Laura Ingraham Grills Ronna McDaniel Over GOP’s Virginia Debacle: ‘They Were Outspent by $8 Million’

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel is facing questions about Republicans’ underwhelming performance at the polls this week.

McDaniel was criticized by Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy during Wednesday’s debate, just a day after Republicans suffered several high-profile defeats. Not only did the GOP fail to flip the Virginia Senate, it lost control of the House of Delegates. In deep-red Kentucky, the party’s nominee failed to wrest the governorship from a Democrat. Meanwhile, in Ohio, voters enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution and voted to legalize recreational marijuana.

The RNC chair has had a tumultuous tenure since ascending to the post in 2017. Democrats retook the House in 2018, and the White House and the Senate in 2020. In last year’s midterms, Republicans underperformed, as they failed to retake the Senate and barely managed to eke out a majority in the House.

Appearing on Friday’s edition of The Ingraham Angle, McDaniel was grilled about Tuesday’s results in Virginia by Laura Ingraham.

“Vivek and others are saying that under your leadership, Republicans have lost election after election, and positing the question, why should you retain your job given the track record of the party under your leadership?” the host observed. “And to that, what do you say?”

McDaniel responded by saying she is going to “continue to focus on Joe Biden and Democrats,” but was eventually interrupted.

“All that all that you just said, I couldn’t agree with more,” Ingraham said. “I know you believe in accountability. You talk about it all the time.”

McDaniel apologized for taking “too long” to answer the host’s question and talked up her record.

“Listen, when Vivek didn’t vote in 2016, I was leading Michigan to the first [Republican presidential election] win in history in 30 years. In 2018, we defied the odds. We got three senators, people like Josh Hawley that allowed President Trump to build the largest conservative majority on the Supreme Court. In 2022, the RNC, which is a turnout machine, right? We’re not the messengers. We don’t create the messages for the campaigns. Those are the consultants who get very well paid–”

Ingraham interjected again and refocused the conversation on Tuesday’s results in Virginia:

INGRAHAM: Well one, of the things that happened was, I think in Virginia, people were wondering where the money was, whether they were gonna get some help from the RNC. And I know at one point you said that you were not asked for money in Virginia.

But a source, a Republican source familiar with the Youngkin team in Virginia told the Angle late tonight that, “That’s false and their” – meaning your – “story keeps changing. Anyone who thinks Virginia Republicans wouldn’t want to help when we knew we’d be outspent isn’t being serious.”

You know, Ronna, they were $8 million.

MCDANIEL: Glenn Youngkin did a phenomenal job and he raised a lot of money. A lot of people don’t understand fundraising. I can’t raise state dollars. I don’t get unlimited convention and state dollars.

INGRAHAM: Yeah.

MCDANIEL: And these were state house and state senate races.

INGRAHAM: I get it.

MCDANIEL: So, I mean, come on. Can you just–

INGRAHAM: All right.

MCDANIEL: These are people who come after me all the time. They’re on Twitter. They’re all the time. And let’s see their results. What did they do in Virginia? How much money did they give?”

INGRAHAM: Yup.

MCDANIEL: But let me stand by something else. In 2022–

INGRAHAM: Ronna.

MCDANIEL: – we took back the House

INGRAHAM: Ronna, we gotta roll.

The host then bid her guest adieu.

Watch above via Fox News.