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Analysis | Ronna McDaniel’s wobbly tenure is largely her tormentor’s fault

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Analysis | Ronna McDaniel’s wobbly tenure is largely her tormentor’s fault


It was Donald Trump who, in December 2016, tapped Ronna Romney McDaniel to run the Republican National Committee. Trump and the party were ascendant, holding majorities in both chambers of Congress and nearly two-thirds of state governorships. McDaniel (who, The Washington Post reported, dropped the “Romney” at Trump’s behest) would be the party’s shepherd.

Her tenure will probably come to an end in the coming months, thanks to a reversal of confidence from the now-former president. Since she took over, the party has lost the presidency, lost control of the Senate, barely held the House and lost almost a fifth of its governors.

Blame for those federal losses, though, doesn’t lie with McDaniel as much as it does with Trump.

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Running a national party is a strange task. It’s a lot of fundraising overlaid onto significantly less steering the party toward ideal candidates and electoral matchups. In the modern era, success generally means securing a slightly bigger share of the vote to effect a thin legislative majority. Success is often a game of inches.

The GOP has held the White House for 12 of the past 25 years. Their caucuses in the House and Senate have wavered above and below the midpoint in each chamber, rarely at significant distances. They’ve done better in state houses and state capitols, thanks to the preponderance of rural, red states.

Really, the pattern over the past 25 years has been one of feast or famine: The GOP was crushed in 2006 and 2008, ascendant in 2010 and 2014 and wobbly in 2018. The past four RNC chairs have steered the party in that period, overseeing a spectrum of political influence.

If we compare the start and end of the most recent chairpeople, though, you can see why Republicans might be frustrated with McDaniel. Under Michael Steele — in position during the 2010 red wave — the party gained in state capitals and on Capitol Hill. Reince Priebus, at the RNC from 2011 to 2017, oversaw additional gains — including the White House, to which he headed when Trump took office.

Even setting aside the Trump issue, McDaniel was in a tough position. A party that holds the White House and both chambers of Congress has nowhere to go but down, as Democrats who were active in their party in 2009 can tell you. But it is nonetheless the case that, during her tenure, the party gave up all of those majorities. The GOP regained the House in early 2023, but even that was an underperformance: Historic trends suggested that a first-term president’s party should lose far more seats than President Biden’s Democrats did.

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But again, the blame here isn’t solely — or even primarily — on McDaniel.

Trump’s victory in 2016 cemented him as the party’s leader, and he has refused to relinquish that title since, despite losing in 2020. The 2018 midterms, in which the Democrats romped, were a referendum on Trump more than anything. So were most of the special elections that occurred during Trump’s presidency: Voters came out in droves to vote against Trump’s party. In 2020, most Biden voters informed pollsters that their votes were meant as a ballot against Trump rather than for the Democrat.

Recent polling shows that’s once again the case, that anticipated 2024 votes are about Trump rather than Biden. In 2022, the Republican underperformance was heavily influenced by abortion politics, something that Trump effected by virtue of his Supreme Court appointments. But 2022 was also in part about Trumpism, particularly in Senate races where he anointed Republican nominees who went on to lose seemingly winnable races.

None of this absolves McDaniel of culpability, of course. She retained her position over the years in part by bending over backward to accommodate Trump’s whims. Deploying a stronger guiding hand might have shifted some electoral outcomes but also meant she was more rapidly shunted off to new employment. Nor can we say that Trump is responsible for the party’s recent fundraising issues.

But it is certainly not fair to suggest that the Republican Party lost political power since 2017 primarily because of McDaniel. The decline was in keeping with historic patterns. It was also significantly exacerbated by the party’s real leader, the one who picked McDaniel to run the Republican National Committee in the first place.

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Widespread Verizon outage prompts emergency alerts in Washington, New York City

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Widespread Verizon outage prompts emergency alerts in Washington, New York City


Verizon said on Wednesday that its wireless service was suffering an outage impacting cellular data and voice services.

The nation’s largest wireless carrier said that its “engineers are engaged and are working to identify and solve the issue quickly.”

Verizon’s statement came after a swath of social media comments directed at Verizon, with users saying that their mobile devices were showing no bars of service or “SOS,” indicating a lack of connection.

Verizon, which has more than 146 million customers, appears to have started experiencing services issues around 12:00 p.m. ET, according to comments on social media site X.

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Two hours later, Verizon posted an update on social media, saying that its engineers were “continuing to address today’s service interruptions,” but did not say if a specific reason for the outage had been identified or when it could be resolved.

“We understand the impact this has on your day and remain committed to resolving this as quickly as possible,” the company said.

Despite those efforts, shortly after 4:00 p.m. ET, Verizon issued a third statement that contained little new information. The company said teams were “on the ground actively working to fix today’s service issue.”

Users had initially reported problems with Verizon’s competitors, T-Mobile and AT&T, as well. But both companies said they were not experiencing any service problems.

“T-Mobile’s network is keeping our customers connected, and we’ve confirmed that our network is operating normally and as expected,” a spokesperson told NBC News. “However, due to Verizon’s reported outage, our customers may not be able to reach someone with Verizon service at this time.”

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A spokeswoman for AT&T also said the company’s network was “operating normally.”

A Verizon store in New York City on Jan. 12, 2024.Angus Mordant / Bloomberg via Getty Images

In Washington, D.C., the District’s official emergency notification system sent out a message to residents saying that the Verizon outage was “nationwide.”

“If you have an emergency and can not connect using your Verizon Wireless device, please connect using a device from another carrier, a landline, or go to a police district or fire station to report the emergency,” the AlertDC system told recipients.

New York City’s Office of Emergency Management also said it was aware of the outage without mentioning Verizon by name. The city said it was “working closely with our partners” to review the outage and “assess any potential effects on city agencies & essential services.”



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Vance to meet Danish and Greenlandic officials in Washington on Wednesday

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Vance to meet Danish and Greenlandic officials in Washington on Wednesday


People walk along a street in downtown of Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026.

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP


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Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

NUUK, Greenland — Along the narrow, snow-covered main street in Greenland’s capital, international journalists and camera crews stop passersby every few meters (feet) asking them for their thoughts on a crisis which Denmark’s prime minister has warned could potentially trigger the end of NATO.

Greenland is at the center of a geopolitical storm as U.S. President Donald Trump is insisting he wants to own the island — and the residents of its capital Nuuk say it is not for sale. Trump said he wants to control Greenland at any cost and the White House has not ruled out taking the island by force.

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U.S. Vice President JD Vance will meet Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the Arctic island, which is a semiautonomous territory of the United States’ NATO ally Denmark.

Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told The Associated Press in Nuuk that she hoped American officials would get the message to “back off.”

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a news conference in the Danish capital Copenhagen on Tuesday that, “if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU.”

Greenland is strategically important because as climate change causes the ice to melt, it opens up the possibility of shorter trade routes to Asia. That also could make it easier to extract and transport untapped deposits of critical minerals which are needed for computers and phones.

Trump also said he wants the island to expand America’s security and has cited what he says is the threat from Russian and Chinese ships as a reason to control it.

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But both experts and Greenlanders question that claim.

“The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market,” Lars Vintner, a heating engineer told AP. He said he frequently goes sailing and hunting and has never seen Russian or Chinese ships.

His friend, Hans Nørgaard, agreed, adding “what has come out of the mouth of Donald Trump about all these ships is just fantasy.”

Denmark has said the U.S. — which already has a military presence — can boost its bases on Greenland. For that reason, “security is just a cover,” Vintner said, suggesting Trump actually wants to own the island to make money from its untapped natural resources.

Nørgaard told AP he filed a police complaint in Nuuk against Trump’s “aggressive” behavior because, he said, American officials are threatening the people of Greenland and NATO. He suggested Trump was using the ships as a pretext to further American expansion.

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“Donald Trump would like to have Greenland, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin would like Ukraine and (Chinese President) Xi Jinping would like to have Taiwan,” Nørgaard said.

Mikaelsen, the student, said Greenlanders benefit from being part of Denmark which provides free health care, education and payments during study.

“I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us,” she said.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for business and mineral resources said it’s “unfathomable” that the United States is discussing taking over a NATO ally and urged the Trump administration to listen to voices from the Arctic island’s people.



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HIGHLIGHT | Lawrence Dots a Pass to Washington for a 6-Yard TD

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HIGHLIGHT | Lawrence Dots a Pass to Washington for a 6-Yard TD


DE Dawuane Smoot, LB Foyesade Oluokun, TE Brenton Strange, S Eric Murray, and S Antonio Johnson  speak with the media after practice on Thursday ahead of the Wild Card Matchup vs. Bills.

0:00 – 2:28 – DE Dawuane Smoot

2:29 – 6:24 – LB Foyesade Oluokun

6:25 – 9:25 – TE Brenton Strange

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9:26 – 11:32 – S Eric Murray

11:33 – 13:46 – S Antonio Johnson



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