inquiries is having on the rnc campaign efforts.

>> good morning. i'm linda, washington bureau chief of the christian science monitor. our guest today is ronna mcdaniel, chair of the republican national committee. this is her first appearance at the breakfast we are especially pleased to have her as she represents the third generation of the romney family to appear at our breakfast. ms. mcdaniel's late grandfather michigan governor george romney was our guest several times and in fact he was the guest at the third monitor breakfast and we are now over 3900, it was in 1966. your uncle, mitch romney now senator from utah has also appeared several times. this is a special welcome to you. now a bit of background and she grew up in michigan and got her

start in the family business early by helping her mother campaign for relatives. she went out west to byu for college but came back to work on her mother's 1934 senate campaign. after graduating she moved to dc and work for a political consulting firm and eventually return to michigan, got involved in state politics in 2012 and helped her uncle mitt romney, presidential campaign, and became republican national committee woman for michigan in 2014 and 2015 she was elected chair of the michigan republican party. during the 2016 election ms. mcdaniel served as a delegate to the republican national convention for donald trump. soon after his victory she was elected to succeed the rnc chair where she has been ever since. now for the ground rules.

we are on the record but please no live blogging or tweeting. in short, no filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway. once the session ends at 10:00 o'clock there is no embargo. we will e-mail pictures from this breakfast to all the reporters here as soon as we wrap up. as you know if you'd like to ask a question send me a signal and i will call on as many of you as time permits. miss mcdaniel if you'd like to make brief opening remarks the floor is yours. >> thank you for having me. i do not know that history so that is special. from an rnc perspective we are gearing up for 2020. i think people don't totally understand what a party does and it's something i run into a lot. obviously we are here to elect republicans and it will be a very broad field for us in 2020 with 23 senate seats up on the republican side. we want to take back the house

and reelect president donald trump. the first thing that we have to do is raise the fund to put ground game together as you have seen the rnc has exceeded a lot of our past fundraising goals and in october alone raised $25 billion and it brought us to a total of 194 million for the year and that's a record for the rnc. what we've been able to do with those funds is put ourselves in 18 states early and filling out a ground game when we do that we put a state director on the ground and work with our volunteers. the whole focus of the rnc is the tactical nuts and bolts, organizations, of how we engage voters and change their mind and it takes a long time to build out a structure where you can bring in $20 million which is our goal in 2016 with 750,000 to

give you a perspective. this is a passion of mine. i started at a precinct delegate work at the state committee woman and i'm not doors, take my kids to knock on doors and i think it builds character and is a little bit of punishment for them. people are nicer to you when you take your children. it is common sense. if you volunteer knock on the door and say i lived in the street and my kids go to school together and am concerned about the selection kind is happening in our communities and what are the issues that matter to you and kai talk to about the candidates it's just more impactful when you knock that door multiple times before the course of the election you have an ability to have a dialogue and conversation that is more meaningful that makes a difference. building that 2 million person volunteer base will be critical in our success in 2020 and turning out the vote. voters are less inclined to watch tv or radio and and i don't mean to offend anybody but

those one-on-one conversations make a big difference and voters don't just turn out. that is that the function of the rnc and we have a huge fundraising advantage over the dnc this quarter or this year we have a democrat field aggressively fighting to win a nomination which gives us the distinct advantage to be on the ground early right now. that is our primary focus on 90% of her time is fundraising. i was in florida the other day and every minute i had him on the phone making calls and fundraising to feel this operation and getting out and meeting with our grassroots. >> great. thank you so much. i will kick things off with a few questions on my own and move to reporters around the table. what's your take away from last nights debate? did you see any candidates they are the concerns you at all in their ability to take on donald

trump? >> i was surprised more of them did not go after mayor pete with him surging in the polls they do tend to be very gloves off on him right now. i did not have takeaways from last night except i think that the field has still continued, in my opinion, lurked further left. you saw elizabeth warren promoting a wealth tax and that was something incredibly catastrophic for countries and how will you text people's wealth or will you create a new organization and i don't think she's flush that out. cory booker did not push on that. nothing i saw was my concern me. i thought joe biden struggled with questions continually to stumble and i thought some of his answers were troublesome. >> troublesome in the delivery or content?

>> enough delivery. it's interesting that he struggles to finish a response and i think that is something that he will -- i imagine him next to the president if he is upping the nominee and i just think the president will come at him and biden does not seem to be distinct or able to complete his answers and kind of fumbles through. >> i wanted to ask you about the money thing. democratic candidates and dark many groups have pledge hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade the democrats data operation and flood key swing states. how is your party planning to respond to the latest movement of digital arms race? >> there are two things i would say. it allows these candidates on the democrat field to be self-righteous and say we don't

want any big corporate money or dark money when they know there are billionaires outside letting hundreds of millions into those states. elizabeth warren took money from lobbyists when she ran for senate and then transferred 10 million in to her presidential campaign. i do think there's a lot of hypocrisy inaccurate from an rnc perspective we obviously can't coordinate with any outside packed group or outside money but raising the money we have raised and putting that into voter registration and putting that into getting out the vote early we've registered more than half of the voters that we did in the 2016 cycle. we did that in a three month period and well ahead of the game and the ability we had to legally coordinate with state parties and candidates and gives us a distinct advantage. yeah, it's a challenge that they have so many flooding in and that is why the rnc has to be the best and that's why we are raising record money and working hard to do that.

>> we had a breakfast with the chair and at that time we asked him about the deficit of women in congress, republican women. he insisted the party is doing great in recruiting women and that as of july at least 40% of the total recruits were of the house were female. do you -- first of all, why is it so hard were rubbing and struggling to get women elected to congress and what are you doing about it? >> rnc does not recruit candidates. we have to stay neutral and we've seen the folly of putting our thumb on the scale with the primary what the dnc did with hillary clinton and bernie sanders however, i was with kevin mccarthy yesterday and they said they recruited 160 women to file for races across country and it was something i dealt with as the michigan chair when i was greeting women and then recruited to run for state

house and i don't like paint painting one women with one broad brush and i don't think that's right. we are half of the electorate and we don't all think alike and it's not the same reasons but some of the obstacles iran into with women candidates as i was recording them with family, life balance and fundraising and is michigan chair fundraiser coming from being a stay-at-home mom not being on the golf course and settling going into boardrooms and asking for a significant amount of money and ofttimes had the door shut to my face because i was a part of that community. i still had the passion and ability to do what i needed to do. honestly we won michigan for the first time in 30 years but getting that initial investment was incredible he difficult. i know what women candidates face because i had to deal with it. i think we have to do a better job finding funding for women candidates and people who will back them. there are groups like the lease

was made an effort to get involved in primary groups like winning for women and i think that is something that needs to get stronger and beyond that we have to get more women in our party. i do think the messenger matters and when i talk about education and my kids at school as a mother that resonates. i'm not for electing someone just because of their gender by having more women in the dialogue especially over half the country is important. >> you mentioned a lease so what is your take on her performance? >> a lease has been a rock star. she's been incredibly sustained and has been prepared and she has dialed into some important moments with these witnesses and where especially with volker and the other day when she said was their quid pro quo and they said no i think she's been excellent on this committee and --

[laughter] >> i forgot to turn on my tape recorder but luckily we have c-span here. we will start first with [inaudible] from time magazine at the end of the table. >> obviously when i'm on the road i'm dealing with major donors but from an online fundraising perspective within the first i think 24 hours of the impeachment being launchednn online. on the first day of the impeachment hearings we raised 3 million online. there is an absolute influx of small dollar donations and the president continues to have that energy since he was elected and

the impeachment has ramped that up. on the major donor side we have continued to see that expand as well and expanded our major donors from 32% of our overall rate and i have not seen a drop off of that and assume that continued to increase. that attributes to the large fundraising numbers that we posted and to have a $25 million october is unheard of at the rnc, actually across any committee especially in an off year heading into an election. [inaudible question] >> i do. with the kavanaugh confirmation not only that but i started to see donors that had gone off-line from the rnc that had not contributed since 2012, 2014 suddenly call and say i'm back in. they have stayed reengaged.

it's the first time during kavanaugh that i had people call and say i'm going to give you money without calling them. it was magnificent. we are continuing to see that. it is not pulling anyone away and we are watching out. we want to make sure across the whole ecosystem how is this plane and are we losing donations and where are the donors on this and the investment has been a strong as ever which shows this is partisan. if our donors were concerned they would be pulling back but they obviously do not agree with what nancy closely and the democrats have done and are doubling down in support of the president. >> [inaudible] from npr. [inaudible question] [inaudible question] >> the bundling program is a campaign function with the trump

campaign. i know they've launched it and i think it's going very well. a launched early this year and it's critical for those small dollar checks toward that presidential on your cap doubt. other thing that is interesting -- we don't -- that first 5600 goes to the campaign so that's not in our numbers for our numbers will be anything beyond that and they have obviously had exceptional fundraising as well. across the rnc and the trump campaign last corner we had 156 million with cash on hand which is a pretty strong number. >> i did have another question about impeachment. how are you tracking the effect of it on your voters and what are you seen? >> we went in the field day one just to start getting a gauge and get it week by week. every week i get numbers and we are in the battleground states and we are not national and does not make sense to be in california or new york.

we have seen this last week the president's approval is highest during all of this and we have seen a drop off of democrats and sniffing in the even saying they'd rather see the election to see the results of this and not have the impeachment and independence in the battleground states are breaking our way as well. i think we've seen other polls now back this up. he saw the mining morning counseled poll showing independence by a ten-point margin have now swung against impeachment and you seen yesterday the poll come out of wisconsin say the president beating democrats and also the gallup poll that showed the president's approval pickup. what we are seen in the public polls is backing up will be seen internally throughout this process. >> known water from the washington times. >> you mentioned you have a goal of 2 million volunteers so where are you right now?

>> i don't know exactly where we are right now. i think we are definitely on track to reach that number been we did just get out the vote and had our national week of action a year before the election where we are testing in real time our election operation and we did contact a million voters and we have something called the trump victory leadership initiative where we train and supervise your those who have a six week course on our technology and doorknocking and we want into 2016 and had about 5000 of the tbl i fellows and now we are at 30000 so we are on track to meet the metrics but i don't know specifically where we are. >> the impeachment question, how should voters, independence, sizing up the election, how should they consider rudy giuliani's role in what we are hearing now? people elect the president and he has his and ministry should and his cabinet and running

things but he is on his own and is there enough accountability there? >> you saw the congressional members give their customers yesterday and they said the president has the right to enact his foreign policy through the channels he deems appropriate. i'm not well versed on exactly what rudy giuliani's role was and that is not my role as rnc chair but obviously the state department and the president and has the right to decide what role they will place individuals increasing foreign policy and representing the president. >> chris chariton. >> can i ask you a foreign-policy question? >> is not really my lane but i'll do my best. >> it came up at the debate and will be a campaign issue. last night bernie sanders and i'm sure you've heard of him. [laughter] he got a lot of applause for saying this line -- we are sick -- i'm sorry, we must treat

the palestinian people with respect and dignity that they deserve and it's got applause from a democratic audience. does the rnc have a position in the future of palestine or palestinian rights? >> that is something for the president to determine trade we don't determine foreign-policy. but it's obvious the president has been a great ally to israel with the city of jerusalem and recognizing the golan and strengthening that alliance and partnership. >> certainly is party chair in michigan with a big arab community you would've doubt that in terms of -- >> one thing about party chair we are here to elect republicans and we don't create policy process not what i was elected to do. obviously michigan had a very diverse population so we deal with a lot of different constituents but to say i'm a policymaker would be inaccurate. >> catherine from the wall street journal. >> could he talk about the most

recent run of elections particularly pennsylvania where resource strong results democrats and want to take from that and does that give you pause about the president's chances there next year? >> pennsylvania is a key state so couplings from pennsylvania you saw the southern suburb go more democrats. [inaudible] state acing county and i think the democrats won by 500 votes. it's always a swing county in pennsylvania so that will maintain that role in the western part of pennsylvania. we picked up seats state wide we did win a supreme court seat. it split there was a democrat who want antirepublican so i think what we are seen in the democrat areas are getting more democrat and republican are getting more republican. [inaudible question] >> and we pick out votes and other areas we want a statewide

seat for republicans it shows its delay battleground state. we all reckon eyes that pennsylvania will be key. >> we are on the ground in pennsylvania and doing i spoke at a lincoln day dinner and we will be building up that program and contacting our voters early. also identifying who are those swing voters. it doesn't make sense and that's part of our data program which is so integral to the rnc and the investment we made with hundreds of millions of dollars into our data to create our compass as to which voters to target because i don't want to spend dollar time or resources sending someone to go knock on the door of someone who will never vote republican. if i see someone knock on my door was a democrat i say come in, let's have lunch, stay here all day because i can provide them for knocking on ten other doors and i know their data completely is false so right now and penciling and we will be identifying that swath of swing voters where they how we will

message them and that is where our data will be critical. >> how will you message them because it's a frustration with the president's rhetoric and style. >> we don't have a democrat candidate. as we go in the suburb and we talk about socials and versus capitalism especially with the bourbon college educated women. that resonates. they don't want to see a government eliminate the private healthcare plan. i've been with the same pediatrician with my kids for since i moved back to michigan and my daughter has been 12. i don't want the government coming in and saying i can't keep that doctor and i will lose my private plan and not be able to have the insurance that i have used and that i like to take care of my family. when you talk about those issues in a personal way with those suburban voters you can change the dialogue grid that is why that chilean volunteer base of actively knocking on doors in the neighborhood you live in it

makes a difference. we have seen that those conversations can move votes. >> i want to jump in and ask you about the republican losses in the governor's race in kentucky and louisiana. >> the democrats got reelected. i would not say that a lot. [laughter] >> although donald trump made three visits on the eve and put himself out there on that but kentucky in particular does that give you cause for concern and it's a sign that some grouts are energized? >> i think everyone is energized. we saw that from that mid terms. democrats are energized and rebellions are energized. the differences we are organized right now going into 2020 and when you one state at the time we can all be equally organized but when you take the whole country it's not the same. kentucky you did have a governor who was not as popular and everyone knows that the numbers

were not great heading into reelection and when you look at the differential between cameron who came in with 200,000 more votes and we won five out of six statewide and when the top of the ticket underperforms the other statewide offices there is something going on. i think the only thing i would extrapolate is the president will then kentucky and will win at mississippi in 2020. these candidates wanted him to come in and campaign because i knew he was a boost for them so someone who is bringing voters they did better because he was there and we will competitive the president is a fighter's we will of everyone on the team to win. he never sits back and says you are on your own pretty he always goes in and knows he will take the hit no matter what happened. louisiana, edwards had six of our present popularity and is an incumbent governor and we had a blast [inaudible] that was of battle from day one but the president is someone who says i

will go in and try to help everyone when you come into my state. but you are calling insane can you come into a state because i know it will help. >> you talked about everybody was energized for the kentucky race and the democrat won in the state that will likely go for the republicans. kentucky -- >> candidates to matter. i don't thank you can take away when you have five republicans went on the ballot you can't say it was a sweep. i would say yeah, you have a point. we lost everything statewide but you can't pull up -- i like matt seven and he worked really hard but can't pull that out of the equation when he comes in with his height negatives. he is going against the known and a. kentucky historically doesn't have republican governors. ernie fletcher and bevin and they've never reelected a republican in history. it's easy to create a broad

narrative and not look at the specifics of the state and the history because people do pick different people to elect based on the candidates. candidates matter. candidate matters. it cost me so much money to try to elect a bad candidate and sometimes you can't. the way i described the rnc's we are the road. we build the info structure rebuild the best road we've ever built and all the candidates are the cars but i'm a detroit girl prayed not are equal or made in detroit and not are all my ford explorer. some of those cars are harder to get across the finish line even though we built the best infrastructure. >> you say candidates matter and we got this huge array of democrats trying to be the one who will face donald trump next november. i know you will not tell us which ones -- >> no, i cannot do that. >> in your own mind to have a ranking in terms of who might be most electable against donald trump and what qualities do you

see -- >> candidly and very state-by-state. some will perform better in different states and i believe and i think what we are doing now to prepare in advance and expand our map to the states that we were not in at the same level in 2016 like a minnesota and like new mexico expanding the map to the resources we have and building the voter and doing the groundwork that we are labor now will help us. i hope based on last night and what we are seen as more and more people are taking the lead in these different states have the potential of different people winning the different primaries and my dream is that it's a brokered convention and goes to the second ballot and it's the super delegates come in. that would be fantastic for us and then that person is unable to access the general election dollars until after their convention and we have a huge head start. [inaudible question]

>> i don't know what to make of it. i've worked in a lot of presidential campaigns and i don't think anybody can say definitively what will happen. i think it shows biden has fad faded. he became the presumptive front-runner and strong numbers and you have seen him fade and was with ward went up and i don't think the democrat establishment wants elizabeth warren and they came after her and she started to fade and now you see mayor pete coming up. pete is a progressive liberal and moderate clothing. he is somebody who raised his hand to give healthcare to illegals. he is someone who said he wants to stack the supreme court up to 15 judges but this is not somebody who is a moderate. just because he's from south

bend, indiana does not become that. he does not position himself that way as he campaigns in iowa but we will see what happens. every time i see someone rise in new i think that's great because it means the field is winnowing. >> what would he put a judge, donald trump election look like? what a stark contrast? >> the president wins. >> i think he wins big. he doesn't have any foreign-policy experience and is not -- >> he was a military. >> but as an executive he has not had the task of sending people to war or conducting himself as the mayor of south bend is the fourth-largest city in indiana. i don't think he'll be a strong candidate but we will see. >> bridget bowman from cq roll call. >> you talk about the record

fundraising and i'm curious how your ensuring that money goes to down ballot candidates? >> it is hard because we are a federal party and raise federal dollars. i get a lot of requests for statehouse and from the bucket standpoint and its tough to give federal dollars to a state campaign, which we have done. okay, i'm sorry i thought you meant -- definitely we will be helping on health races and the senate races. part of that will be to get out and vote. we are building a structure statewide in the 17 states where there are battleground house raises and if you're building an organization to track your vote you are helping because if you're turning out republicans and pushing for every candidate that will help and then we work in coordination with it to make sure that we are not replicating that we are not being redundant with our resources.

>> to follow up on that, the concerns that have been read out there in terms of questions about who is profiting off of it or the cost of the transactions and things like that. >> when read this is the first time we've ever created a platform in the republican ecosystem that is competitive within [inaudible] >> nrc, and rsc, trump campaign on the spot form and gives us the ability to raise small dollars for candidates and it's so critical that candidates have that ability to go on tv and give their message and it's very complex and i'm happy to talk about it but there's nobody profiting from it. there is no backfill conversation we talked to the house members who have been transparent and actually some of those house members that had the biggest concern are now using like elyse who had i had a conversation with just awful to

her as her opponent is fundraising. we needed to build a competitor and a way to raise the small dollar funds. it's been fueled a lot by the president and his capacity to raise small dollars for bringing that energy to when read in the investment we made in expanding our e-mail list as well and then being able to put these emotes out 12 candidates have been hugely impactful and we raised funds for nominee funds for future candidates that will run against people like [inaudible] and michigan ate and that will help us recruit candidates that they see that money will be there for them when they win the general. [inaudible question]

[inaudible question] >> one of the factors contributed first of all president trump in the face of the party is the mvp of fundraising but i do think some of our investment that we put in to actually expand our e-mail list we started at 11 million e-mails and we are now at over 30 million and i don't know -- is that public. [laughter] or now we've been expanding our e-mail list and when you have small dollar donors reoccurring you in a given average is $40 and when you expand that list and go from 11-30 million that is huge in your monthly revenue. that is what bernie sanders has done and all is with a warrant and that is what the president has done at a level that we've never seen but that will be part

of the party long-term and the strength of the party because that is within the rnc and that will outlast my chairmanship and be a legacy. >> the numbers they've put up for a couple of cycles at least. >> it depends on the candidate. candidates matter and what we are talking about. president trump has been a small dollar fundraising juggernaut and has brought something to a party that we've never seen in the small dollar energy but in terms of fundamentals of expanding your e-mail list our house candidates who are using if you only have ten e-mails on your list you will not raise a lot. you have to have a list that you are expanding and investing in and out will of small dollar donors but have to invest and expand that list and that investment to long-term be able to compete with the democrats. it's on track to raise $3 billion here and that is huge. a lot of our candidates in 2018 were outspent five, six-one.

think what that means when you're going on tv and being outspent five: six and a candidate gets a 33% discount. the differential between house candidates in 2018 on [inaudible] alone they read 300 million more than our candidates and i was huge. that's one of the underreported stories of 2018 was the differential and the difference that made in the races. that is why we needed to great a win at read into it quickly so we don't continue to have that huge gap in spending. [inaudible question] >> when read it reported 30 million for the first quarter which was a strong quarter we will not be where they are in your one when they have been here a decade. educating the members on how to technical and ride the wave of the news and how to be aware to

raise more money and i know i talked to house and i talked to many in the candidates about this and is been into rental of the rnc in the trump campaign. >> [inaudible] [inaudible question] >> i'm trying to think that i don't usually speak at the rallies anymore because i've i fly in with him but from there on the ground beforehand i will speak but i love going to the

rallies. how can you not especially with that energy? with him he previews his speech and is making edits to the last minute and adding things constantly so the teleprompter guys heather hands full as those edits are being made and he takes it very seriously and the music he chooses the music and read the speech on the plane over but he's reading the spee speech. >> seems like there was a lot of freelancing going on. >> have you met the president? he's an entertainer and he goes off script every once in a while but those are the moments that he is recognizing what the audience was giving him and ramps them up. he never gives half no matter how tired he is and feels strongly that people waited in line for hours and i want to make sure i give them everything, very sensitive about that. on a third-party standpoint standpoint i'm not seen a third-party candidate, long and i don't know what we will take a

look at the filings. some of the filings alabama was november 8 and the republic inside i don't know some of these states don't have an ability for third party to file but we just have not seen it. >> paul reminded me what is it like, i know you fly air force one with them and we in the press in the back of the plane don't get to see what is going on. >> it's crazy. [laughter] just kidding. i will say i never thought i would go on air force one and i guess i did when but i never -- there's always just a little bit of a while, every single time i get on. >> is he hanging out with you? >> he's doing work. he's doing the business of the

country. there are times that most of the time he's back in his office and it's not social hour. it's the psident being the president. >> [inaudible] from the ap. [inaudible question] >> hunter biden that this process has been brought up over and over again and do you think it's having an eroding effect? >> we have asked for that in our internal polling and we have seen across independence and democrats believing that should be investigated. the hunter biden relationship with [inaudible] and his dad having obviously jurisdiction over ukraine and going insane will not give one blade dollars support unless you remove this prosecutor and dugouts have gone very far to say this is been

investigated but i don't think they make people feel like it is been completely looked at. and how did he get this position but beyond that what is the vice president's role in removing this prosecutor and i know democrats it's been debunked and it's on but i don't think it has been in the eyes of the iraqi people. >> the impeachment inquiry did not happen and process seems like it will follow along the lines of the senate and president trump will still be president come january or february. would biden have been better off if democrats decided to walk away? >> i don't know. i don't thank you seen the democrats really come at each other and they made an effort except for kamala harris in the initial debate with vice president biden but they have

pretty much maintained we don't want to attack each other and we don't know if it's been brought up but as they get closer to those critical primaries maybe they would have been damaged or, but i don't know, i can't say for sure. i'd generally thing is brought awareness that it would not have had without the series. >> john from newsmax read i'm sorry, john, i got you mid bite. >> thank you, madam chairman. i just thought of this but number one when you talk about a third-party candidate the libertarian party is already pretty established around the country and you have a possible libertarian candidate from your own state -- >> i was not going to bring them up but -- yeah. >> my other question is us. congressman peter king of new york recently became the 23rd

republican to announce he is either retiring, resigning before running for another office. and this is unusually high at this point before an election. are you worried about other retirees popping up and including one from your home state of michigan? >> the combined average of the revolve again favor ability or the plex 14 over those 22, 23 seeds that have retired i'm not concerned about the retirement because i think will retain most of those seats and some of these others will be battlegrounds and remember we needed a smaller number to flip at the house and it's a smaller threshold than nancy pelosi in 2018 and we also had identified about 8 million distant gators who did not show

up in the 2018 midterm who voted for president trump in 2016 so you look at each where the present one when he is on the ballot he will help lift those candidates and i think the recruitment arm of the nrcc, susan brooks, is done a phenomenal job. >> who is retiring. >> who is retiring. but they've done a good job recruiting good candidates like a young kim and shellfish back and in most soda and like a wesley hunt in houston, texas. there's a lot of good recruits coming forward so it's much less than we had in 2018 with over the retirements. that being said we want to win back the house and we are putting the groundwork in place to do that.

then also i think california we can win some seats back, two with the rnc coming out of that consent degree we can be more engaged in an election the operation what was the second question? [inaudible question] >> i don't know. while were looking for signs of organization in these battleground states i don't see a lot happening but i know justin pretty well and just and will do whatever he wants to do and i don't think anybody can predict what that will be. >> niclas from the atlantic. >> senator romney has said by all appearances the president brazen and unprecedented appeal to china and to ukraine to investigate joe biden is wrong and appalling. president trump has said senator romney is a pompous mack, who is right here? have you spoken to these men you know quite well and tried to

broker a deal? >> thank you for that great fun question print i'm just saying for a listen it is family and i will not this is a different arena. i said these are two grown men, very capable. they can run out work out their differences. i've been clear that there was no quid pro quo and the president released the aid without any conditions and you heard the phone call and you saw ambassador yesterday say no person on the planet told me the aide was conditioned on the meeting or investigation so i think it's strong. the president has incredibly high approval among our party and they want to see him get reelected. >> to hear the president tucker peter the about joe biden and we hear his campaign talk about joe biden and sometimes i think there's no one else in the democratic field but he seems like he's quite worried about biden. do you think that it reflects

some sense biden will be the most formidable? >> we talk about all the candidates we put out a lot of opposition on elizabeth warren and kamala harris and when it comes for tracking them on the campaign trail i don't think anybody can predict what will happen. we take them all seriously. >> how often do you see your uncle mitt romney? >> how often do you see your uncles? [laughter] i get a lot of -- i love my uncle. he lives are lived in massachusetts growing up so i a fair amount but probably most people with your uncles. it depends. but i see him at senate policy lunch and my dad was sick a couple months ago and i talked to him when my dad was sick and my dad is fine and now. it's a family stuff. i think it gets a lot of attention because of the roles we are in but a lot of families have disagreements right now about politics and i think

people relate to that. we just choose not to talk about it. [laughter] >> you're not having a -- >> no, there never has been a big thanks giving with my uncle. that is not something -- not in a negative way but i host things giving in michigan and i don't know maybe for big families and i'm one of seven siblings and my mom -- my romney side was on my moms side loved tromp and my aunt toby wrote anna is a paper when tromp was a candidate he will win in a landslide and she gave it to me you know aunt toby and my terry -- my uncle mark and ankle uncle mike they all live in at michigan and there the family and with a lot. it gets a lot of attention. it's a tough one. i feel for kelly anna sometimes. >> quinn from abc.

>> to your point earlier about how the diuretic field doesn't seem to be winnowing and we have [inaudible] just got in ways and michael bloomberg is keen for race but in addition to bloomberg teen up for race and getting on filings he's also launching a hundred million dollar ad campaign against the president and pledging between 15-$20 million in battleground states to build up voter registration campaigns and he is also not someone you could paint as a socialist because he used to be a republican and then independent and also very moderate democrat so we wander the rnc's take on the bloomberg run and even if he did not run the campaigns he's launching with money behind them. >> voter registration is serious and i do think there are billionaire democrats who are committed to try to fill a gap where the dnc has been deficient in being able to raise the funds

and build the infrastructure and there are concerns on their end so you are seeing that push forward. that being said it is outside money and they can work with the candidates directly or with the party or with the state party. that hurts them and i'd like to see the democrats weigh in on that. you have elizabeth warren saying i'm pure, not take outside money and so many say that but their party is absolutely allowing outside money to come in and do all these things so would like to see her take that on on the debate stage and see what happens. from what i understand he will skip iowa, new hampshire and from my experience when you plant a flag on the map beyond the momentum of those early states usually the momentum passes you by, case in point with rudy giuliani in florida and he saw rubio to that last cycle. i think that's not the best idea

but we will see what happens. i disagree. i think he is a socialist raid he told people what they could drink and what size their pop could be in new york. i don't know. i like my big gulps. [laughter] >> tommy burke from the salt lake tribune from the outer table. >> are you asking eight mitt romney question? [laughter] >> i'm curious of the president ever calls you and says how do you deal with your uncle and is there advice you give the president about that or do you talk to your uncle about the president and is there any interaction about that or do you leave it completely -- >> i will not share my interaction but we talk about a lot of different things. i will say there have been times the president said i'm sorry you have to deal with this and was very kind. when it gets out in the public and he's very concerned and i

know the one day it got a little more out there i think he called me at 1030 at night and said how are you doing, it's a tough day and the next day there was a tweet ronna mcdaniel is the best chair for the rnc we've ever had so i don't think he likes to see that hat pulled into the public arena but it's part of -- mitten i grew up in a political family and my grandfather obviously had very strong opinions and we had disagreements whenever we got together for family gatherings. it's not upsetting us publicly for us as maybe it is for people outside of it. to have a disagreement and still be family. >> chris, did you have a follow-up? >> the president love to talk about his crowds and israelis, as you note and believes there are a function of its popularity. one thing you notice when you go to his rallies is that there almost overwhelmingly white.

it doesn't concern you that african americans are not attracted to this president? >> i would actually disagree because we pulled data from the rallies, for example the new mexico rally was over 30% hispanic and we are seen on average 30% of the attendees are minorities or those who are so i think the president has a lot to take to the african-american community to talk about the first step back and talk about the loan forgiveness for the hbcus and talk about the record low on employment in the african-american community and you just some do the black voices matter of end in atlanta and i thank you will see more and more outreach because there's a story to tell about the policies of this administration and how they have improved lies across country especially in the african-american and hispanic communities who seem record low on appointment. >> bridget bowman from roll ca

call. [inaudible question] >> so, i will say from an rnc perspective we don't do one broad message. for us it is customizing the message for every voter. literally i will knock on linda's door and i will not say that linda is a republican but if i knocked on your door it would be one different message than your neighbor. that's the beauty of our data. it allows us to cut customize for the motor and target them through digital mail, phones and door knocks. and really have a conversation based on those things that we know they care about. i will not take the same message to every single voter but we treat each voter as an individual and that is the

tactical part of the rnc and why the investment in data and creating that as our compass has been so instrumental. i will say is michigan chair i saw it work at a level that i did not know would be so successful. we had macomb county where i was seen early on in our data and doorknocking that we were calibrating in real time with the modeling and analytics coming from the data but as you calibrated that with the voters in real time we knew something was happening in macomb county address of country was not seen. that is the importance of the ground again. hillary clinton relied on data, to, but she did not calibrate it with the ground game and these volunteers knocking on doors in real time recognizing what was happening on the ground and how it impacted the electorate and able to quickly adjust your messaging and hit those doors. a great example i give is when

you think about how elections are won is often late deciders. who are those people who may want to vote and in our world we don't think about those people but i give the example and went to church on sunday before primary election in michigan and people said who do right both for on tuesday and like really? you don't know? but these are high propensity for-four voters and coming to me on sunday before the tuesday election so having that volunteer base and knocking on doors is the example i would give when we did the special in 2017 was we knew there was a universe of 20000 swing voters there were not identified by party and on a friday before tuesday election you can't do another tv piece or put on the mail piece out there will hit them and you can't put a digital piece out that you know they will click on to resonate but you can knock on their doors. we knocked their doors twice between friday and tuesday and

those voters voted for us to-one. that is why that army of volunteers is so impactful and important but you can't just pop that up in a month. training them in the technology, teaching them how to knock the neighborhood and building the relationships and they had a years long process and that is why the ground game we're putting together is the earliest and largest we've ever done prior and election. >> i want to ask you about the story that cbs broke a couple days ago about your ambassadorial nominee and i guess it was to bundle $500,000 down he withdrew his nomination but given that experience what's your take away on people who donate and then get nominated. >> you are always loud to us people to engage in a political process and no matter where you are in the obama administration people who were up for

nominations gave, too. you're allowed to give and if he had been counseled otherwise by the state farm and i don't know that so that's up to him. with a fundraiser happening in san diego and we asked him to get family members to give and he sent an e-mail that said hey, once unconfirmed moral calm and that was a red flag and we returned the money and prior to cbs airing that story and he is not the ambassador because cannot do that. you can't link any type of donation to a future action. we know that. while everybody can participate in the process there is nothing that will be promised on the backend and what that became a bad situation the appropriate action was taken for it i wish cbs would have said that that this is exactly what should happen if it looks like pay for play and we took absolute the right steps. ...

and to be an ambassador once they are elected. that is something that can be determined by congress in the future but that being said the president should have the right to determine who is best to represent me and my foreign policy. these will be trusted aides and many are business people that have interactions in those countries. i'm not going to highlight the

ambassadors that many speak the language of the country they are in and they've got business bear and they are doing a great job. >> we have reached the end of our our. thank you for coming and i hope that he will come again. >> thank you for having me. thank you. >> [inaudible conversations]