free c-span every app and online at c-span.org. >> democracy, , it is just an idea. it's a process, process shape by leaders, elected to the highest office and entrusted to a select few with regarding its basic principles. it's where debates unfold, decisions are made and the nation's course is charted. democracy in real time. this is your government at work. this is c-span, giving you your democracy unfiltered. >> on thursday president trump's nominee for director oiona ben capitol hill to takerd will questions about her nomination. she served in the national guard army reserve since 2003 she represented hawaii in

congress as a democrat and competed for the 2020 democ presidential nomination but switched to the republican party becoming an outspoken supporter of t trump campaign. watch the senate select mmite on intelligence hearing live at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now our free mobile app or online at c-span.org. >> the republican national committee held leadership elections. the current chair michael while he was unanimously reelected to lead the party. the outgoing cochair lara trump who did not seek reelection made remarks and talked about her time serving the committee at her vision for the party moving forward. >> good morning. the chair one now call this meeting to order.

with the gavel. we would like to open up this morning with the word of prayer and i would like to ask jane timken the national committeewoman from ohio to come up and deliver a benediction. >> thank you, chairman. we all join in prayer and bowing your heads. dear lord, we come to you today with gratitude and hope in our hearts, for you are always with us. bless all the members of the rnc. rnc. let your shield of love and the holy spirit protect president trump and ohio's own j. d. vanc

j. d. vance. bring them guidance and wisdom. we pray for all the members of congress and all elected officials in our great country, that the act in your righteous name. watch over us on inauguration day. protect america in your divine greatness. as we conduct our day we ask for your love, guidance and protection in all that we do. amen. >> the chair would now like to call derek babcock, the state chairman from louisiana to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. >> thank you, chairman whatley for the audit and a gutsy great today to be an american noting that it that is to be a maga republican american, and that's with us,

thanks and appreciation to all of you. so you would please join let's face the flag and salute. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands: one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the following members have been designated to serve on the proxy committee. more cars, national committeeman from kansas.

>> while the proxy committee is meeting, rnc secretary vicki drummond will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]

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[roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] >> we do have a quorum. >> thank you, madam secretary. at this time i i would like to

call upon mark kahrs for the report of the proxy committee. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the proxy committee met and submitted to the secretary the rnc. the proxy committee has determined all 15 submitted proxies are in order. half of the proxy i submit the movie aren't to accept report of the proxy committee. >> without objection the report of the proxy committee is accepted. the chairman from georgia. >> mr. chairman, my name was not called and i just want to reflect that i'm here and present. >> yes, sir. we got that, thank you. rule number eight a of our rules require a city meeting agenda be sent to all members at least ten days prior to meeting. you can email an agenda for the general session, and without objection we will continue to

conduct today's business according to that agenda. here no objection, it is so ordered. our first order of business is to approve the minutes from our 2024 organizational meeting in milwaukee, wisconsin. you have all been emailed a copy of those minutes in advance and, therefore, we can dispense with the reading of them. if there are no corrections, the minutes will be approved. here no corrections or objections, the minutes are approved. as many of you may know, we recently lost a beloved member of the rnc, jeannie luckie. please join me in a moment of silence in remembrance of jeannie. [silence] >> thank you. pursuant to rnc rule number

four, we have a new member to ratify. i am pleased to announce the election of leslie davis as the national committeewoman for mississippi. do i hear a motion to ratify the election of our new national committeewoman leslie davis? the motion is made. is there a second? the motion is moved and seconded. we ratify the election of leslie davis. all those in favor signify by saying i. all opposed signify by saying no. the ayes have it and i'm pleased to officially welcome leslie as a member of the republican national committee. it is also my pleasure to welcome four new state chairman to the republican national committee. james dyer mott from maine, alex from minnesota, amy from new mexico, and ramon northern

mariana islands. i congratulate each of you on your election and blocking all as members of the republican national committee. each region held elections after breakfast this morning. please holger applause until i have announced all of the winners. the results are as follows. the following members were elected to serve as regional vice chairman, from the midwest region tamara scott national committeewoman for i will, and stephen scheffler, national committeeman from iowa. from the northeast region, susie yankee national committeewoman for rhode island, and john freight national committeeman for connecticut. in the southern region, beth bloch, national committeewoman for west virginia, and john wall, the state chairman for alabama. in the western region, cynthia

henry, national committeewoman for alaska, and michael mcdonald, state chairman for nevada. the following members were elected to the executive committee. midwestern region, and hathaway, national committeewoman for indiana, and rob steele, the national committeeman for michigan. from the northwest region, hank mccann, national committeeman for delaware, and janet fogarty, the national committeewoman from massachusetts. from the southern region, beth campbell, national committeewoman for tennessee, and robert armstrong, the national committeeman from texas. texas. from the western region, harmeet dhillon in for national committeewoman from california, and shawn steel the national committeeman for california. congratulations to you. in addition, the following members were elected to the budget committee. from the midwest region, jane timken, national committeewoman from ohio, and jim dickie the

national committeeman from ohio. from the northeast region, christine to ready, the national committeewoman for pennsylvania, and then proto, the stitcher from connecticut. from the southern region, mindy maca linden the national committeewoman from arkansas and oscar from the national committeeman from tennessee. western region we have kim coleman, the national committeewoman for utah, and jake kaufman the national committeeman for arizona. thank you for joining the budget committee. the following members were elected to the resolutions committee. from the midwest region, heidi englehart, the national committeewoman for south dakota, and david leitner, the national committeeman for missouri. from the northeast region, amy carnevale, stitcher from massachusetts, joe powers, state chairman from rhode island. from the southern region patty lyman, national committeewoman from virginia and jason thompson

the national committeeman for georgia. and from the western region, jim, the national committeeman for nevada and lauren, national committeewoman for hawaii. congratulations to all of you on your elections. at this point in time it is my pleasure to introduce our cochair lara trump for the purposes of giving a report. >> hello, michael. guys, we are so close to what we've all been here working so hard for and i think i would want to take a moment and just allow us to soak this in your michael and i stood before you guys nine months ago when you elected us into these positions and we made some promises to

you. he said we would be good stewards of the money, that we would raise money like we've never raised before at the rnc, that we would protect the vote, that we would get out the vote, that we would have an incredible convention. hope you guys are happy with the job that we have done as chair and cochair the past nine months. but more so than anything, for everybody here, you guys are the reason that we're going to inaugurate donald trump on monday. you guys are the reason that the republicans win a a majority f house and the senate, and it didn't just happen over the past nine months. people in this room have been working tirelessly for years, some of you for decades, from what we have right now. i want to say thank you for all of your hard work.

and i am personally very excited about the next four years, but i think we have a great opportunity as a as a part. this will be my last meeting with you guys in the official capacity of cochair, but this is not something that i'm stepping away from i hope you guys know you can't get rid of me that easily. we have an opportunity right now. look at the way we have expanded the tenth of this party in this election. there are voters who forever voted for the democrat party, who gave up the opportunity right now in this election. we have to capitalize on that. we have to make good on that. we have to do in 2026 because i believe if we're able to do that, and i think we can, after the first 100 days of donald trump as a 47 president there will be no doubt about it i hope, but if we take this opportunity these voters have given us, there's saint okay, have my vote now, i can you keep

it? we can keep it. once they're in this party they are going to realize this has always been the party along and we're going to continue to expand the republican party. i just want us to remember the opportunity that we have right now, and really more so than anything i want to say thank you. you guys voted unanimously for me back in march, and it has been an honor to serve as cochair of the rnc. i have gotten to know so many of you. you guys are my family now, and thank you for trusting me in this position. thank you for give me this opportunity. this was a critical election and i worked as hard as i possibly could. and i did of course wadership o. i was talking to my husband last night, how you feeling about things? it's kind of bittersweet. we came here to do a job, and execute that job if we did all the things we came here to do.

but, yeah, we'll take that. $1.1 billion raised might i add this as a store. early vote numbers that were historic, election integrity operation like we've never seen before, that we will keep our foot on the gas and will keep pushing forward on all fronts. i said it is bittersweet because i've really enjoyed every second of this opportunity that you guys gave me, , but more so than anything, i'm going to miss working alongside my team it, michael whatley. it's hard when you kind of get thrown into something and have a lot to learn and its come some of it is new to you but i can tell you that working with you, michael, has been incredible. so thank you very much for that. and you guys are keeping him. you know that. and i don't know, we're going to vote soon so what do you think? i we was feeling good about g my every widely as chair here at

the rnc? but guys, thank you. thank you for believing in me. thank you for supporting my father-in-law donald trump, our 45th and and 47th president of the united states. and thanks for fighting for this country. this was a job i hesitated on pursuing because of my kids. my kids are five and seven after i get venture to a flight back that afforded to make sure the bags are packed because i love my husband but i can't trust him to pack all their stuff. okay? we are flying back up tomorrow so they get to be here to watch their grandfather sworn in as the next president of the united states. and eight years ago i was pregnant with my son on inauguration day, so this is very special to me, but we are here not for ourselves. we are here for the future of this country. we all fought so hard over the past nine months, over the past

four years, the past eight years because we care about america, because the values we have as the republican party are the values we believe are going to make the future bright for the next generation of americans. so thank you again for everything, and thanks for making sure that this country is set back on the right path, that we are going to celebrate on monday and then tuesday, the all better get back to work because we got similar elections to win. thank you again. god bless you guys. i love you. you are my family forever, and let's go have a party on monday. thank you, guys. >> thank you so much, laura.

now i would like to call on casey crosbie our treasurer to present a treasurers report. >> thank you all. it's hard to believe two years ago stand before you just elected treasurer and didn't realize at the time i do give a trusted and basically said i'll be transparent, i'll be accountable. we'll get clean reports and we've accomplished all that. i have to say thank you to chairman whatley and cochair trump when they were elected they said they're going to raise some money and they're going to spend it and winning elections. any of the vote of protecting the vote. as treasure i can tell you that's exactly where the money went. so give them a round of applause for all the great fundraising they did. somebody may or may not know in addition to them coming on it being elected in march we also had convention. we had to roll a campaign into

the rnc as i have to thank the team at the rnc for everything that they did. we're losing our cfo, josh. he's going into administration. that's a huge loss for us that huge game for the president. we are no charge a debt of gratitude for everything he has done for us. maginn, are controlled, is just amazing. we had clean reports every single time we did a report with that much money and with almost everything spin rolled in, so if you all see them around today to thank them and congratulate them on a job well done. it has truly been an honor of a lifetime to serve as your treasurer. i'm looking forward to talking to you a little bit more in a few minutes, but thank you so much for this opportunity. and i can assure you joe gruters and i've been talking, and i know that joke to be in good hands when jim takes over this job. so thank you all so much.

>> next i would like to introduce our general counsel john hammond from indiana for a general councils report. >> thank you, chairman whatley. and thanks again, cochair lara trump for all you've done for our party. and all you're going to continue to do, so thank you so much. it's an honor to serve the committee as the general counsel. it's a professional privilege as a lawyer to do so, and i'm grateful for that. this committee is 170 years old. it's an institution that is worth nurturing, saving, and focusing on in terms of how we conduct our business inside and outside from a legal perspective, and also in terms of how we communicate with the public.

we hope that the legal team has done its job the way we think we have done it. we believe, with your help, and without any, without a vote initial would not be able to achieve historic successes in the election this year, both of the courthouse and at the ballot box. i want to just enumerate a few things we're able to accomplish with a great team of people. i'm the least among them, andy lester and her team and outside counsel that we utilized put together a program that after 2020 all the lessons that we learn from that time about how to figure out election integrity to conduct safe and secure elections to make sure that every vote counted and that there was, we found those that were not abiding by the law, trying to steal an election.

this is the most massive effort we've had in the history of this party, and it certainly was a major, major accomplishment. so here's some statistics for you to think about. we finished the cycle having engaged 3500 attorneys across the country. each one of you have had some legal issue in your state where the rnc has touched it, helped it, back to the office of legal counsel. the reason all this exist is because of michael whatley. my predecessor in this role here he is the one who laid the foundation, working with a strong team both inside and outside. of this body to make sure that the election integrity program was the biggest and best we've ever seen. in fact, the president charged him with that task, and made it

pretty clear that he either succeeded or else, so to speak. and that was done in front of 20,000 people in some cases, and it's a lot of pressure from one person to bear, but that's leadership skill and nature of a michael whatley. we are so lucky to have enough as the chair, but he is the one who help us design this approach. coming out of north carolina. understand the need in a battleground state is how to operate. we took the program, but on steroids and replicated its across the country. michael, we're so grateful for everything you did to get us to that point. thank you. these historic successes had a killer outcome for us, the house, senate, certainly the white house. narrow landslides, odyssey, in every state that we had to win, we want and to restate those up in the air, , we won because of

this effort. we were engaged in about a total of 155 active lawsuits. use of pennsylvania inside of that, 175 seats. 27 states, 82 of those are ongoing, so this effort does not stop, and we're very glad we've had all the help that we had. any of you that's attended the election integrity discussion we had with the election integrity committee heard a great panel led by josh and a coveted by janine barrasso and brian swinson and, of course, gina swoboda. that presentation was replete with story after stress on the things that were done. there were heroic efforts of the courthouse to make sure that we could conduct an election that brought his success. and again, all related to the leadership of all of you in your individual states and certainly beginning here with michael whatley. we are grateful for that.

we've had a a great opportunis in all the states, north carolina, wisconsin, pennsylvania, places where we saved the election i think with the work of all these lawyers have been involved, with that and manners out of her office here. i want also identify harmeet dhillon and reporters for the expert help they provided over time, many others here. who fall in the same category. i could go on but those are people that are really, really helped to bring things home for us. i want to make sure that as we close, we think about theirs, if there's one example that i thought was pretty exceptional and again and went on and on about all the things that we saw during the election period ..

>> things going on across the country and the legal team managed by our good folks here helped save the day. so, again, congratulations, mr. chairman and to all of those who participated and congratulations to the committee for all the hard work and allowing us to come into your state and into your courthouses and help protect the vote. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, john. and to all of our legal team, mandy, zack, and everybody else, thank you because you were the front lines and so we're very, very appreciative

of it: i think that we knew going into this election cycle that we were going to need to be very muscular in terms. legal effort and with your leadership, mandy's leadership and the rest of the team, i would say mission accomplished. thank you, john: we will now move onto committee reports beginning with the resolutions committee. i'd like to ask mark carr and the committee chair for a report. thank you, mr. chairman. first of all, i appreciate you allowing me the opportunity to serve as chair of this resolutions committee. i've been in the midwest region with richard porter and i helped as well as richard did on behalf of the rnc. and the rules. republican party and the standings on the rules met yesterday and mr. chairman, sponsored for those to withdraw their commissions and therefore the committee does not have any resolutions to report out today.

>> thank you,