RNC chair refuses to criticize or defend her uncle Mitt Romney after he was barred from conservative conference

(Image credit: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/31/romney-cpac-impeachment-110143)

last updated 3 February 2020

There will be no family feuding here, at least on television.

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel mostly deflected questions from CBS's Margaret Brennan about her uncle Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) during a Face the Nation appearance Sunday. The Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday announced that Romney won't be invited to this year's event after he broke with Republicans and voted for additional witnesses in President Trump's impeachment trial.

Brennan wanted to know what McDaniel thought about that, as well as CPAC's intense ad which made it very clear Romney wasn't invited. Brennan also tried to gauge McDaniel's reaction to the argument that Trump has altered the Republican Party, leaving more traditional GOP names like Romney out in the wilderness. But McDaniel evaded talking about her uncle directly and instead praised Trump for representing real Republican ideals, while dismissing the notion the party had morphed.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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