Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel defended her actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election, saying the “contingent electors” were not unprecedented and that they were only selected in the event the legal challenges succeed.
McDaniel said on NewsNation’s The Hill on Thursday that she stands by her actions, despite her name being mentioned in the latest indictment against former President Donald Trump in Fulton County. The RNC chairwoman has not been charged in any of the Trump cases.
TRUMP’S ‘MOST DANGEROUS CASE’ IN GEORGIA COULD ALSO BE THE LONGEST DELAYED
“I will say this, and I’ve said this very clearly, these were considered contingent electors. This is something that has been done in our history with Hawaii, and they were based on legal challenges that were still ongoing that may have changed the outcome of the state and changed the state so that these contingent electors would be seated,” McDaniel said. “That’s it. That’s very clearly outlined in the DOJ indictment that that’s what the RNC was told, and I stand by that.”
McDaniel’s name appears in the Fulton County indictment in reference to a Dec. 8, 2020, phone call involving herself, Trump, and lawyer John Eastman, in which they requested McDaniel’s help gathering an alternative slate of electors for Georgia to vote for Trump rather than President Joe Biden, who won the state.
Trump was indicted by a Fulton County grand jury on Monday on 13 counts, along with 18 others, as part of the alleged racketeering scheme.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, speaking in a late-night press conference earlier this week, said Trump and his co-conspirators were working to “accomplish the illegal goal of allowing Donald J. Trump to seize the presidential term of office beginning on Jan. 20, 2021.”
When asked if she heard definitively if Trump will attend the Republican debate on Wednesday, McDaniel said she had not heard either way. McDaniel did say the deadline for candidates to let the RNC know of their participation, pending qualification, is Monday.
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“Well, there is a deadline from a Secret Service standpoint, from a staging standpoint for all the candidates, so that Monday night before the debate is when all the criteria has to be met in order to make the debate stage, which is the polling threshold and the small-dollar donor threshold,” McDaniel said. “Obviously, the pledge. And so, if we haven’t heard by then, we’ll have a set debate stage.”
Other Republican presidential candidates, including Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have confirmed their attendance at the debate scheduled for Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern time in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trump openly questioned why he should attend the debate in a post on Truth Social on Thursday, arguing, “I’m your man.”
