Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy went after Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel during the third presidential debate.

The 38-year-old presidential hopeful blamed McDaniel for the Republican election defeats since she took over the job and asked her to resign from the position.

After the debate, McDaniel responded to Ramaswamy’s comments, saying he needed a headline because of his low polling numbers.

She also said the Republican Party needs to focus on beating Joe Biden and stop the infighting that has plagued the party in recent years.

Ramaswamy doubled down on his comments and issued a statement that called for her resignation.

From The Hill:

Ramaswamy has doubled down on his calls for the RNC chair to step down in the days after the debate and reaffirmed in a statement shared by a spokesperson Friday that “Ronna should resign.”

Strategists said his words may resonate with voters wary of the party establishment or frustrated with the party’s losses in recent elections.

“Whenever the team is on a losing streak, people start thinking about replacing the coach. That’s not a perfect analogy because the RNC chair doesn’t have control over most campaigns, but people still have that concern that perhaps the leadership of the party is not doing what it should do,” said Weaver.

Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative Turning Point USA, said on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, that “when an NFL team keeps losing games, the coach gets fired” and called for “major change in the GOP’s leadership.”

Republican strategist Rina Shah called Ramaswamy’s move part of a “rage-against-the-establishment schtick.”

He’d previously called for the RNC to cut the number of candidates down to the top four — and later indicated he might skip the third debate altogether, arguing the second one in Simi Valley, Calif., did not “serve the voting public.”

“He is very much relying on that anger that still resides within most of the MAGA base,” Shah said.

She also noted that Ramaswamy singled out three women during his time on stage — including McDaniel, fellow candidate Nikki Haley and one of the night’s moderators, NBC News’s Kristen Welker.

 

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