The McDaniel v. Ramaswamy battle continues

RNC chair Ronna McDaniel again defended her record and took a shot at GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy on Sunday, after the conservative entrepreneur called on the party to oust McDaniel and appoint South Carolina GOP Chair Drew McKissick as the party’s interim leader.

“Last I checked I wasn't running for president. You know, he's at 4%. He's looking for headlines,” McDaniel said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Many within the party, “complain of Ronna Romney McDaniel’s leadership, or lack thereof, but they concede that there is not a successor,” Ramaswamy posted on X (formerly Twitter) Saturday evening. “It’s time to stop the culture of surrender and losing: Appoint RNC Co-Chair and South Carolina GOP Chairman @DrewMcKissick as the *interim* RNC Chairman,” Ramaswamy wrote.

In response Sunday, McDaniel slammed Ramaswamy, and other cynics within the the party, for focusing their attacks on other Republicans, instead of taking aim at Democrats.

“This circular firing squad, this attacking other Republicans like we saw with Kevin McCarthy, like we've been seeing over and over again, it is hurting us,” McDaniel said.

Ramaswamy’s Saturday-evening social media campaign against McDaniel was the latest blow in a sparring match he began with McDaniel on the Republican primary debate stage last week.

“We’ve become a party of losers at the end of the day,” Ramaswamy said during Wednesday’s debate. “Since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022, no red wave, that never came. We got trounced last night in 2023,” he added, offering to cede the rest of his time on stage to her if she would be willing to come on stage and resign.