Transcripts For CSPAN2 Campaign 2020 Republican National Com

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

Good morning. Im linda, Washington Bureau chief of the Christian Science monitor. Our guest today is Ronna Mcdaniel, chair of the Republican National committee. This is her first appearance at the breakfast we are especially pleased to have her as she represents the Third Generation of the Romney Family to appear at our breakfast. Ms. Mcdaniels late grandfather michigan governor George Romney was our guest several times and in fact he was the guest at the third monitor breakfast 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 launchednn 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 democ

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