volunteer base will be critical in our success in 2020 and turning out the vote. Voters are less inclined to watch tv or radio and and i dont mean to offend anybody but those oneonone conversations make a big difference and voters dont just turn out. That is that the function of the rnc and we have a huge fundraising advantage over the dnc this quarter or this year we have a Democrat Field aggressively fighting to win a nomination which gives us the distinct advantage to be on the ground early right now. That is our primary focus on 90 of her time is fundraising. I was in florida the other day and every minute i had him on the phone making calls and fundraising to feel this operation and getting out and meeting with our grassroots. Great. Thank you so much. I will kick things off with a few questions on my own and move to reporters around the table. Whats your take away from last nights debate . Did you see any candidates they are the concerns you at all in their ability to take on donald trump . I was surprised more of them did not go after mayor pete with him surging in the polls they do tend to be very gloves off on him right now. I did not have takeaways from last night except i think that the field has still continued, in my opinion, lurked further left. You saw Elizabeth Warren promoting a wealth tax and that was something incredibly catastrophic for countries and how will you text peoples wealth or will you create a new organization and i dont think shes flush that out. Cory booker did not push on that. Nothing i saw was my concern me. I thought joe biden struggled with questions continually to stumble and i thought some of his answers were troublesome. Troublesome in the delivery or content . Enough delivery. Its interesting that he struggles to finish a response and i think that is something that he will i imagine him next to the president if he is upping the nominee and i just think the president will come at him and biden does not seem to be distinct or able to complete his answers and kind of fumbles through. I wanted to ask you about the money thing. Democratic candidates and dark many groups have pledge hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade the democrats data operation and flood key swing states. How is your Party Planning to respond to the latest movement of digital arms race . There are two things i would say. It allows these candidates on the Democrat Field to be selfrighteous and say we dont want any big corporate money or dark money when they know there are billionaires outside letting hundreds of millions into those states. Elizabeth warren took money from lobbyists when she ran for senate and then transferred 10 million in to her president ial campaign. I do think theres a lot of hypocrisy inaccurate from an rnc perspective we obviously cant coordinate with any outside packed group or outside money but raising the money we have raised and putting that into Voter Registration and putting that into getting out the vote early weve registered more than half of the voters that we did in the 2016 cycle. We did that in a three month period and well ahead of the game and the ability we had to legally coordinate with state parties and candidates and gives us a distinct advantage. Yeah, its a challenge that they have so many flooding in and that is why the rnc has to be the best and thats why we are raising record money and working hard to do that. We had a breakfast with the chair and at that time we asked him about the deficit of women in congress, republican women. He insisted the party is doing great in recruiting women and that as of july at least 40 of the total recruits were of the house were female. Do you first of all, why is it so hard were rubbing and struggling to get women elected to congress and what are you doing about it . Rnc does not recruit candidates. We have to stay neutral and weve seen the folly of putting our thumb on the scale with the primary what the dnc did with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders however, i was with Kevin Mccarthy yesterday and they said they recruited 160 women to file for races across country and it was something i dealt with as the michigan chair when i was greeting women and then recruited to run for state house and i dont like paint painting one women with one broad brush and i dont think thats right. We are half of the electorate and we dont all think alike and its not the same reasons but some of the obstacles iran into with women candidates as i was recording them with family, life balance and fundraising and is michigan chair fundraiser coming from being a stayathome mom not being on the golf course and settling going into boardrooms and asking for a significant amount of money and ofttimes had the door shut to my face because i was a part of that community. I still had the passion and ability to do what i needed to do. Honestly we won michigan for the first time in 30 years but getting that initial investment was incredible he difficult. I know what women candidates face because i had to deal with it. I think we have to do a better job finding funding for women candidates and people who will back them. There are groups like the lease was made an effort to get involved in primary groups like winning for women and i think that is something that needs to get stronger and beyond that we have to get more women in our party. I do think the messenger matters and when i talk about education and my kids at school as a mother that resonates. Im not for electing someone just because of their gender by having more women in the dialogue especially over half the country is important. You mentioned a lease so what is your take on her performance . A lease has been a rock star. Shes been incredibly sustained and has been prepared and she has dialed into some important moments with these witnesses and where especially with volker and the other day when she said was their quid pro quo and they said no i think shes been excellent on this committee and [laughter] i forgot to turn on my tape recorder but luckily we have cspan here. We will start first with [inaudible] from Time Magazine at the end of the table. Obviously when im on the road im dealing with major donors but from an Online Fundraising perspective within the first i think 24 hours of the impeachment being launched or announced we raised 5 million online. On the first day of the impeachment hearings we raised 3 million online. There is an absolute influx of small dollar donations and the president continues to have that energy since he was elected and the impeachment has ramped that up. On the major donor side we have continued to see that expand as well and expanded our major donors from 32 of our overall rate and i have not seen a drop off of that and assume that continued to increase. That attributes to the large fundraising numbers that we posted and to have a 25 million october is unheard of at the rnc, actually across any committee especially in an off year heading into an election. [inaudible question] i do. With the kavanaugh confirmation not only that but i started to see donors that had gone offline from the rnc that had not contributed since 2012, 2014 suddenly call and say im back in. They have stayed reengaged. Its the first time during kavanaugh that i had people call and say im going to give you money without calling them. It was magnificent. We are continuing to see that. It is not pulling anyone away and we are watching out. We want to make sure across the whole ecosystem how is this plane and are we losing donations and where are the donors on this and the investment has been a strong as ever which shows this is partisan. If our donors were concerned they would be pulling back but they obviously do not agree with what nancy closely and the democrats have done and are doubling down in support of the president. [inaudible] from npr. [inaudible question] [inaudible question] the bundling program is a campaign function with the Trump Campaign. I know theyve launched it and i think its going very well. A launched early this year and its critical for those small dollar checks toward that president ial on your cap doubt. Other thing that is interesting we dont that first 5600 goes to the campaign so thats not in our numbers for our numbers will be anything beyond that and they have obviously had exceptional fundraising as well. Across the rnc and the Trump Campaign last corner we had 156 million with cash on hand which is a pretty strong number. I did have another question about impeachment. How are you tracking the effect of it on your voters and what are you seen . We went in the field day one just to start getting a gauge and get it week by week. Every week i get numbers and we are in the battleground states and we are not national and does not make sense to be in california or new york. We have seen this last week the president s approval is highest during all of this and we have seen a drop off of democrats and sniffing in the even saying theyd rather see the election to see the results of this and not have the impeachment and independence in the battleground states are breaking our way as well. I think weve seen other polls now back this up. He saw the mining morning counseled poll showing independence by a tenpoint margin have now swung against impeachment and you seen yesterday the poll come out of wisconsin say the president beating democrats and also the gallup poll that showed the president s approval pickup. What we are seen in the public polls is backing up will be seen internally throughout this process. Known water from the washington times. You mentioned you have a goal of 2 million volunteers so where are you right now . I dont know exactly where we are right now. I think we are definitely on track to reach that number been we did just get out the vote and had our National Week of action a year before the election where we are testing in real time our election operation and we did contact a million voters and we have something called the Trump Victory Leadership Initiative where we train and supervise your those who have a six week course on our technology and doorknocking and we want into 2016 and had about 5000 of the tbl i fellows and now we are at 30000 so we are on track to meet the metrics but i dont know specifically where we are. The impeachment question, how should voters, independence, sizing up the election, how should they consider Rudy Giulianis role in what we are hearing now . People elect the president and he has his and ministry should and his cabinet and running things but he is on his own and is there enough accountability there . You saw the congressional members give their customers yesterday and they said the president has the right to enact his Foreign Policy through the channels he deems appropriate. Im not well versed on exactly what Rudy Giulianis role was and that is not my role as rnc chair but obviously the state department and the president and has the right to decide what role they will place individuals increasing Foreign Policy and representing the president. Chris chariton. Can i ask you a foreignpolicy question . Is not really my lane but ill do my best. It came up at the debate and will be a campaign issue. Last night Bernie Sanders and im sure youve heard of him. [laughter] he got a lot of applause for saying this line we are sick im sorry, we must treat the Palestinian People with respect and dignity that they deserve and its got applause from a democratic audience. Does the rnc have a position in the future of palestine or palestinian rights . That is something for the president to determine trade we dont determine foreignpolicy. But its obvious the president has been a great ally to israel with the city of jerusalem and recognizing the golan and strengthening that alliance and partnership. Certainly is party chair in michigan with a big Arab Community you wouldve doubt that in terms of one thing about party chair we are here to elect republicans and we dont create policy process not what i was elected to do. Obviously michigan had a very diverse population so we deal with a lot of different constituents but to say im a policymaker would be inaccurate. Catherine from the wall street journal. Could he talk about the most recent run of elections particularly pennsylvania where resource strong results democrats and want to take from that and does that give you pause about the president s chances there next year . Pennsylvania is a key state so couplings from pennsylvania you saw the southern suburb go more democrats. [inaudible] state acing county and i think the democrats won by 500 votes. Its always a swing county in pennsylvania so that will maintain that role in the western part of pennsylvania. We picked up seats state wide we did win a Supreme Court seat. It split there was a democrat who want antirepublican so i think what we are seen in the democrat areas are getting more democrat and republican are getting more republican. [inaudible question] and we pick out votes and other areas we want a statewide seat for republicans it shows its delay battleground state. We all reckon eyes that pennsylvania will be key. We are on the ground in pennsylvania and doing i spoke at a lincoln day dinner and we will be building up that program and contacting our voters early. Also identifying who are those swing voters. It doesnt make sense and thats part of our data program which is so integral to the rnc and the investment we made with hundreds of millions of dollars into our data to create our compass as to which voters to target because i dont want to spend dollar time or resources sending someone to go knock on the door of someone who will never vote republican. If i see someone knock on my door was a democrat i say come in, lets have lunch, stay here all day because i can provide them for knocking on ten other doors and i know their data completely is false so right now and penciling and we will be identifying that swath of swing voters where they how we will message them and that is where our data will be critical. How will you message them because its a frustration with the president s rhetoric and style. We dont have a democrat candidate. As we go in the suburb and we talk about socials and versus capitalism especially with the Bourbon College educated women. That resonates. They dont want to see a government eliminate the private healthcare plan. Ive been with the same pediatrician with my kids for since i moved back to michigan and my daughter has been 12. I dont want the government coming in and saying i cant keep that doctor and i will lose my private plan and not be able to have the insurance that i have used and that i like to take care of my family. When you talk about those issues in a personal way with those suburban voters you can change the dialogue grid that is why that chilean volunteer base of actively knocking on doors in the neighborhood you live in it makes a difference. We have seen that those conversations can move votes. I want to jump in and ask you about the republican losses in the governors race in kentucky and louisiana. The democrats got reelected. I would not say that a lot. [laughter] although donald trump made three visits on the eve and put himself out there on that but kentucky in particular does that give you cause for concern and its a sign that some grouts are energized . I think everyone is energized. We saw that from that mid terms. Democrats are energized and rebellions are energized. The differences we are organized right now going into 2020 and when you one state at the time we can all be equally organized but when you take the whole country its not the same. Kentucky you did have a governor who was not as popular and everyone knows that the numbers were not great heading into reelection and when you look at the differential between cameron who came in with 200,000 more votes and we won five out of six statewide and when the top of the ticket underperforms the other statewide offices there is something going on. I think the only thing i would extrapolate is the president will then kentucky and will win at mississippi in 2020. These candidates wanted him to come in and campaign because i knew he was a boost for them so someone who is bringing voters they did better because he was there and we will competitive the president is a fighters we will of everyone on the team to win. He never sits back and says you are on your own pretty he always goes in and knows he will take the hit no matter what happened. Louisiana, edwards had six of our present popularity and is an incumbent governor and we had a blast [inaudible] that was of battle from day one but the president is someone who says i will go in and try to help everyone when you come into my state. But you are calling insane can you come into a state because i know it will help. You talked about everybody was energized for the kentucky race and the democrat won in the state that will likely go for the republicans. Kentucky candidates to matter. I dont thank you can take away when you have five republicans went on the ballot you cant say it was a sweep. I would say yeah, you have a point. We lost everything statewide but you cant pull up i like matt seven and he worked really hard but cant pull that out of the equation when he comes in with his height negatives. He is going against the known and a. Kentucky historically doesnt have republican governors. Ernie fletcher and bevin and theyve never reelected a republican in history. Its easy to create a broad narrative and not look at the specifics of the state and the history because people do pick different people to elect based on the candidates. Candidates matter. Candidate matters. It cost me so much money to try to elect a bad candidate and sometimes you cant. The way i described the rncs we are the road. We build the info structure rebuild the best road weve ever built and all the candidates are the cars but im a detroit girl prayed not are equal or made in detroit and not are all my ford explorer. Some of those cars are h some of those are hard to get across the finish line even though we built theth best infrastructure. You say candidates matter and we have this huge array of democrats trying to be the one who will face donald trump next november. I know youre not going to tell us which one but do you in your own might have a a ranking in terms of who might be most electablems against donald trum . Candidly, it varies statebystate. Some of them will perform better in different states. I think what were doing now to bear in advance and expanding our map to be in states we were not in at the same level in 2016 like a minnesota, like new mexico, expanding the map with the resources we have an building the Voter Registration, doing the groundwork we are laying right now will help us. No matter whoho comes out. I hope based on last night and what we areht seeing as more, me people are taking the lead in these different states, you can have the potential different people winning the first three primaries here my dream is its a brokered convention, that it goes to the second ballot, that the superdelegates come in. That would be. Fantastic for us and then that person is not able to access the general election dollars until after their the convention and we haveon a huge head start. A followon. Weve seen a number of candidates rise to the top. We now see me repeat leading i will. What do you think of his rise . Is he going to be the guy . I dont know what to make of it. Ive worked in a lot of president ial campaigns i dont think anybody here can say definitively whats going to happen. It does show ayden has faded. He came into front runner pick it strong numbers and you start to see them fade and Elizabeth Warren went up. I dont think the democratic establishment wants to Elizabeth Warren. They came after her. She started to fade and now you see pete coming up. Pete is a progressive liberal in moderates clothing. He is somebody who raised his hand to give healthcare to illegal immigrants. He isne somebody who said he was to stack the Supreme Court up to 15 judges. This is not somebody who is a moderate. Just because you some south bend, indiana, doesnt making thats i think hes trying to position himself that way as hes campaigning and i will. We will seeos what happens. For me every time i see somebody rise new i think thats great because it means the field is not winnowing. What would a pete buttigieg, donald trump general election look like . What a stark contrast. I think the president wins against pete buttigieg. Is a close . I think he wins big. He doesnt have any Foreign Policy experience. He has not been speeding he was in the military. But he hasnt, as an executive, had the task of sending people to war or conducting himself as the name of south bend. Its the fourth largest the indiana. Id still think youll youll be a strong candidate but well se see. Bridgette bowman from cq roll call over here. I was wondering, he talked about the record fundraising. Im curious how you are ensuring that money goes to down ballot candidates. We some republicans running for the house struggle with this in 2018. Its hard because we are a federal party. We raise federal dollars. I get a lot of requests for statehouse, you know, from a bucket standpoint. Its really tough to give federal dollars to stay campaign, which we have done [inaudible] ime. Sorry. We will definitely helping other house races and the senate races. Part of that will be out get out the vote. As we build a structure statewide in the 17 states with our battleground house races, if youre building ann organizatio, you are helping felt they could because if youre turning of republicans pushing for any candidate, thats going to hellt we are working with the republicans to make sure not replicating, that were not being redundant with our resources. Just to follow up, you for some of the concerns that a bit at the entrance of questions about who iss profiting off of t or the cost of the transactions, things liketh that. This this is the first time e ever created a platform in the republican ecosystem that is competitive. Its not could be competitive right out of the gate. The nr cc, the nyse, the Trump Campaign and the rnc on this platform. It gives us an ability to raise small dollarsth for candidates. Its a critical that candidates havean that ability to go on tvo go to get their message. It is very complex and have to talk about it but theres nobody profiting from t it. Thereod is no back deal conversation. We talked of house members. Weve been very transparent and actually some of the house members that the biggest concerns are now using win red, like Elise Stefanik what had a conversation this week which is helpful to her as her opponent is fundraising. We need to build a competitor and a way to raise the small dollar funds. It been fueled by the president and his capacity to raise small dollars. So bring it that energy into tranten, investment weve made and expanding our email list as well and being able to put these emails out to help candidates has been hugely impactful. Weve raised funds for nominee funds for future candidates that would be running against people like i think that when helpless recruit candidates as oc the money would be there for the general, get to the genital stage. Im wondering how much of this amazing fundraising success the rnc is that lately you attribute to President Trump being the face of the party . If he is the main cause of that, what steps you just address the rnc taking, making sure that fundraising base is there in the future. I think one of the factors that contributed come first of all President Trump been the face of the party is the mvp of fundraising but i do think some of our investment we put in prospecting to actually expanding our email list. We startedxp at 11 million emai. Enough it were not at over 30 million and i dont know if is that public . We are now, weve been expanding our email list. When you small dollar donors that are recovering, you, and the average right now is 40. When you expand that list and you go from 11 to 30 million, thats huge in your monthly revenue. Thats what Bernie Sanders has done and Elizabeth Warren and thats with the president has done at a level weve never seen but thats also part of the parties long term and the strength of the party because that is within the rnc and that will outlast my chairmanship and be a legacy that we leave. Candy rnc sustained the numbers they been putting up for a couple of cycles alleys . It depends on candidates matter and President Trump is been a small dollar fundraising juggernaut and has brought something to party with never seen entrance of that small dollar energy. In terms of the fundamentals of expanding your email list, i say to our house candidates who are using win red can if you have ten emails, you will not raise a lot. You have to have a list your expanding and investing in, not just small dollar donors. You have to invest and expand that list and t that investmento longterm be able to compete with the democrats. A lot of our candidates in 2018 were outspent five, six six to. Think about what that means when youre going on tv and being outspent six six to one and a candidate gets a 33 discount. Thats why we needed to create it and do it quickly so we dont continue to have the huge gap in spending. 30 million for the First Quarter which is a Strong Quarter and that will not be in year one when they been here for over a decade. Think educating the numbers on how to do a conduit page, how to write, how tore be aware we can strike and raise more money, and education and i know ive talked to the house members and many of the candidates about this and i think its beenn instrumental in the truck campaign. [inaudiblest question. [inaudible question] if i fly in with him, if im on the ground beforehand i will speak, if i love going to the rallies, how can you not especially with the energy, with him, hes looking at the speech and making edits the last minute, adding things constantly so the teleprompter have her hands full as those edits are being made and he takes it very seriously and he chooses the music, he reads the speech on the plane over. It seems like theres a lot of releasing going on. He goes off script every once in a while but those are the moments that hes recognizing what the audience is giving him and he ramps them up. He feels very strongly that these people waited in line for hours and i want to make sure i give them everything hes resented of about that. Anyway on a thirdparty standpoint im not seen a thirdparty candidate come along, i dont know, well take a look at the filings, alabama was november 8 on the republican side, i dont know some of the states dont have an ability to file so we just have not seen it used anybody on the democratic side. I do not. Paul reminded me, whats it like, i know you flight your first one, we in the press come on the back of the plane want to see was going on. Its crazy. [laughter] i will say, i never thought id go on air force one in my life, i never their is just a little bit a while every time i get on. Is a hanging out with you. He is serious, hes doing work. Rehearsing his speech or what. The business of theco t m coy and most of the time hes back in his office doing the business of the country, it is not social hour. The president being thehe president. You mentioned early the energy of the impeachment inquiry, and you also mentioned bidens dragon numbers, im wondering if burisma and hunter biden that has been brought up over and over again, do you think its had an eroding effe effect. Weve asked about that in our internal pulley and we seen in a crossed dependence and democrats to be investigated. The hunter biden relationship with burisma and having a jurisdiction over ukraine and saying we will not give a billion dollars of u. S. Support unless you remove the prosecutor. Democrats have gone far to say this is beenn investigated, i dont think the American People feel like it and think its completely looked at. And how did he gets this position, beyond that, what did the Vice President in the prosecutor do to help burisma. I know democrats say its done, i dont think a husband in the eyes of the wicked people. The impeachment inquiry did not happen, and the processing look like its going to follow along the lines and go to the senate and President Trump will still be president from january or february, wouldnt biden have been better off if the democrats decided to walk away . I dont know, i dont think youve seen the democrats come ats each other, they really made an effort except for Kamala Harris in the debate againstst Vice President biden, but they pretty much maintain dont want to attack each other, i dont know that it wouldve been brought up. As i get closer to the critical primaries maybe it wouldve been damaged or came up. I dont know, i cannot say for sure. Its brought awareness that it would not have been brought up without these period hearings. Thank you linda and thank you, madam c chairman. Twoparter, i just thought of this, number one, when you talk about a thirdparty candidate, the Libertarian Party is established around the country any of the possible libertarian candidate from your own state i was not going to bring him up. Other question is simply this, congressman of new york became the 23rd republican to announce he is either retiring or resigning before running for another office. And this is unusually high at this point before an election. Are you worried about other retirees popping up in including one from your home state of michigan . So the combined average of the republican favorability, a plus 14 over the 23 states that have retired. I am not concerned about the retirements where they are but i think will retain most of the seats in a well heard will be battleground. Please remember, we need a smaller number 2foot back house 19, a smaller threshold the nancy pelosi had 2 in 2018, we also have identified 8 million disengage yours who did not show up in the 2018 midterm who voted for President Trump in 2016, so you look at when the president one and when hes on the ballot, he will help with those candidates, i think the recruitment and the and rcc, susan brooks is running out and has done a phenomenal job. Who is retiring. But theyve done a good job recruiting good candidates like a young kim and michelle in minnesota. Like the lesli leslie hunt, thea lot of good recruits that are coming forward and is much less than we had in 2018 with over 40 retirements. That being said, we want to win back the house and were putting the groundwork in place to do that. Also i think california we could win some seats back to the rnc coming we can be more engaged in election day operation. What was the second question . I dont know, were always looking for signs of organization and the battleground states, i dont see aba lot happening but justin is justin and i know himny pretty well and he will do whatever he wants to do and i dont think anybody can predict what that will be. Senator romney has said by all occurrences the president has an unprecedented appeal to china in ukraine to investigate joe biden. President trump has said senator romney is a pompous and who is right, have you spoken to these men who know quite well. Thank you for thatre questio. It is family, this is a different arena. I said these are two grown men very capable, they can work out their differences. Ive been very clear that there was no quid pro quo, the president released the aid without any condition, you heard the phone call, you even saw yesterday sayline no person on the planet told me that the aide was conditioned upon any of the meeting or any investigation. So i think its very strong and the president has incredibly high approval among our party and they want to see him get reelected. You hear the president talk repeatedly about joe biden and rehear Campaign Talk about joe biden, sometimes i think theres no one else in the democratic field and it seems hes quite worried about biden. Do you think that some sense biden would beha the most electn opponents. We talk about all the candidates and put out a lot of opposition on Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, when it comes up especially if we are tracking them on the campaign trail, i dont think anybody can predict what isil happening. So we take them all searcy. How often do you see your uncle mitt romney . How often do you also your uncles. [laughter] i love my uncle, he lived in massachusetts growing up so i saw him a a fair amount but probably most people with uncles, itou depends. But i see him at the senate lunch, my dad was sick a couple months ago and i talked to him s lot when my dad was sick and my dad is fine now. Butt its family stuff and it gets a lot of attention because of of the roles that we are in i think people can relate to them so we just choose not toe talk about it. You not having ethics giving. No there never has been. I never have thanksgiving with mys uncle. And not in a negative way, i usually have things livingg in michigan, i dont know where he has thanksgiving, but we have big families, i am one of seven siblings and what is funny my romney side is one way in my moms side loves, my aunt toby wrote on a piece of paper when trump was a candidate, hes going to win in a landslide and she gave it to me. Yeah you know aunt toby. And they all live in michigan. So the kind of the family and with a lot but he gets a lot of attention, its a tough one. Family stuff is tough. Quinn from abc. To your point earlier about how the democratic field does not seem to be whittling and patrick just got in the race and Michael Bloomberg is keen up for a race, hes launching hundred Million Dollar ad campaigns against the president and pledging between 15 million to 20 million for Voter Registration campaign, he is also not somebody you could paint as a socialist because he used to be republican and now hes an independent and still very moderate democrat im just wondering rnc take on this and if he did not run these campaigns that hes launching with a lot of money behind them. We think Voter Registration is very serious and i think there are billion are democrats who are coming in to try to fill the gap with the d c has been deficient in being able to raise the funds to build the infrastructure. I think there is concerns on their and you are seen not being pushed forward, that being said its outside money, its not able to cordate or work within the candidates directly or with the party or with state parties. I think that hurts them and id like to see democrats weigh in on that, youve Elizabeth Warren saying im pure and im not going to take outside money and so many say that, their party is absolutely allowing outside money to come in and do all these things. I like to see her take that on on the debate stage. We will see what happens. From i understand shes going to skip iowa, New Hampshire for my experience when you plant a flag on the map beyond the momentum of those i early states, usually the momentum, like Rudy Giuliani in florida and used all marco rubio do that last cycle, i think thats not the best idea but we will see what happens. I disagree, i think he is a socialist, he told people what they could drink and what size the pop could be and in new york, i like my big gulp. [laughter] are you asking a mitt romney question. [laughter] of the president ever calls you when youre in air force one and says how do i deal with your own goal, is there any advice you give the president about that or do you talk to your uncle about the president , is there any interaction about that really but completely aside. Im not going to share my interaction with the president but we talk about a lot of Different Things and i will say there has been time where the t president says im sorry have to do this and been very kind. When it gets out in the public and hes very concerned and i know one day and got a little more out there and he called me at 10 30 p. M. And so how are you doing, its a tough day. So i think he does not like to see the have to be pulled into the public arena but mitt and i grew up in a political family, my grandfather obviously had very strong opinions, we had h disagreements whenever we got together for family gatherings, its not as upsetting for us as maybe it is for people outside of it. We have a disagreement and still be family. Did you have a followup . The president likes to talk about his crowds of israelis, as you know, he believes the reflection of his popularity and one thing you notice when you go to his rallies there almost overwhelmingly white, does this concern you that africanamericans are not attracted to this president. I would disagree with that because we pull data from all the rallies, for example the new mexico rally was over 30 hispanic, we are seeing on average about 30 of the attendees are minoritieseres or those so i think the president has a lot to take to the Africanamerican Community to talk to the firststep act and the loan forgiveness for the hbcus and the record low unemployment and african community, and you just saw him do the black voice matter event in atlanta, i think you will see more outreach because the policies of this ministration and how they have improved lives across the country especially in africanamerican and hispanic communities was record low on appointment. You said earlierue in terms combating socialism with collegeeducated women in suburban areas. Will that be the main republican mission under message that you lost in 2018 . I will say from an rnc perspective, we do not do one broad message, for us it is customizing the message promoter. Literally i will knock on lindas door, it would be one different message than your neighbor. That is the beauty of our data. Its allowing us to customize to the voter and target themmiot through digital meal, phones and door knocks. And really have a conversation based on the things that that we know that they care about. I will not take the same message to every single voter, we treat each voter individual. And thats why the Investment Data and crating that is our compass and is been so instrumental. I will say is michigan chair and works at a level that i did not know that would be so successful. We had Macomb County where i was seen early on in our data and doorknocking as we were collateral waiting that in real time with analytics coming from the data and as we were calibrating that with voters in real time we knew something r ws happening in Macomb County that the rest of the country was not seen. That is the importance of the ground game. I think Hillary Clinton relied on data to but she did not calibrated with the ground game and the volunteers knocking on doors in real time recognizing what was happening on the ground and how it was impacting the electorate and to adjust your messaging and hit those doors. A great example i give, when you think about how elections want, who are those people that maybe wont vote, and our world wee dont think about those people. But i went tot church the sundy before primary election in michigan and people were saying who i vote for on tuesday, and im like really, you dont know but theyre coming in then you have for 44 voters in the coming saying on the tuesday election. The having that volunteer base knocking on doors, the example i would give is karen rachel we did the special in 2017, we knew there was a universe of 20000 swing voters that were not identified by party and on the friday before the tuesday election you cannot do another tv piece, you cannot put a mail piece out that will hit them, you cannot put a digital piece out that they will click on to resonate. But you can knock on their doors, we knocked on the doors twice between friday and tuesday and those voters vote for us 2 one, thats why the army of volunteers is so impactful and so important but you cannot just popped up in a month. Training them on technology, teaching them how to knock on the neighborhood, build the relationship, it was a years long process and thats why the ground game we put together now is the earliest and the largest we have ever done prior to an election. Im going to ask about a story the cbs broke a couple days ago about your pitch tor te nominee for 500,000 and he withdrew his nomination. Given the experience, what is your take away on people who donate and they get nominated. Youre always allowed people to as people engage in the political process, no matter where you are in the Obama Administration people who were up for nomination gave two. Youre allowed tore give interviews been counseled otherwise by the state department i dont know that. That is up to him, we have fundraisers in san diego and asked him to get family h membes to give, he sent an email that said once and confirmed, more will come. That was a red flag, we returned the money prior to cbs even airing the story and he is not the ambassador, you cannot do that. You cannot link any type of donation to a future action and we know that. What everybody can participate in the process, there is nothing that is going to be promised onp the backend and once it became a bad situation, the appropriate action was taken, i wish cbs would have said that, this is exactly what should have happened if it looks like paper play and we took absolutely the right step. Given the problem that ambassador sondland has given the president with his testimony in the fact that he was another big donor, do you think that is going to change in the whole situation Going Forward with both parties. This is been historical, their political appointees, career appointees, i followed this in voting against Gordon Sondland and she never went against obama, that being said, i think the president should be allowed to determine who is back to represent him and beaten ambassador once they are elected. And i think that is something that can be determined by congress in the future but having said the president should have the right to determine who is back to represent me and my Foreign Policy in many cases these are going to be trusted aides and many are Business People who had interactions in oithose countries, im not going to highlight our masters because the nugget targets but many of our ambassadors speak the language of the country that certain and theyve done business in the doing a good job. We have reached the end of our hour. Thank you for coming and i hope you will come again. Thank you, thank you for having me. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] will go to close that fridg[ina] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] democratic residential candidate in new york city mayor Michael Bloomberg will be speaking in virginia this afternoon, his First Campaign event since announcing his candidacy for presidency. He is there 2 00 oclock eastern. In continuing the campaign 2020 covered President Trump travels to sunrise florida for a campaign rally. His first rally in the state since changing his residence from new york to florida. Watch live tuesday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. He. The media marketplace has shifted dramatically in the last dozen years or so and the fcc has failed to keep pace. We have the rules in place that assume the entire media marketplace is prebroadcast television stations at night and daily newspaper on your front doorstep on the morning. As were talking, this is a vastly different market. Fcc commissioner tonight at eight eastern on the communicators on cspan2. During the week of thanksgiving we are featuring brick tv program showcasing whats available every weekend on cspan2. We began tonight at 830 eastern with books in Corporate America. Ceo of Dicks Sporting Goods discussed the decision to stop selling guns in its stores. Charles schwab talks about his financial firm, his life and career. In journalism professor pamela, another diversity in Corporate America and other fields is working. Enjoy book to be this endeavor we can on cspan2. President trump held an arts and humanities ceremony at the white house. Among the recipients was john voight and musician alison krauss. Ladies and gentlemen the recipient of the National Medal of art, alison krauss, sharon rockefeller, the human decisio e United States motor, john voig voight