Exclusive — Vivek Ramaswamy on Ronna McDaniel: ‘Obviously, This Woman Has to Go’

The Republican Party must “practice what we preach” and hold Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna McDaniel accountable, or it cannot expect the rest of the country to believe it when it calls for accountability on greater scales, GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told Breitbart News Saturday.

Appearing on the show mere days after the third Republican presidential primary debate, Ramaswamy spoke about the public call he made during the event for McDaniel to resign following another lackluster Election Day for the GOP — namely, losing the gubernatorial race in Kentucky Tuesday night.

“Here are the facts — and I’m not a politician, I’m a businessman — looking at this as a CEO or an investor: 2017, Ronna McDaniel takes over; 2018, loss; 2020, loss; 2022, no red wave; 2023, trouncing relative to what should have happened across this country,” Ramaswamy said, asking, “Where’s the accountability?”

RELATED — Vivek Slams RNC for Picking NBC for Debate, Calls for McDaniel’s Resignation: “Party of Losers”

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“Do you seriously believe this is the best person? I’m a believer in meritocracy. America is founded on meritocracy. It’s why my presidential campaign — I’m the most vocal opponent of affirmative action in America, race-based quota systems in universities or corporate America. But as the guy who stands for meritocracy, I think our party has to practice what we preach,” he said, again questioning if McDaniel is truly the best person to serve as RNC chair.

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“Obviously, this woman has to go, and if there’s no accountability in our party, then we have no standing to preach to the rest of the country about accountability and government or meritocracy elsewhere,” he continued, emphasizing that he is not part of what he described as the “buddy-buddy, back-slapping donor-corrupted network that has stultified the Republican Party.”

Ramaswamy said this shows that the GOP truly needs an outsider who is not from a political background but from the “world of business.”

He added that he will continue to call for McDaniel to step down until she does so.

“We need accountability. We need new leadership ahead of next year. There’s an RNC meeting in January. I think that should happen against the backdrop of a clean slate” without McDaniel at the helm, he said.

“You know, I think we’re going to make that happen,” he said, explaining that he is looking for a replacement who is “scrappy” and not a “professional bureaucrat.”

“[It should be] somebody who’s entrepreneurial [and] does what it takes to win. There’s kind of an old expression I learned growing up as a competitive tennis player: either you win, or you leave blood on the court. Right now, we’ve done neither, ok, for four cycles that I just mentioned,” Ramaswamy said.

“So it’s got to be a scrappy, entrepreneurial, not a bureaucrat. Somebody who has to be convinced to do this role. Ok? It’s not — it can’t be somebody who’s viewing it as their career… think those qualities, I think Ronna fails on all of them. But I think that there are plenty of people out there who fit those descriptions and those qualities. Somebody who executes. Ideally, somebody who only wants to do it for one or maximally two terms but really is doing it as an act of service. And I think somebody who understands that we have to compete and be measured on the result, somebody who has actually been willing to measure on results,” he added, emphasizing that GOP voters are sick of hearing lame excuses as to why Republicans are losing.

“One person has been the chair the whole time,” Ramaswamy continued, further emphasizing that the RNC needs “somebody who’s also willing to be held accountable with their feet to the fire. And so I think that there’s a lot there, but I think that that’s doable,” he said, calling out McDaniel for threatening to withhold money from him after his critiques at the debate.

“She treats it like it’s her money, and it’s not her money. It doesn’t belong to her. So it has to be somebody who understands that they’re serving the voters, not themselves. And I think right now, the RNC and the Republican establishment is badly out of touch with its base,” he said. “I think we need somebody who understands where the GOP voter base is. And if we did have an RNC that did that, it wouldn’t have been Kristen Welker from NBC News with…the Trump-Russia collusion hoax” moderating the debate, he pressed.

Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.