RNC Chair McDaniel Still Refuses To Say If Biden Was Legitimately Elected

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel answers reporters' questions at a breakfast Thursday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON — Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel refused to say Thursday if Democrat Joe Biden was legitimately elected, instead acknowledging that he is currently president and claiming that “problems” remained about his election. McDaniel, who was handpicked to run the party by Trump following his election in 2016 and then backed by him for two more two-year terms, also refused to say whether the party or the RNC specifically had a responsibility to make sure that their 2024 presidential nominee was someone who would not try to overthrow the republic in the event of a general election loss — as Trump did in the days and weeks leading up to the assault he incited on the Capitol on Jan. 6. And the day after that, when McDaniel gave her acceptance speech after winning her third two-year term, she repeated some of Trump’s falsehoods about the election and pledged to travel the country to meet with Republican state lawmakers “and make sure that what we saw in this election never happens again.” Trump in January became the first president in 232 years of U.S. elections to refuse to turn over power peacefully to his successor. But military leaders had earlier made it clear they would not involve themselves in the political process, so after the Electoral College finally voted on Dec. 14, making Biden’s win official, Trump instead turned to a last-ditch scheme to pressure his own vice president into canceling the ballots of millions of voters in several states Biden won and declaring Trump the winner during the pro forma congressional certification of the election results on Jan. 6.