RNC chairwoman to Ramaswamy: You want to take me on — I’m focused on taking on Biden

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel responded to 2024 GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy‘s numerous calls for her resignation, including his launching of a petition Wednesday to push for her to step down.

“I would say to Vivek, ‘I understand you want to take me on. I’m focused on taking on Joe Biden.’ He’s ruining the country and destroying lives of millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck,” McDaniel said to Fox News’s John Roberts.

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She continued, “Republicans are really sick of this infighting. We just saw it with the speakers race. It’s a losing strategy if we are hitting each other.”

The GOP chairwoman had previously said Ramaswamy was “looking for headlines.”

On Wednesday, the Republican presidential candidate unveiled FireRonna.com, just a week after he called for her resignation during the third GOP presidential debate because of the disappointing November election results in Kentucky, Ohio, and Virginia.

“I am sick and tired of this Republican establishment that has made us a party of losers. Where is the accountability for years of losing: 2018, 2020, 2022, and now 2023,” Ramaswamy said in a statement. “On the debate stage, I called on Ronna Romney McDaniel to resign.”

He added, “Now I’m asking grassroots conservatives across the nation to join me so she can feel the power of the people. It’s time to stop the culture of surrender and losing. Resign, Ronna!”

When Roberts pressed McDaniel about the election losses, she blamed the messaging of the candidates, particularly on abortion.

“It’s going to be the candidates. Candidates have to be comfortable and say, ‘Listen, I’m proud to be pro-life, the party of pro-life,’ but post-Roe [v. Wade], we need to come to consensus, have the concessions for rape, life, and incest,” she said. “Democrats won’t meet me there. They are on the extreme. We are willing to come to consensus.”

She pointed to Virginia’s election losses because Republican candidates were outspent 9-to-1 and people were “not getting the message” from the candidates.

“Democrats are spreading lies about Republicans. And Republicans’ consultants, not the RNC, have to tell their candidates to go on TV, and then we can talk about the border, inflation, independence, all the things Democrats can’t win on,” McDaniel said Wednesday.

The GOP chairwoman had told WMAL that she was told from Virginia that they didn’t need the RNC’s financial help in the 2023 elections.

“The RNC is not a state committee; we are a federal committee. Your candidates can take unlimited state dollars, and your governor can take unlimited state dollars. And he actually said we don’t need you guys here,” McDaniel said last week.

“We were told in the summer that they didn’t need us. They had all of the money and they were good,” she added.

Virginia GOP Chairman Rich Anderson responded, confused by her answer.

“We sat down with [the RNC staff], and they explained to us that being a down year, it is difficult for them to fundraise because, although it’s not a down year [in Virginia], it’s a down year everywhere else. And so they declined the request at that point,” Anderson said last week.

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Anderson continued, “The last thing I would do is say: ‘We don’t need your help.'”

He wondered if Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) Spirit of Virginia PAC may have communicated the opposite of the Virginia GOP’s request.