Ronna McDaniel Says ‘Tension’ With Trump Over Primary Debates Led to Her Ousting

Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel says the decision to hold presidential primary debates put the committee at odds with former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

President Trump, she said, “really did not feel like we should have debates—he said this publicly.” She added that she fielded “a lot of phone calls” over the matter, from both Trump campaign staffers and the former president himself.

At the same time, President Trump’s supporters had also been vocal about their frustration with the RNC, urging others not to donate to the committee or watch the debates.

“Listen, there are a lot of people who support President Trump in our party. But there are others who didn’t, and they needed to see that process to play out to say, ‘This was fair, my candidate was given an opportunity to speak to the American people, the voters decided, and this is the nominee,’” Ms. McDaniel said.

“And because we let that process play out, he’s the nominee without a third party running against him—which is the opposite of what the Democrats did,” she added.

A New Direction

Ms. McDaniel resigned from her role as chair earlier this month amid rising dissatisfaction within the Republican Party over disappointing election results and the RNC’s anemic fundraising.

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President Trump, now the GOP’s presumptive nominee, was among those who expressed a desire for new party leadership. In February, before Ms. McDaniel announced her intention to resign, he backed North Carolina GOP Chair Michael Whatley as her replacement and his own daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair. The two were unanimously elected to those positions on March 8.

Asked if she was forced out of her role, Ms. McDaniel said the former president “absolutely wanted” her to move aside and make way for Mr. Whatley and Ms. Trump.

Since taking the reins, the new leaders have formed a new joint fundraising committee with the Trump campaign that will first direct donations to his campaign and the Save America political action committee, which helps pay his legal expenses. Once those contributions are maxed out, the rest will go toward the RNC and state Republican parties.

When asked if it was “appropriate” for donors to be paying the former president’s legal bills, Ms. McDaniel said she thought it was, “as long as the donors know that that’s what they’re doing.” She also noted that the agreement shows the RNC has been truthful in stating that it would not pay the president’s legal fees, as those funds are being directed to the Save America PAC.

Asked if she agreed with President Trump’s pledge to free some Jan. 6 prisoners upon his return to the White House, the Michigan Republican said, “I do not think people who committed violent acts on Jan. 6 should be free.”

Describing that day as “a dark day in our history,” she said the actions taken didn’t represent the United States or the Republican Party. But when pressed on why she hadn’t spoken out earlier on her differences with President Trump on the issue, she said her position at the RNC had limited her ability to do so.

“When you’re the RNC chair, you kind of take one for the whole team, right? Now, I get to be a little bit more myself,” she said, adding that she did not think violence should be part of the nation’s political discourse.

As for that election, Ms. McDaniel contradicted President Trump’s claims that it was stolen.

“The reality is, Joe Biden won. He’s the president—he’s the legitimate president. I have always said and I continue to say there were issues in 2020. I believe that both can be true.”

These comments raised a stir among Republicans, many of whom agree with the former president that the election was likely rigged in President Joe Biden’s favor. Republicans were also reacting to the fact that Ms. McDaniel’s interview followed news that she had accepted a position with NBC News as a contributor.

That revelation didn’t appear to go over well at the network, either, where some hosts slammed Ms. McDaniel’s hiring on air.

“We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring but, if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons,” Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” said on March 25.

His co-host and wife, Mika Brzezinski, also commented.

“To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage,” she said. “But it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier.”

Calling on the network to reconsider, Ms. Brzezinski added, “It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor.”

Austin Alonzo contributed to this report.