Your party announced
that the
first Republican debate
will be in August in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin.
Will candidates
be required to sign a pledge
saying that they will support
whomever becomes the nominee
in order to get on that debate stage?
We haven't put the criteria out,
but I expect a pledge will be part of it.
It was part of 2016
I think it's kind of a no brainer, right?
If you're going to be on the Republican
National Committee debate stage
asking voters to support you,
you should say I'm going
to support the voters
and who they choose
as the nominee as RNC chair.
If I said I wouldn't support
the Republican nominee,
I would be removed from office.
I would
I be rightly removed
to be part of our bylaws
and I would be kicked out as RNC chair.
Anybody getting on the Republican
National Committee debate stage
should be able to say
I will support the will of the voters
and the eventual nominee of our party.
I want you to listen to what former
President Donald Trump said
a couple of weeks ago
in an interview
with conservative radio host Hugh
Hewitt on this very topic.
If you're
not the
nominee, will you support
whoever the GOP nominee is?
It would depend.
I would
give you the same answer
I gave in 2016 during the debate.
It would have to depend on
who the nominee was.
So are you prepared to block the former
presidential candidate in 2016?
I did.
Everybody signed it in 2016.
But this is about the here and the now.
He didn't commit to it.
I think they're all going to sign it.
I really do.
I think the voters
are very intent on winning
and they do not want to see
a debate stage of people
saying I'm not going to support this guy.
I'm not going to support this guy.
What they need to say
is I'm going to do everything I can
to defeat Joe Biden.
And that means supporting
the nominee of the Republican Party.
You can't see a scenario
where Donald Trump
would just skip the debate
if he's forced to sign something saying,
I want to be on the debate stage.
I think President Trump
would like to be on the debate stage.
That's what he likes to do.
And I expect they'll all be there.
I want to look at it
sort of from the other side of this,
which is that others
who are not Donald Trump candidates
like potential candidates
like former Governor
Asa Hutchinson,
they're not happy about this requirement.
He said, quote, For leaders
such as myself who believe
Donald Trump
is not the right direction
for the country.
And I said specifically, the January six
disqualified him.
What would
that would certainly make it a problem
for me to give in across the board
inclusive pledge.
How do you make candidates
like I like him,
given the reality of what has happened on
January six, go against his.
What he's saying is his principle.
I think you support the voters.
The voters get to choose.
And if the Republican voters
pick the nominee,
then everybody on that debate stage
who is running
and the Republican
National Committee debate
in the Republican National Committee
primaries should say, I'm
going to support the nominee.
Listen, I say this all the time, Dana.
I am Mitt Romney's niece
and I was appointed to the RNC
by Donald Trump.
And I would support both support
both of them
if they were the nominee
of our party over Joe Biden.
But I don't know if they would
support each other.
We have to come together as a party.
We saw big races
lost in a
cycle because of Republicans
refusing to support other Republicans.
And unless we fix this in our party,
unless we start coming together,
we will not win in 20, 24.
And I am committed to making sure
we come together as a party.
Understandable.
But at the same time, what you hear
somebody like Asa Hutchinson, who is he
is no moderate.
He is a tried and true
conservative Republican.
Effectively saying is
you would be asking him to put country
to a party over country.
You'd be asking him to put party over.
Oh, I don't see it that way.
That may be how he sees it.
I don't see it that way.
I think if the voters choose
Donald Trump to be the nominee,
if they choose Mike Pence,
if they choose
Mike Pompeo or Asa Hutchinson,
everybody should support the
will of the voters
and we're not going to defeat Joe Biden
if we get in this tit for tat of
I'm not going to support this nominee
and I'm not going to support this one.
So that's why
we want to put this to bed early.
This is a pledge
that's been in existence.
It was there in 2016.
And we should make sure
that every candidate
on the Republican National Committee
debate stage does what I have to do,
which is support the nominee of our party
One more question on this.
How do you enforce it?
Once, once,
once you get
to the point where there is a
presumptive nominee,
the debates are going to be over.
So how do you even enforce this?
We're saying
you're not going
to get on the debate stage
unless you make this pledge.
And I think people in our party
really want to see that.
They want to see us come together.
They don't want the infighting.
And by the way,
it's not a good look, right?
If we're fighting each other.
What young person
I think of my 17 year
old in my 19 year old,
they don't want to see
a Republican Party fighting.
They want to see us talk about
how we're going
to make their lives better.
They're going to come out of college
with a job.
We're going to tackle the border.
We're going to tackle that now.
They don't want to see us infighting.
Let's talk about issues.
That's what we need to get back to.
And that's
how we're going to win in 20, 24.
Any other
requirements that you believe
should be there
when it comes to a threshold?
Oh, I think there should be a threshold,
and that makes sense.
We'll get that out probably closer.
Do you think the debate three,
we're not going
ahead of our debate committee
We've been talking about this
for a year and a half,
but there should be some threshold
the Democrats have that in 2016.
You want to make sure that
people are on the debate stage
who are running for president.
We don't want people
running for book deals
or a media contracts
or cabinet positions.
We want people there
who are running
for president of the United States.
Can you promise.
We we're talking about promises now.
That whomever the Republican nominee is
ultimately
will accept the results in 20, 24.
I expect that
they will accept the results in 2024.
I'm not
I don't know who that person is
right now,
but yes we're going to accept the results
and we're going to move forward
and work to to govern this country.
But I think they're going
to accept the results
because they're going to be
the president.
You talked about book deals
and other reasons why
maybe some candidates have historically
wanted to get on the stage
rather than actually thinking that
they could be president.
We could have a pretty big stage.
Could be a big stage.
Do you think that's good for the party
to have more voices
or will it make it harder to do
what you're saying,
which is unify the party?
Oh, I think it speaks about the deep
bench we have
I mean, we have so many great
governors, senators,
congressional members, business leaders,
a former president.
We have such a great bench of candidates.
I look at the Democrats,
what they're doing to limit
any competition to Biden.
Look at the fact that they just changed
their entire primary schedule.
They made sure that New Hampshire is gone
from being the first
in the nation primary. Why?
Because Joe Biden came in eighth.
So that is a president who's weak,
who's worried about competition
from his own party.
And we have a broad bench
ready to run for president.
Just one sort of philosophical question
that I've been wanting to ask you
you've seen Florida
Governor Ron
DeSantis
taking a really hands on approach
when it comes to the agenda on
what's going on in schools.
For example,
more cultural issues,
pushing to ban funding for diversity
and inclusion programs
at public university,
expanding gender studies, trying to strip
actually stripping Disney
of some of its authority
for those reasons.
You also see some conservatives saying
that's the wrong approach. That is not
the way the
conservative philosophy should be
because we want government
out of your life.
What's your philosophy?
I think that's going to be up
to the voters
as as we get closer into this
and into this process
at the state level or the national level,
they take that to their voters.
I will say
as a mom from the state of Michigan,
my kids wear masks.
They were out of school for two years.
They're dealing with deficits.
I've seen this in our community.
I wish we had a state like Florida
where kids my nieces were in school.
They got the education they deserved.
I think Republicans in general
are looking out for kids, things
like school choice,
making sure that kids have access
to good education.
You accuse President Biden
of using scare tactics
when it comes to Republicans
wanting to cut Social Security
and Medicare.
Mike Pence this past week
who's widely
expected to run for president,
said that he believes that the speaker
he respects
the speaker's commitment
to take Social Security,
Medicare, off the table
for the debt ceiling,
but that in the long term
they should be on the table.
Is that the right approach?
Medicare and Social Security
are off the table.
Speaker McCarthy said this Leader
McConnell has said this.
This is not up for negotiation.
And I'm not going to give the Democrats
any leverage on this
because I get what Mike Pence is doing.
I think the
Speaker McCarthy and Leader
McConnell has said it's off the table.
And to see
President Biden
go in front of the American people
and try and scare them
with something that he knew wasn't true,
it was a lie
Republicans are going to make sure
that we honor our commitment
to Social Security and Medicare.
Before I let you go,
I want to ask about something
that's going on in your home
state of Michigan,
which is the person who took up
took your old job.
You were chair of the party in Michigan.
Christina?
Karamo, she is an election denier.
She on January six
talks about the conspiracies
that happened.
She lost her secretary of state
race by double digits.
Does she represent your party?
And will her presence
as head of the party in Michigan
hurt your chances
in that very important state?
You know, I don't know her very well,
and I wasn't
at this recent convention,
so the delegates chose Kristina.
But I'm committed to Michigan.
It's my state.
I wish you were talking about the power
being out.
We had no power for four days.
We still have 230,000 people in our state
with no power right now.
But we have a Senate seat.
We have House seats.
I love our great state.
And the RNC
is absolutely committed to Michigan.
And should election
denialism be a thing of the past
in order to win places like Michigan,
especially if there's a problem
with an election
we should be able to talk about that.
And I do think
you should be able to say, hey,
tabulator, we got about 20, 20.
But I think we should be able
to talk about issues
that we see in elections.
We should always
be able to talk about that.
I don't think we should be able to.
We should remove that
from the conversation
if people absentee
ballots are not able to vote.
No question.
But I'm talking about the entire word.
I'm looking forward to 20, 24.
And how do we win the Senate
with when we have a much better map,
how do we keep the House
and how do we win the presidency?
And I will say
the path forward is a united
Republican Party.
We've got to find our way to be there.
That's what I want to be as a leader.
I'm going to talk positively,
I'm going to be optimistic
and I want to make sure
that we're putting a vision forward
that lets young people and women
and other people look at our party
as something that they
aspire to be part of.