NBC’s Welker on Fmr. RNC Chair Ronna McDaniels: I Was Not Involved in Her Hiring

WELKER: “I’ll be joined by former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel in her first interview since stepping down as party chair. In full disclosure to our viewers, this interview was scheduled weeks before it was announced that McDaniel had become a paid NBC News contributor. This will be a news interview and I was not involved in her hiring. This week, we learned just how much Trump’s grip on the Republican Party is impacting the GOP’s bottom line. The Biden campaign reported it has more than double the cash on hand of the Trump campaign, while the president himself has sharpened his attacks against his predecessor over his mounting legal debts. As those legal bills are growing, Trump has a new joint fundraising effort with the Republican National Committee that will filter donations to both his campaign and the super PAC paying his legal fees before the RNC even gets a cut. With Trump installing two hand-picked loyalists to run the RNC, Michael Whatley and his daughter-in-law Laura Trump, the party is now fully formed in Trump’s image.”

[Clip starts]
WHATLEY: “We are going to determine the fate of not only the United States, but of the entire world. And this body, the RNC, is going to be the vanguard of a movement that will work tirelessly every single day to elect our nominee Donald J. Trump.”
(...)
L. Trump: “We are going to make sure that every single penny of every dollar raised goes towards one goal, which is winning.”
[Clip ends]

WELKER: “Joining me now is former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel. Ronna, welcome back to ‘Meet the Press.’ Thank you for being here.”
McDANIEL: “Great to be with you. Thanks for having me.”
WELKER: “Let’s dive right into this and start with your decision to step down as RNC chair. If you can, take me behind the scenes a little bit. Were you pushed out of your role?”
McDANIEL: “Well, there’s no question that, as RNC chair, you have to remain neutral, and we had a primary process. And so we did have debates, right? We had debates, and there was tension and a little friction that started during that process. It was well played out in the media. And I knew at that point, when I was doing that role and we were going to have debates, that when the nominee came forward — and it was likely to be President Trump, that they would want a switch. And that’s his right as nominee.”
WELKER: “And — and so were you pushed out by him?”
McDANIEL: “He absolutely wanted me to move aside and wanted Michael Whatley and Lara Trump to come in.”
WELKER: “And you say you were neutral. You did put out that statement before he was officially the presumptive nominee, effectively calling on Nikki Haley to step out of the race. Can you say you were really neutral?”
McDANIEL: “I can. I mean, we had a neutral primary. We had debates. I mean, look at the Democrats. They didn’t have debates. Now they have RFK Jr. Running as a third party. Imagine how the world would be different if they’d have allowed those debates to take place. I think that’s so important to our public discourse. So, yes, I was neutral. But, as I said at that time, there was no math and no path, and that was true. And so we did need to consolidate — consolidate behind the nominee, and that’s what I did.”