Ronna McDaniel Blasts Charlie Kirk, Accuses Him of Trying to ‘Take Over the RNC’
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Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and Charlie Kirk, the founder of pro-Trump organization Turning Point USA, exchanged barbs this week as Kirk openly boosted the candidate trying to replace McDaniel and McDaniel accused Kirk of trying to “take over the RNC.”
Earlier in the week, Kirk’s Turning Point USA held a conference called AmericaFest, where the group conducted a straw poll as to who should lead the RNC.
The group spent much of the event boosting hardliner Harmeet Dhillon ahead of the poll, which saw Dhillon win with 58 percent support. McDaniel reacted on Wednesday in an interview with Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade, saying, “This is Turning Point and Harmeet trying to take over the RNC.”
“They do great conferences,” McDaniel said of Turning Point, but asked, “How many young voters did they register? How many youth voters turned out this cycle? How about the college kids in Arizona, where they are headquartered?”
Turning Point, which promotes the hard right of the GOP and ended their most recent conference with a bomb-throwing address by Steve Bannon, competes with the RNC for donors and hosts events throughout the year.
Kirk sent an email to the 168 members of the RNC earlier in the week, openly vowing to recruit candidates to run against GOP leaders he sees as not sufficiently on message.
“How do we plan to win in 2024 if you so boldly reject listening to the grassroots, our donors, and the biggest organizations and voices in the conservative movement?” Kirk wrote, in the email obtained and published by The Washington Post on Friday.
“If ignored, we will have the most stunted and muted Republican Party in the history of the conservative movement, the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations,” Kirk, who regularly dabbles in conspiracy theory, added.
The Post noted that some RNC members took aim with some of the more bombastic claims in Kirk’s email. José Cunningham, an RNC member from D.C., hit back, writing, “Harmeet, you claim we’re your friends and colleagues. Are you really okay with someone accusing of us being a ‘cartel?’ Where are the ‘smoke-filled rooms,’ Harmeet? I’ve never seen them.”
Emma Vaughn, a spokeswoman for McDaniel, released a statement detailing McDaniel’s reasoning for seeking another term as RNC chair. Vaughn claimed that the GOP has “rallied around the chairwoman because of her unprecedented investments in the grassroots, election integrity, and minority communities, and for taking on Big Tech and the biased Commission on Presidential Debates.”
McDaniel “will continue speaking with each and every member about how the party can continue building upon our investments and make the necessary improvements to compete and win in 2024,” Vaughn concluded.
