Trump predicts 'changes' to Ronna McDaniel's leadership at RNC
Former President Trump said in a Sunday interview that he expected to see “some changes” at the Republican National Committee (RNC) when asked about its chair, Ronna McDaniel.
"Sunday Morning Futures" anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Trump in an interview in Florida about Democrats having outraised Republicans, to which Trump responded: "I have a lot of money."
"And the money that they get, people are not looking at the RNC. They want — they want changes. I — you have to understand, I have nothing to do with the RNC. I don't — I'm separate," Trump said.
When Bartiromo asked Trump how McDaniel was doing, he responded: “I think she did great when she ran Michigan for me. I think she did OK initially in the RNC.”
“I would say, right now, there will probably be some changes made,” Trump added.
It was not the first time McDaniel has come under criticism from a GOP presidential hopeful.
During the third GOP presidential primary debate, then-candidate Vivek Ramaswamy publicly called on McDaniel to resign, pointing to the party’s recent election losses. Just a week later, he launched a petition to oust her from her post as RNC chair.
“We’ve become a party of losers, at the end of the day. It is a cancer to the Republican establishment. I speak the truth. I mean, since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022. No red wave; that never came. We got trounced last night in 2023,” Ramaswamy said from the debate podium. “And I think that we have to have accountability in our party.”
“For that matter, Ronna, if you wanna come on stage tonight, you wanna look the GOP voters in the eye and tell ’em you resign, I will turn over my — yield my time to you,” Ramaswamy continued.
McDaniel successfully fought off an effort to oust her from her post last year, winning her fourth term as chair against challenges from California attorney Harmeet Dhillon and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
Yet since then she has again come under criticism for the RNC’s finances and for her leadership. Last month, she faced criticism after saying on Fox News that the Republican party should unite around Trump, who she said was the likely nominee, well before he secured enough delegates to even be the presumptive nominee.
“I’m looking at the math and the path going forward, and I don’t see it for Nikki Haley,” she told Fox News’s Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum in late January. “I think she’s run a great campaign, but I do think there is a message that’s coming out from the voters, which is very clear.”
“We need to unite around our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump, and we need to make sure we beat Joe Biden,” McDaniel added.