Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections correspondent at The
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDRLST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruders.
What are the keys to victory for the Grand Old
Party in twenty twenty six and what will the Democratic
Party's hard turn left mean for electoral politics head We'll
get into all of that coming up next on this
edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. Joe, thank you so
much for being here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Hey, thanks Matt for having me on.
Speaker 3: Really appreciate you taking interest in wanting to talk about
the GOP. No.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's a big year coming up, obviously after a
very big year in twenty twenty four. But let's start
with you. You are fresh into this job pretty much in
the last couple of months. How are things going so far?
Speaker 3: Listen, things are great, Mike Wally, who is the chairman
immediately prior to me, was in you know, set the
very high bar. You know, he set the tone in
the stage of the party after, you know, during the
presidential election immediately after in terms of staffing up and
making sure we have the right people in place. And
you know, I'm just so incredibly grateful to be able
to have this position, to be able to do this,
and to be able to go to bat on behalf
of President Trump and to lead our party as we
head to these midterms because.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of stake.
Speaker 3: You know, I think what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, I think,
through the grace of God, I think President Trump was saved,
and I think he was saved to save not only
the country, but the world. And I think what we've
seen over the first nine months of service, or you know,
this first year has been nothing less than you know,
remarkable because he's firing on all cylinders. He's fulfilling his
campaign promises, and he's continuing to lead from the front
and just doing an amazing job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it certainly has been an active first nine months.
You have to say that there has been a lot
going on. A number of accomplishments for this country. For really,
I think at the end of the day, we're in
a period right now where if we don't get this right,
we're in peril of losing the republic that we have
all known. As we near two hundred and fifty years.
That must be a lot of pressure for someone running
the RNC right now.
Speaker 3: Well, listen, we take all of our signals and there's
zero daylight between us and the President and.
Speaker 2: The White House.
Speaker 3: I was brought on because, you know, you know, just
to give you my background, Matt, for your listeners. You know,
I spent almost my entire adult life in the minor
league of party politics. You know, people come and become
chairmen from different backgrounds, but I'm truly a grassroots guy.
Four years as a club chairman, fourteen as his accounting chairman,
for as a Republican Party of Florida chairman. But really
my claim to fame is the fact that I've, you know,
was Trump's original chairman in twenty sixteen in Florida, and
my co chairman was Susie Wiles, and I would chair
this twenty twenty campaign. Is number one guy in twenty
twenty four campaign and he obviously values loyalty. But listen,
at the end of the day, everything is about winning,
and we got to make sure we have everything in
place for us to be successful in these midterms, and
it means making sure we win the House. You know,
just as a perspective, we're two and thirty nine in
these off cycle elections, and so it's not you know,
the trends are against us, histories against us.
Speaker 2: We're going to have to overcome all these challenges.
Speaker 3: But I'm, like I said before, I'm so grateful to
have the position and to have the president and his
leadership because he is.
Speaker 2: The guiding light.
Speaker 3: I think his policies will lead us to victory. And
I think that candidates that embrace the president and follow
his lead will have success at the ballot box next November.
Speaker 1: And that is yet, isn't it. I mean, it is success.
It is victory. That's what every thing is measured by.
So how do you go about that? What are the
keys to victory? Particularly how do you re engage the
low propensity voters that the RNC and your partners did
such a good job getting to the polls in a
presidential election year, In a year that you say is
very difficult to get people out in these midterms.
Speaker 2: Well that you hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 3: How do you get the voters who have shown up
three times for the president to come out for these
down ballot races.
Speaker 2: And that's the challenge we face as a party.
Speaker 3: And I think that the message and the communication that
the party puts out there has to be the fact
that what you saw during the shutdown those forty three
days is exactly what you're going to see if the
Democrats regain control of the House or the Senate.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a they're going to be obstructionists.
Speaker 3: They're going to be and that there's going to be investigations,
there's going to be impeachments, it's going to be NonStop,
and the presidency is basically going to be over. They
won't be able to continue to advance the president's agenda
if they take over even one side of Congress. And
so that's the message we have to deliver. I think
the President is fully willing, and I you know my
conversations with him and my discussions, he's all in for
barnstorming the country and doing rallies and doing whatever we
have to do to make sure we win.
Speaker 2: And listen, you know, you look at the whole country.
Speaker 3: Really there's you know, I call it the Trump thirteen
thirteen seats that the president won where we have Democrat
members of Congress, and there's three seats that Kamala Harris
one where we have Republican members of Congress. So out
of the four hundred and thirty five seats, you know,
there's sixteen super competitive races and probably another ten to
twelves that are right below that, and so those are
the battlegrounds, you know, so all the resources are going
to be spent, you know, in you know, twenty five
different seats. And on the Senate side, we have you know,
muss holds in Ohio, Maine, in North Carolina, and we
got great pickup opportunities in Georgia and New Hampshire and Michigan.
And so listen, we're out there. We're recruiting the right candidates.
We're trying to make sure we find the right horse
for the course. I always say, you can't have Susan
Collins running Texas, and you can't have Ted Cruz running Maine.
But we could find the right candidates for these for
these races all over the country. We can make sure
that they're well funded. We can make sure that the
president is fully engaged, which is willing and ready to
do whatever it takes.
Speaker 2: And we're raising a ton of money.
Speaker 3: I'm out here right now raising money, and we're going
to continue to crush the Democrats and fundraising. You know,
Aga INC is raised I think total like over one
point eight billion. We're sitting on ninety two million dollars
cash on hand at the Republican National Committee, where the
Democrats have sitting on twelve million. And so we're out
there hustling, we're working at we're doing everything we can
to make sure everything is right because the only way
we could win is if we do everything perfect, and
that's the only way we're going to beat these trends.
But we have the president, we have as policies, we
have all these other.
Speaker 2: Things going in our direction.
Speaker 3: We just have to implement the plan that we created
a couple of months ago and make.
Speaker 2: Sure we follow it to a t.
Speaker 1: And obviously money is a big part of that, and
as you mentioned, the Republican National Committee has been doing
an excellent job on that front. It helps when you
have a star for a president. But speaking of the president,
here is another challenge that you face, and I think
you know this well, Joe, and that is he's not
on the ballot, and that makes it even more difficult.
We saw that, I think, play out and probably not
all that surprising in this month's elections in some very
deep blue states Virginia and New Jersey, where the Democrats
had a great deal of success putting their leftist candidates
out there disguising them as moderates or more moderating forces,
which they are not. But all of that said, we
did see you know, I think shyness on the part
of the voter to get out there, if you will,
without Donald Trump on the ballot. How do you win
an election without Donald Trump on.
Speaker 3: The ballot, Well by convincing the people that a vote
for a non vote, or a vote for anything other
than the Republican canad it's going to lead to, you know, investigations, impeachment,
and obstructionist government. But basically, you know, we have I mean,
we have a lot of things going for us.
Speaker 2: I mean it's a we are.
Speaker 3: Like I said, the President's willing to go to bat
and he's willing to barmstorm the country.
Speaker 2: He's willing to do, you know, whatever.
Speaker 3: It takes, and yes, it's not going to be easy
to get people out. But you know, what happened in
Virginia and New Jersey and New York City and in
some of these other places is no way in indication
of what will happen in the midterms, because it's if
you look at the voter registration numbers, it's similar to
I guess the best way to describe it, it's the
same voter registration in our.
Speaker 2: Direction as West Virginia and Alaska.
Speaker 3: So if we were to lose those state states, I
would say it'd be an issue. But the fact that
these are deep blue states, the results were not unexpected.
It shows you that candidate quality and did listen, Jack
shud RELLI was an amazing candidate. We just I think
what happened four years prior is you kind of snuck
up on people because of his campaign style and his
willingness to get out there and work, and they just didn't.
You know, he ended up losing by thirteen and that's
where the voter registration split is. So I guess the
best way to describe as people you know, voted their jerseys.
But that being said, I think that you know, listen,
we have a Tennessee special election that's.
Speaker 2: More in our favor. If we were to lose.
Speaker 3: That, I would say, that's you know, a clear indication.
But we're fully engaged there, we've been on the ground.
I think we're we have a great candidate, a Matt Vanepps.
Speaker 2: I think we'll win that Tennessee special election.
Speaker 3: I think we'll win some of these other elections that
are going to be happening over the coming months, and
I think will serve building momentum as we head into
the midterms. And like I said, the advantage that we
have is the president, the president's policies, the president's ability
to raise resources. You know, our finance share at the
RNC is Vice President Advance.
Speaker 2: It's the first time we've ever had a.
Speaker 3: Vice president as our financier, and that's you know, he
deserves a lot of credit for our complete domination when
it comes to the resources, both from a cash on
hand in total raise and so we're well prepared, and
like I said, with everything else that we're doing, I
think we could overcome the challenges, but it won't be easy.
We have to do everything right and we're going to
have to implement the plan.
Speaker 4: New York's new mayor z or On Mom Donnie claims
the taxation isn't theft?
Speaker 2: What capitalism is?
Speaker 4: The watch Dot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski.
Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and
the economy and how it affects your wallet. Does Mom
Donnie think every business owner is stealing from their workers
and he's supposed to lead the business capital of the world.
Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street,
it's affecting you financially.
Speaker 2: Be informed.
Speaker 4: Check out the Watch on Wall Street podcast with Christmerkowski
on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Well, you have another big, big benefit as the RNC
Republicans going into twenty twenty six, and that big benefit
is the Democratic Party which has absolutely lurched radical left.
You know, there was there was a meme out there,
I don't remember who it was from, but said that
the RNC would be Kamala Harris's biggest donor because obviously
in jest, but because Kamala Harris, you know, obviously was
a horrible candidate for president. History has proved that. But
how much are you going to lean into how radical
this party has become and how much they have alienated
the average American.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, there's no question they've They've lost focus of
common sense in the real world. And the fact that
they're putting up candidates and winning and races like New
York City with Mondami and AOC and Bernie Sanders, and
the fact that you know, these these socialists, uh in,
the radical left wing element of their party is basically
leading and they and there's very little deviation from the
left leading policies that they're pitching across the entire spectrum
of the Democrats, where I think Republicans are more mainstream. Yes,
the liberal, left wing, woke members of their party are
in the leadership. That's who's leading their party. I mean,
I guess you could say Donald Trump is leading their
party from the standpoint of they're all, you know, basically
in unison. They have no policies, they have no messaging
other than the fact that they don't like the president.
Speaker 2: They don't like what he's doing.
Speaker 3: And the fact is is the president has been you know,
look at what some of the things that the president
has done from a going after the Middle America and
trying to help the average working man and woman out there.
And you know, our presidents have been selling out for
decades the American worker for cheap foreign goods. And here
the President, over the first nine to ten months of
his administration, has already gotten twenty one trillion dollars in
commitments for investments back into America, back into manufacturing, you know,
back in which we'll put people to work and hopefully
help raise real wages across the board. You know, he
passed a big, beautiful bill, the no tax on tips,
no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, the
additional childcare care tax credit, And what I think is
going to be a game changer once it actually gets
rolled out, which will be by July fourth, is the
Trump bonds. You know, people aren't talking enough about that,
but you know, how do you convince you know, people
who are leaning into the socialist model and wanting everything
for free, which you know, the Churchill had it right
by calling it a disease and you know, a cancer
that we have to cut out. But these Trump bonds,
literally for every child under the age of two, they're
going to be participating with money in the bank, participating
in the market and that's the best way to attack
socialism is by giving everybody a chance to participate in
the capitalistic market and the sea and and I just
could tell you from my own personal experience. My one
of my sons was saving up and he wanted to
buy some stocks, and so that we went through and said,
you know, this is this is you know, pick a
company that you think you like. And I ended up
getting a cyber truck. And so we wanted to buy
Tesla stock. And he saw that Tesla stock rise for
I don't know when we bought it, it was like one
seventy and now I think it's like four to twenty five.
And he's been seeing it continuing to go up. And
I'm just talking about a couple thousand dollars. But you
know the fact that he wants to look at the
value every single day, wants to see the progress where
he is. It teaches him the value of investing the
value of our system, and it creates buy in that
a lot of people don't have right now. And I
think that that's going to be the biggest game changer
for the next generation, is the opportunity for these Trump bonds.
And it's not for just for kids under two, they're
the ones who will get the money in the accounts,
but it's for people. Any child under the age of
eighteen will have access to these accounts and their parents
can kid with including with a tax deduction put them I.
Speaker 2: Think five thousand dollars a year. And it's just a
way for.
Speaker 3: The entire country to hopefully get some buy in on
the the system that has made America the best.
Speaker 2: Possible place to live, work, and.
Speaker 3: Retire because of your ability to go from nothing and
to achieve the American dream all in one generation.
Speaker 1: Indeed, Yeah, it's interesting that you say that I did
the same thing with my son. I think it's a
great exercise. You take a look at the marketplace. You
get them interested in the marketplace. Unfortunately, I had suggested
Blockbuster stock, so that didn't pay off at all. But
you know, you know, I see one of the greatest
educational moments for a young person for a pro capitalist
point of view and an anti socialist point of view,
is to get your first paycheck. And that's exactly what
happened with my son when he started working. He got
his paycheck and he said, well, where what is this?
How I thought I made a lot more money than this.
I said, well, that is your government taking away your
money for all manner of taxation, and it is. It
is quite a lesson that you learn about, you know,
what happens with big government. Our guest today is Republican
National Committee Chairman Joe Gruders. One of the interesting things
that you've talked about about twenty twenty six and you
said that you are all in on this and that
is a mid term convention. It's an interesting idea that
the president has put out there. Where does that stand
right now?
Speaker 2: Joe?
Speaker 3: Listen, the president is always coming up with incredible ideas
in ways, and you talk about, you know, how do
you showcase and how do you get people to show
up to devote for people other than the president themself.
It's by showcasing exactly all the great things that the
president has done and what Theublican leadership is able to
accomplish when they have the you know, elected officials in
place to make those votes and push those policies. And
so that's what a convention we'll be able to do,
is we'll have a couple of day almost sales pitch
to the country to explain all the great policies, including
going into detail.
Speaker 2: And listen these policies at the President's pushing.
Speaker 3: I mean, think about the fact that he's cleaning up
the big cities. He's trying to eliminate the toxic poison
that are flowing through our borders in terms of the
toxic drugs and the you know, one hundred thousand you
know people a year that die of drug overdoses. You know,
I'm so excited to see him go after the drug
votes and the point of entries and trying to make
sure we stem the flow of those you know, the drugs.
Speaker 2: That are killing all these kids.
Speaker 3: And then the fact that he's pushed nine different piece deals.
Speaker 2: Now there's a lot to celebrate that.
Speaker 3: Like I said, the twenty one trillion dollars were worth
of investments into America.
Speaker 2: I think Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: It was reported that the President Biden brought into one
trillion over four years, and President Trump has already gotten
twenty one trillion over you know, this first ten months.
I Mean, the guy is absolutely the President's absolutely crushing it,
and we need to be able to highlight all the
good things he's doing so people could see. That's why
you know, this this mid cycle convention makes sense. Not
everything is finalized yet, and so we're still trying to
see if we could from a logistical standpoint, from a
space standpoint, we can make it work.
Speaker 2: But the President had this idea. It's just a phenomenal idea.
Speaker 3: And then I'm all in beause I'd love to see
the President be able to do this on a national
stage again, and I think would really help us as
a party.
Speaker 1: Any particular location at this point that you're thinking about,
or a number of.
Speaker 3: Options, there's a number of options out there where you know,
you got to find This is always a challenge for
a normal convention is you got to find a city
that's willing to host you, and then you've got to
find and see if you've got to make sure you
can get the hotel rooms. So you have to have
leadership on the ground at the local level, and then
you have to have the ability to get enough hotel
rooms you know, you know, ballroom type space and cooperation
from a lot of different sources. And if you can
make that happen, then then you can do it. But
usually it comes down to one or two cities that
can even logistically do it all. And so we're we're
going through those processes right now and trying to set
something up.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit like the Olympics without the long jump,
isn't it. I mean, yes, you have to you have
to have the infrastructure in place to be able to
do it. You talked about investments before, and a lot
of what the President has done that I don't think
he gets credit for, and certainly not from the accomplice media,
the prov depress. He doesn't get a lot of credit
for the investments that are yet to pay off down
the road. You talk about the trillions of dollars in
investments into this economy by other countries and companies. You
talk about the big beautiful bill which next year will
finally kick in, and that's when you'll start to see,
you know, the tax relief that we've talked about, but
will it be too late? Americans can be very fickle.
And the other part of this equation is the affordability question.
That's where better or worse, and it is much worse.
Mom Donnie and the socialist movement in New York, they
were very clear about their message now the way they're
going to go about it. History has shown over many,
many years that that is a path to failure. But
what about the affordability questions. What's the messaging from Republicans
on that very key issue because a guy once said
that it is the economy stupid, and you know that
is going to be the issue in twenty six again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question, Matt.
Speaker 3: And the best thing I could tell you is the
fact that the President's been focused on the economy and
affordability since day one. But the problem, You're exactly right.
You can't always measure everything the very next day something passes.
We've been dealing with, you know, four years of Biden inflation,
in these runaway both you know, interest rates, all these
inflationary measures under the Biden administration that were pushed up
and to make things unaffordable, and the fact that the
president had to come in and try to fix some
of the stuff and get spending under control and get
these other they get the plan in place to try
to bring down some of these prices. But that's what
the Big Beautiful Bill was about, Like the no tax
on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on social Security.
All these efforts are going to take time to be felt.
And I feel and I know the President has empathy
for people out there that are struggling, and so the
question is is how do we keep the country rolling?
And all I could say is, look at what the
President is doing on a daily basis to go out
there and help the average American worker. He is focused
on raising real rate wages, which has already done. He's
focused on getting costs down. But sometimes these things take time.
But I would say he's been successful. But we have
to continue to communicate everything that the president's doing on
behalf of the American people and not let the mainstream
media all the time, you know, continue to pump negative
coverage of the president when he deserves so much more
for everything that he's done on behalf of the American people.
Speaker 1: Well, the corporate media is going to continue to do
that because they have shown over the years. And I'm
very proud of The Federalist last night winning a very
prestigious reporting award for its very long, arduous work, very
late nights uncovering the Russia collusion hoax. That's just one
of many things that this corporate media has been absolutely
all in on. My goodness, The New York Times Washington
Post won Pulitzers for lying to the American people on
this stuff. So you're never going to get a break
from them. And I'm curious about that because you've taken
a little different approach over your time. I know that,
you know, as a state senator, you got to work
with people, You got to you know, you have to
answer questions for the media. But how could White you
think so many Republicans still think they have to play
nicey nice with the New York Times and CNN and
the rest when you're never going to get You're never
going to get a break from these folks.
Speaker 3: I think everybody has to go through the process of learning,
you know.
Speaker 2: I think everybody in that goes.
Speaker 3: For elected office thinks they have the ability and that
they have the magic touch with the press.
Speaker 2: It's not easy. You're right. A lot of these guys.
Their whole goals is.
Speaker 3: To trap you and to try to talk to you
for thirty minutes for one ten second SoundBite that had
nothing to do with what you were saying.
Speaker 2: And people learn and they move on and they get better.
Speaker 3: But you know, we have to engage where we can,
and we just have to stay on script and have
try to help all of our electeds with talking points
and making sure they have the right message, because if
you don't give them anything, then what happens is is
that there's no other side of the story. And so
I think sometimes that they prefer that, and so even
if you gets something, it's sometimes it's better than nothing,
but it's we're always working on it.
Speaker 2: We're always working on.
Speaker 3: You know, communications strategies with all of our candidates out
there and elected officials, and I think we've gotten better
and with the advancement of all these different platforms, just
like your platform, Matt, you know, we could take the
message directly to the people and it's been beneficial to
us overall.
Speaker 1: Back to twenty twenty six for a moment. We're running
out of time, and I did want to ask you
the question about election integrity, that such a vital part,
such an important it always is. We learned that we've
learned a lot since twenty twenty and the RNs SEE
was very much committed to calling out irregularities and clear
violations of election law. They did that extremely well in
twenty twenty four. What is the plan for making sure
because let's face it, democrats are desperate. I really do
believe we're going to see an uptick in Shenanigans in
twenty twenty six. How do you keep this election clean
and fair?
Speaker 3: Well, listen, we're going to continue to keep our foot
on the pedal and we're not going to live up
from election integrity standpoint. The President made it very clear
to me that the most important job of the party
is to make sure.
Speaker 2: We protect the vote.
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, I follow last it I
think two days ago in New Jersey on some voter
role type issues, and we're constantly fighting these battles. You know,
we're the nucleus from behalf of the entire Republican umbrella
that really fights the election integrity issues. We have ninety
four or five active lawsuits right now on issues ranging
from trying to prevent illegals from voting, trying to make
sure we can have clean voter rules, trying to make
sure we have equal access to the election poll workers,
poll watchers, voter registration.
Speaker 2: Issues, on and on and on.
Speaker 3: We used to take a much more reactive approach now
where He've been very proactive in our efforts to try
to make sure that we do everything we can to
make it as easy as possible to you know, we
want to make it as easy as possible to vote
and as hard as possible to cheat.
Speaker 1: That's really what it comes down to. Final question for you.
You've known the president since before he was the president.
You were among the first to endorse him and to
lead his campaigns, obviously in Florida and nationally back in
twenty fifteen. In the twenty sixteen this is the question
I think a lot of Americans are curious about. How
does this guy do it? I mean, he is a dynamo.
Speaker 5: If I am, if I am lucky enough to get
to my late seventies with the health path that I'm on,
I hope to have, you know, a tenth of the
energy that this guy has.
Speaker 1: How does he do it?
Speaker 2: Well? Listen, He's a machine.
Speaker 3: He is an absolute superstar of an individual. And obviously
I think it's just he's just working around the clock,
and I don't have the sanama to stay with him.
I think he only sleeps three and a half hours
a night, four hours a night.
Speaker 2: He just works it.
Speaker 3: And listen, when I'm with him, you know, with your
president President United States, and even before that, when he
was when he had control of his empire.
Speaker 2: Now that his sons have you know, you could see
people come in and.
Speaker 3: Out every couple of minutes with different issues, and he
has the ability to make decisions, move the ball forward,
execute different plans. I mean, the guy is not only brilliant,
has a brilliant mind, but he genuinely cares for others.
And and that's what you really miss. And I you know,
Trump arrangement syndrome is real, and I think it's been
almost like a psyops type effort on the other side
and by different institutions to try to distort the image
of the president. But deep down and by spending all
this time with him, and by being with him long
before he was president, I will tell you that he
cares greatly about the lives of others, and he wants
everybody to improve. He wants everybody around him to be successful.
And he is a great human being. But yes, he
he is.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent all the time.
Speaker 3: And but that's why he's always been so successful and
everything he's done, he's he's the economic superstar of the
you know, I'm a champion of the world, I'd like
to say.
Speaker 2: And he's just.
Speaker 3: A beast from the standpoint of being able to accomplish
so much as one individual, he's truly a great leader.
I'm so thankful to be able to help him, try
to make sure that he gets served a full four years.
Speaker 1: Three and a half hours of sleep a night. I
need at least a full eight with my sleep at
the machine. So that tells you the difference that we're facing, Yes, well, wow,
it definitely is. And you see presidency that has been
extremely active, extremely on the move, and he's the reason why. Obviously.
Thanks to my guest today are NC Chairman Joe Gruders.
You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
I'm Matt Kittle, Senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll
be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of
freedom and anxious for the frame Bot Time Time