Joining us. I want to thank everyone joining us. This is part two of our chats with the chairs. Democratic party leader and tonight we will with thethe discussion Republican Party chair. We are looking forward to the next time being on campus as well. We are going to talk about where the Campaign Stands but primarily against the backdrop of the Global Pandemic we are all struggling to deal with. Heres how the conversation will go. If you participated in other events, this will be familiar to you. We will start with the first part of the evening with the chair and i having a conversation. About halfway through, we will invite students to join into that conversation with their questions. For those who are participating via zoom, you will see at the bottom of your screen, the q a button, click on that, not the chat button, to leave your question. Someone from our team will get back to you and thats where you should look at your chat. They will get back to you to let you know when your time is up when your turn is up, and then we will invite you to ask your question, so make sure at that point that you are camera friendly, camera ready. We will make you famous. Feel free to begin to populate your questions now. With that, lets get the conversation started. Thanks for coming back to gu politics. Thanks for having me and thank you for that nice introduction and i wish i were there with you in person and hopefully, we can do that next year. We will look forward to it. The last time we chatted in one of these discussions was, i believe, it was early in the administration, very early into your tenure as chair and a lot has changed and a lot has happened since then, obviously. Now, a lot of what we talked about then was how you are all preparing for the president s reelection. We are in the middle of a campaign now and now you know who your opponent is. Could you take a couple of minutes to help frame the race for us from your perspective . Where does the race stand . How are you guys looking at it . Obviously, weve been preparing since we met last time. From a party perspective, so much of what we do is raising the money in advance, putting the ground game in place, registering voters, getting staff on the ground and getting ready for the ultimate voter turnout on election day. Clearly, weve had a head start, we raised record money, we had the ability to work with the Trump Campaign and we are in 23 states already and we have about 800 staff on the ground and we have about one million volunteers. We are in a good position. I describe it this way, with the bandwidth we have and things we can do with data and Voter Registration and digital in the fundraising limits we have, we build the road for the candidate to drive on it. We build the road so the candidates that road takes years and years to build. We are in the best place we have ever been heading into this election. Now we have our candidate. In the middle of this virus, its hard to run a campaign. I think most americans are just trying to see us get through this crisis. As we come out of this, you will see more and more how the campaign shapes up. The other night with chairman perez, he laid out the choice as the dnc saw it between the president and the former vice president. What is that choice as you see it . The president built an economy that was in such great shape as we headed into this unforeseen crisis. 7 million new jobs, 500 thousand manufacturing jobs, this is a president that immediately understood as a candidate the threat that china posed in terms of taking on our supply chain. So much of our manufacturing has left the country. He said early on, its National Security issue that we no longer have manufacturing in this country. What happens if something happens if we cannot manufacture in this country . Many americans see that with the ventilators we had to call on the private sector to build these things. There is the importance and vitality of our manufacturing being strong and recognizing we cannot just offload everything to china. Than the president has the case, i built a great economy, i took us out of a tough spot, and i can do it again. I will be the best one to get us to that. I think thats a real contrast with biden. His stance with china and some of the economic policies that put us in a tough place that the president had to dig us out of. Among the many things that the pandemic has forced political operations to deal with and adjust is sitting. You look at the fact that you is messaging. You look at the fact that you and the Trump Campaign have been very aggressive, promoting his economic record and there is some evidence in polling that the American People gave him a net positive Approval Rating on the handling of the economy. Now, you have seen all the economic gains, not just of his administration, but the obama administration, pretty much wiped out. And a lot of anxiety around Public Health, as well as where the economy is. You began to allude to it a little bit. Im wondering what the message is, particularly as we start to see in polling, as we start to see trust in the president s approach on this stuff on a downward trajectory. How do you address that, how do you get them to see him as the leader you want them to see him as . The polling we are seeing, even against joe biden head to head, trusting the president on the economy and build back the economy at a higher level. They recognize we were in strong shape and they recognize this crisis and pandemic was something the president had no control over and we have literally had to shutter our whole economy for the safety and health of our fellow americans. There is a lot of understanding. Its not like there was mismanagement that led to this. It was a pandemic that hit the whole globe, all 50 states declaring an emergency at one time, we have never seen anything like this. We get to go to the American People and say not only did he build it up once through deregulation, cutting taxes, recognizing what would stimulate the economy, energy independence, the things he has done, tariffs on china, being tough on them and say we will not have these trade deficits, better trade deals those are things that made a robust economy and he will be better suited to bring his back when we bring us back when we come out of this. When it comes to the virus, i think the polling has been all over the place. We have seen high approval for him through this crisis. We get to go in put the pieces together of the steps he took and talking about the fact that as it hit our shores, he was able to harness the private sector in a way that has allowed us to surpass every other country in testing, thats allowed us to make sure that not one person who needed a ventilator has not been able to have one in this country. You are seeing a flattening of the curve because it took a whole of america. He has done it with governors. Democrat governors, republican governors across the board and that kind of bipartisanship you see in a crisis is something the American People want to see from their leader. For the audience, full disclosure, i think most of them know im a former spokesman for a National Party committee on the other side. The dnc, yeah. I fully understand that trying to get everyone in your party on the same message is like herding cats. Its not easy thing to do. In the context of this, i want to move past message, but particular on the issue of reopening, youve got some republican governors pumping the brakes a little bit more aggressively than the president is in terms of wanting the messaging around reopening the economy. I am wondering, as the rnc chair, how does that impact your job . Maybe there is a little bit of division in the ranks there. I think it aligns with what our party stands for which is states rights and the 10th amendment and the president recognizing that there isnt a onesizefitsall solution to this. When he laid out the three phases to opening, he said it will be different not just statebystate, but county by county. I live in wayne county in michigan, which is one of the hardest hit counties but thats different than Ottawa County or others on the western side of my state. Having the ability to work with state and local leaders and saying, you will make the determination based on what you are seeing on the ground, what you see in terms of new cases, flattening the curve, we trust you to implement these guidelines that we are setting forward at the federal government, but you are closer to the problem. You will be the ones to ultimately determine how to open this up. I think you are seeing a wide variety of responses to that of different governors but they are all in different situations and we will have a chance of the country seeing whats working and whats not. There may be places where we have to pull back or states can say, ok, we are ready to open. I think the president recognizes there is no onesizefitsall and it will be done statebystate is in line with what our party stands for. Lets move to some of the more mechanics of your job. Politics is a people business. Knocking on doors, talking face to face, gathering in large rallies or big phone bank rooms, and all of that had to shut down. But the campaign does not. How do you, as a National Party, how have you adjusted to sort of trying to maintain the sense of community and personal connection in a socially isolated world . Different people within the rnc adjust differently. I am a social person, i love people and i love campaigning. Its been hard to be so isolated and some of our folks at the rnc love it. They are like, this is great, i dont have to interact with people. We quickly recognized we had to shift our strategy. So much of what we built was based on doorknocking and the recognition that the way you change a voters mind most often is most affected by talking to them facetoface and having that conversation with your neighbor or friend or somebody you go to church with or to school with. Having to shut that down, we looked into a virtual operation within 24 hours. I talked to our political director and we mapped that out and we had a day of action plan planned to knock doors across the country. When states compete its fun and we had a virtual day of action and we reached one million voters on that first day, so that is exceptionally successful. We have added 300,000 new volunteers. Everything we are doing is through zoom or microsoft meetings or skype. We are just connecting all over the place. I think its important that we have those connections. You know what . Everyone is home, so they are responding and they want to talk more. Its an interesting change and a shift that i dont feel we lost any ground. But i am looking forward to getting back to knocking doors. I hope we get to that place where we can interact with each other socially. For someone not as familiar with some of this as you and i are, they can wrap their heads around knocking on the door. What is a me too transition to digital . What is the equivalent to knocking on a door in the neighborhood . Because of the rallies and how much data we gather at the rallies and much data we have, we knew where our nonregistered voters were and swing voters where, so im knocking on your zoom instead of your door. I am knocking on your email. Im saying, hey initially the messaging was all about coronavirus. We wanted to ask if they were doing ok because thats where the whole country was. We wanted to make it more of a check in. Not really a political message. It really wasnt political. One of our volunteers in florida i have shared this a couple of times hooked up with a woman who could not leave her home. She was elderly and her husband was a veteran with parkinsons. He ended up finding out she needed groceries and he ended up getting the groceries and those of things one of the volunteers would make a call and he would bow long for people. Would mow lawns for people. Those of the types of things we have seen through these connections and more relationships being built. With people answering their phones, before we were so busy, now people are connecting in a different way than the door knock. It is very impactful. All of my former colleagues in politics, as we were making this transition to digital, we were like, i would hate to be a fundraiser in this environment. Thats the last thing on peoples minds. Everyone is worried about their health, their livelihood, the stock market is taking a hit, who will write these big checks . Apparently, a lot of your donors are because you just had a record month. Talk about how you are doing that. A lot of our months started off early really well because we shut down i remember because it was like march 12 the whole world changed. I was sick but i was getting a test march 14. It luckily turned out negative. That helps fuel our march. On the major fundraising side, we dont have events right now, the president is not interested in in that. He is focused it on the country and not talking about how to fund raise and it would not be appropriate to talk about that anyway. Neither is the family, neither is the first lady. Except for kimberly, who is doing the smaller dollar fundraising for the campaign. We have we had to have a strong digital operation. When i became chair, we had 11 million emails. We made a tough decision that we would spend millions of dollars expanding our email list so we took it from 11 to 30. It took 30 million, i think we are almost 40 million now between emails and sms and that has become a fuel for engine and that has been incredibly strong throughout this, as well as our mail fundraising. Really, my calls on the major side are just check in calls. I have not been asking for donations at this point because so many people are laying off employees are losing their company or they have loved ones were sick and its just not the right time for me. So much of the political mystique around this president are his rallies. The guy lives for them. Anyone on the political spectrum would tell you, thats evident. The chances of there being that sort of level of in person gathering anytime soon is pretty remote. What i found interesting as a political operative is those rallies are important, not just because of the messaging, not just because of the energy but its a great place to get a lot of data. You dont have any of that now. How is that impacting the campaign or making you think differently about what you do next . Clearly, we have had a lot of rallies. We have been collecting a lot of data. That is one advantage we have over joe biden. He just got the nomination and is prevented from getting that data and having those rallies so that headstart is helping us. I hope we get to a place where we can have rallies again. But these virtual zoom meetings, we will get to virtual fundraising, those are ways to connect and we will do whats right for the times. I think, as we are opening up, we will also see more and more tests, more innovation, we will get to a better place. We are already seeing more testing at 5 million. I have talked to people that said, in a couple of months, i will have a huge amount of tests available. There are things happening simultaneously as we open up on the medical front, so i think it will put us in a better place, but we will see. This is all wait and see because we dont know so we will adjust accordingly. Which brings us to the ultimate rally, the convention at the end of august. We have seen how it impacted the dnc. They were supposed to go five or six weeks before the rnc in mid july and now they have pushed it back to late august, so its the week right before yours is scheduled. Talk about what you are thinking right now around a convention and what you do if you cannot move forward with what we have always known them to look like. We are full steam ahead planning a traditional convention. Our convention is at the end of august. It would be way too early to make a determination to cancel. We will see where we are. By the end of june early july, we will make a determination if there is something that has changed on the ground. We are hoping to be fully ready to hold that convention in august. Its critical to nominate our candidate. Actually, its hard to run a convention. The staging, the money you have to raise, the accommodations of people coming into the city of charlotte, which has been a great city to work with. We are so excited to host this. If we have to switch to a different kind convention, it would be easier. The buildout doesnt begin until july anyway, so we will be looking at the circumstances at the end of june and july. Right now, full steam ahead. Thats when you expect to make a determination. It is not like you can wait until the first week of august and say, we will see where things stand in the middle of august. We have may and july and we can see how we come out. We have states that are starting to open. I think we will have a lot of information than we do now and there is no need to make a decision right now. We have to have an inperson convention based on our bylaws so we will not have a virtual convention. There will be an in person convention. Have you given thought to what that looks like under different scenarios . I havent because in june, if we come to that place, we will be fine and have enough time to shift that if we need to. One last question on this, there is a scenario where the state of North Carolina says its not ready to have largescale gatherings and if they say that about the but the president believes otherwise, how do you navigate that . Why would you ask me a question like that . [laughter] im not even thinking about that. People want to know. First of all, it needs to be a partnership and if the state of North Carolina is in the position that says we cannot all the convention, that means they are canceling every other convention in Downtown Charlotte and thats coming to the state. They want to open as much as we do. So we are confident and feel good that we will all be in unison as this decision is made. I totally agree. I would think North Carolina would want more than just more than two host then to host the convention. Theyve lost a lot of revenue, these cities, so they want to have it open. Just trying to make news here. [laughter] we are forging ahead, no canceling of the convention, thats the news. We will move soon to the student questions themselves. Students, this is a good time, if you have not, submit your question in the bottom in the q a tab. Before we do that, one of the big issues that has come up in recent weeks as to how the crisis is affecting politics is how its affecting voting, not just the campaigns, but how people are voting, and no better example than the wisconsin primary a couple weeks