OAN’s Brooke Mallory
5:49 PM – Thursday, November 9, 2023
Vivek Ramaswamy was criticized by Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel for his demand that she resign from her position during the GOP debate the night before.
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On Thursday, McDaniel told Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney that Ramaswamy “is at 4%. He needs a headline.”
After yet another round of poor election results, 38-year-old Ramaswamy spent a portion of his introductory remarks criticizing McDaniel for her leadership of the RNC and labeling the GOP as a “party of losers.”
“Ronna, if you want to come on stage tonight, you want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign. I will turn over my—yield my time to you,” Ramaswamy said.
“The RNC doesn’t do state races; we’re a federal committee. So we weren’t involved in those races on Tuesday,” McDaniel told Varney. “I know that Vivek is kind of newer to the party—he voted for Obama—so he may not know that.”
But, according to Ramaswamy, he did not cast a ballot in any presidential election from 2008 to 2016. Instead, he supported former President Donald Trump in 2020 and Libertarian Michael Badnarik back in 2004.
With an average support score of 4.7% in the RealClearPolitics aggregate, the Ohio native ranks fourth among GOP candidates for 2024.
The RNC chair allegedly had some harsh words for Ramaswamy following his dig at the contender. According to Timcast.com, McDaniel had become enraged, calling Ramaswamy “an a-hole.”
However, on Thursday, an RNC spokesperson denied the rumors that claimed McDaniel made any sort of remark like that. In response, the Ramaswamy campaign reiterated the opinion that “Ronna Romney should resign,” speaking of the RNC chair and calling her by her maiden name.
“Ronna should resign. This shouldn’t be controversial. Instead, she reportedly said the RNC won’t give me ‘one cent’ of funding, which proves my point about RNC corruption. And this morning she is flat-out lying by saying I voted for Obama. Swing-and-miss, but keep trying.”
In addition, McDaniel refuted reports on social media that she approached Ramaswamy for his outburst.
“I’ve heard this reporting. I didn’t speak to Vivek. I have not spoken to him since those comments,” she maintained.
Ramaswamy also took issue with the RNC’s decision to collaborate with NBC News on the third debate, as well as the selection of Lester Holt, anchor of NBC Nightly News, and Kristen Welker, moderator of Meet the Press, as co-moderators with conservative radio personality Hugh Hewitt.
“Think about who’s moderating this debate,” he declared. “This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk. We’d have 10 times the viewership, asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about, bringing more people into our party.”
“I stand by our choice to go with a non-conservative media outlet. I think NBC did a great job,” McDaniel said, doubling down. “Forty-two percent of our country is independent. We’re not going to win elections if we sit in echo chamber[s]…If you can’t take a tough question, then you probably shouldn’t be running for president,” she added.
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