Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel warned her party Sunday that they stand to lose the presidential race in 2024 unless they come together to defeat President Joe Biden rather than attacking each other.
"Unless we fix this in our party, unless we start coming together, we will not win in 2024," McDaniel told CNN's "State of the Union." "We can't be so vicious and vitriolic with each other that we don't want to support each other in the end."
McDaniel noted that she ran on a unity platform centered around bringing the party together, but the race was a "symbol" of what's happening with Republicans.
She further pointed out that Republicans lost big races in the 2022 midterms because Republicans refused to support their own party's candidates.
"We cannot be so divided as a party that we lose sight of a border crisis, a fentanyl crisis, an inflation crisis," she said. "Most Americans right now are living paycheck-to-paycheck. They are very much hurting under Democrat policies and under this Biden administration, and the one thing that Republicans can do to make sure we don't win is to fight each other all the time."
Meanwhile, the first Republican debate for the 2024 primary will be in August in Milwaukee, and while the criteria for the debate is not yet determined, McDaniel said she suspects candidates will be required to sign a pledge saying they'll support the eventual GOP nominee.
"It was part of 2016," she said. "I think it's a no-brainer. If you're going to be on the Republican national committee debate stage, asking supporters to support you, you should say, I will support the voters and who they choose as the nominee. As RNC chair, if I said I wouldn't support the Republican nominee, I would be removed from office. I would be rightly removed."
Former President Donald Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt earlier this month that "it would depend" on who the nominee is before he says he'd support that person.
McDaniel, though, pointed out that Trump signed the 2016 agreement, as did the other candidates, and she thinks everyone will sign the 2024 pact.
McDaniel also said she doesn't expect Trump will skip the debate if he is forced to sign an agreement, as he likes to debate, and she expects the other candidates to be present as well, even if they have spoken out against Trump already.
There also should be a threshold on who will be allowed to debate, as the Democrats had in the 2016 race, said McDaniel.
"You want to make sure that people are on the debate stage who are running for president," she said. "We don't want people running for book deals or media contacts or cabinet positions. We want people running for president of the United States."
McDaniel said she also expects the eventual GOP nominee will accept the eventual 2024 results, "because they're going to be the president."
The wide slate of people expected to run also points to the "deep bench" of candidates the GOP has, which includes "so many great governors, senators, congressional leaders, business leaders, a former president," said McDaniel, adding that Democrats are limiting any competition for President Joe Biden.
"They just changed their entire primary schedule," she said. "They made sure that New Hampshire is gone from being the first of the nation primary. Why? Because Joe Biden came in eighth. So that is a president who's weak, who's worried about competition from his own party."