RNC chair praises Schumer, Warren for returning Weinstein donations

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel on Monday offered rare praise for top Democratic lawmakers for returning funds donated by Harvey Weinstein in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against the Hollywood mogul.

McDaniel said other Democrats to should follow suit.

The RNC head named Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) among the lawmakers across the aisle who she commended for returning such donations, calling it a bipartisan issue to stand up to an admitted “sexual predator” by rejecting his donations.

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“That is something Republicans and Democrats should agree on: That it is despicable and you have seen Democrats returning those donations. You’ve seen Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer. I applaud them for doing that,” McDaniel said to host Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s “Wolf.”

The RNC chief also called on her Democratic counterpart, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), to return the donations they received from Weinstein.

“The DNC should do the same thing. They’re keeping 90 percent of his donations. I don’t understand. If you stand for treating women well and you stand for the respect of women, you shouldn’t take money from somebody who treated women with the absolute highest level of disrespect,” she said, while pointing to his eight settlements in which he used his “power to put women in bad situations.”

She also asked why Hillary Clinton, the first woman to win a party’s nomination to run for president, is silent on the matter.

“Where’s Hillary Clinton? Where’s she standing on this issue? She’s been silent. Her silence is deafening,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel denied that there is a comparison with President Trump’s 2005 Access Hollywood tape, in which he boasts about attempting to kiss and grope women without permission.

“It’s not even comparable. Harvey Weinstein brought women into hotel rooms. To even to make that comparison is disrespectful to the president,” McDaniel told Blitzer when pressed.

“He didn’t have eight settlements, he didn’t have women coming forward say what — Harvey Weinstein admits that he did that,” McDaniel responded while adding that Trump has since apologized for his remarks made in the tape and that Republicans spoke out about how the comments were inappropriate.

“The difference is Harvey Weinstein is a major bundler for the DNC. They have embraced him,” she added.

The DNC is taking heat from the right for donating the money it received from Weinstein last cycle to a trio of liberal political groups, rather than nonprofits that benefit women who are victims of violence.

Weinstein was terminated from his position as co-chairman of The Weinstein Company over the weekend after the allegations were revealed.