Echoing what he told the Reporter over the summer, Whatley continues to believe that the juxtaposition between a strong America under Trump and a weak American under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris is a strong comparison. 

“People are paying attention to this race, and they understand that America is going to be a weak country, or it’s going to be a strong country,” he said. “And when they look at it in those terms, they look at Donald Trump and his record of strength and success versus Kamala Harris’s record of weakness and failure. That’s why we’re starting to see a lot of momentum in all seven of these battleground states,” which he defined as Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

North Carolina is the GOP’s leadership’s home state, and both Whatley and Trump saw firsthand the devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Helene. While visiting the area, Whatley saw “devastation, where you go into people’s homes, where they’ve lived for 40, 50, 60 years, it’s the only home they’ve ever known, and five feet of water, six feet of water, destroys literally everything inside the home. We saw that we had to completely clear a home, everything out of the house. We had to take down the walls to stud, take out the insulation, take out the floors, in order to let it dry and then go back in and try and make sure that you don’t have mold coming in.”

Trump added that that “the lack of response from the federal government was very devastating to these people. I have a couple friends in western North Carolina who told me that they’ve applied for that $750 loan and they didn’t get approved for it, and I think that’s been very frustrating.”

Both still said they saw the best of America on display, in the face of tragedy. “I have dozens of friends who sent me videos and photos of them loading up their cars in Wilmington, North Carolina, and driving six hours west to deliver diapers and canned goods and water and blankets and towels and anything that these people needed,” Trump said. “And it really struck me that as divided as the political landscape tends to make us, really Americans, when we need each other, we are there for one another, and I think it’s been a beautiful thing to see.”

Whatley echoed that the private sector’s response has been terrific, noting as well that the former president seized the moment. “The fact that President Trump went into the mountains in Swannanoa earlier this week was tremendously important,” Whatley said. “The fact that he was meeting with sheriffs and first responders and some of the folks that were flying helicopters for different organizations out there, with the state legislators, the Speaker of the House, Tim Moore, with Congressman Chuck Edwards, and was listening to them talk about what they need, and just assure everybody up there that when he’s president, western North Carolina will not be forgotten, is tremendously reassuring to the people of that region.”

The 2024 election was marked by deadly storms and multiple failed assassination attempts against Donald Trump, which his daughter-in-law had to explain to her young children. “That was the hardest thing for me and for Eric,” she said. “Our kids are young. Our kids, at the time, were four and six. They’re now five and seven when this happened.” 

Following the first assassination attempt, she said that she “did need them to know before the convention that something had happened to grandpa’s ear, because I knew they were going to see him. And kids are kids, and they asked a lot of questions. And when my daughter, my four year old daughter, said to me, ‘why would someone try to hurt grandpa?’ I mean, I’ll tell you, it was, it was just, went straight to my heart. It’s devastating.”

The president, however, was undeterred. His daughter-in-law noted that he is even poised to return to Virginia in the home stretch, despite the Commonwealth not being a must-win for him. In the closing days, both Whatley and Trump are taking to the airwaves wherever and whenever they can to let American citizens know that their votes are secure, and to let anyone who’d like to vote illegally that they will be prosecuted. “Just realize you could be the vote, your vote is the one that puts Donald Trump over the top,” Trump tells disaffected voters. 

The 45th president, Trump said, has proven to be a once-in-a-lifetime candidate. “This is a man who I think just defies all logic for so many people,” she said. “There are so many others who one of the things that have happened, one impeachment, one indictment, one assassination attempt would have been enough, but the fact that he’s still in this and still going strong and has let nothing deter him, it really shows you his character, and I think he also knows that he truly was made for this time, I would say, was made for such a time as this…God spared his life on July 13, and it’s because God is not finished with him, and Donald Trump is not finished with this country. He still has plenty of work to do, and I think that will be apparent in his second term.”

Below is a transcript of our interview with RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump, lightly edited for clarity.

Washington Reporter:
We’re under two weeks out. You both know the map better than anyone. What are the most realistic paths that you are looking at to 270 electoral votes? 

Michael Whatley:
Well, we all know there are seven battleground states that are really essentially going to decide the election. The traditional math holds that you got to get four of those seven. We’re talking Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. But if you win Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, then that’s where you need to be. That’s probably the most direct path that we’ve got through it right now. And when you look at where we are with voter registration, where we are with early voting, the absentee voting, and layer on the polling, along with all of the other metrics that we care about, the number of volunteers, the number of doors that are being knocked, the number of phone calls that are being made, how many people we’ve got who are requesting absentee ballots, all of those factors. We’re cautiously optimistic. We feel great in terms of all seven, frankly, of those battleground states right now. We’re trending in the right way, we are starting to get a lot more momentum, particularly over the last couple of weeks, because people are paying attention to this race, and they understand that America is going to be a weak country, or it’s going to be a strong country. And when they look at it in those terms, they look at Donald Trump and his record of strength and success versus Kamala Harris’s record of weakness and failure. That’s why we’re starting to see a lot of momentum in all seven of these battleground states. 

Washington Reporter:
And how are you both splitting up your time on the trail between now and Election Day? 

Lara Trump:
I think we’re trying to cover it all. It’s funny because I don’t even know where my husband is, if you ask one of us where the other one is, we have no idea. And this is pretty much how it went in 2016 as well. We’re trying to hit all the battleground states. And we’re going to other states as well. Obviously, Michael mentioned the seven important ones there that we all know about. But you’ve seen that we’ve added states like Virginia and Minnesota into our potential battleground map as well this election cycle. I’m going to be going to Virginia this Saturday. I think you’re going to see Donald Trump coming up soon in Virginia again. And so I think that the way we’re trying to do it is really, we have so many great surrogates. No one better, of course, than Donald Trump, and we always say divide and conquer. So I probably will not see my husband again until possibly our election night celebration, or maybe even our anniversary, which is November 8, which you’ll remember was Election Day in 2016.

Michael Whatley:
Matthew, I’m calling you from Michigan today. I was in Wisconsin yesterday. I was in North Carolina with President Trump the day before that, and we’re going to be moving out to Las Vegas here on Friday, and then another day in North Carolina, across the state, on Saturday. So we’re just making sure that we’re all hitting our marks. JD Vance is out there as well, doing a circuit through all of these battleground states and the others. We’re also tracking very hard to make sure that we’re going to carry the House, that we’re going to flip the Senate. That’s why I’m spending time yesterday with Eric Hovde, I’m in Michigan today, we’ve got the Senate race here. And we’ve been to Montana, we’ve been to Florida, we’ve been to Texas, we’ve been to Ohio last week. So there’s a lot of focus across the country. And like Lara said, with as many really good surrogates that are out there, in addition to Senator Vance and, of course, President Trump, it does give us a lot of coverage. Then the other thing that we’ve been doing, both Lara and I, is we’re doing a ton of media, so in terms of television hits, in terms of radio hits, just making sure, all day, every day, that we’re hitting every outlet that we possibly can to be able to talk about, these issues that really, truly matter. I think our whole focus since March, over the last six months when Donald Trump became our presumptive nominee, and when Lara became the co-chair, and I became the chair, is to talk directly to as many American voters as we can about the issues that they care about, and that is what we’re going to be doing over the next two weeks as well. 

Washington Reporter:
Looking at election night, what are you paying attention to to know if you’re going to have a quick night or if it’s going to be a long evening?

Lara Trump:
I think we’ve been really happy with the early vote numbers we’ve seen so far. I think that’s been a really big push of Donald Trump’s. You’ve heard him talk about that quite a bit over the course of the past year or so, getting out and voting early, mail-in vote, however you’re going to vote, please make a plan and do it. That’s been the messaging. And I think people have really heeded that call, and we’ve seen a lot of great early vote totals, especially for Republicans, right now. And it’s really historic. We’ve never seen something quite like this. And so I think assuming we continue this trajectory, and then we know that typically, the Republican voters come out big on Election Day, I think that that’s what we’re hoping to see happen. We’re hoping that this trend continues and that come election night, you get the mass of Republicans as well going out to vote on Election Day, and we’re obviously hoping for an early night. I always say, because I’m exhausted and I can’t do another 3am election night call or longer, because we gotta go to bed.

Washington Reporter:
What do you think is the significance of this podcast, new media, blitz that Donald Trump is doing? What does that say about the evolving nature of media in this campaign in the closing days?

Michael Whatley:
I think it’s tremendously important. When we talk about how our plan was to go out and talk directly to the American people, it has been huge to be able to have these new platforms that really, truly have been a big focus of ours. The President is going to be on with Joe Rogan. He’s done a number of different podcasts, and even with Elon Musk, they got 2 billion hits. Look, the mainstream media is not going to treat Donald Trump fairly. They’re never going to treat him fairly. They never have treated him fairly, and so he is a very unique candidate, I think a generational talent in being able to go out and talk directly to the voters. And so he can work through the press, he can work over the press, around the press. But these alternative platforms are so essential and so critical, and the audiences are so broad, that he can sit down and have a 30 minute, a 60 minute, even a two hour interview, and be able to kind of go around the world on the issues that are really facing America right now, which is much more than just getting a sound bite in a hit piece from CBS or NBC. So, it helps us immensely that Kamala Harris is not able to function with friendly press, and she turns The View into a hostile interview. The fact is those types of shows do not have the corner on the market anymore. I think it’s very good for democracy. I think it’s very good for our campaign.

Lara Trump:
Matthew, If I could just add on, the reason I actually love this medium, the podcast, is because I think it actually gives the audience, whether they’re listening or watching, an ability to see the side of Donald Trump that the mainstream media, the legacy media, is never going to show you, where his personality comes out. He’s incredibly funny, incredibly charming. And whenever you get him in these situations where he’s able to be a little more relaxed and himself truly, I think that the audience is served so much better than they would be otherwise. The arguments typically you hear against Donald Trump have to do with his personality. And sit down with Theo Von, or I hope we’re going to see it for three hours on Joe Rogan. You really need to know who Donald Trump is, and I have really enjoyed that aspect of it more so than anything, because I always try to convey to people the man that I know to be my father-in-law, the grandfather to my two young kids. But when you are in those moments in these podcasts, I think it’s really great that the audience gets a little more insight into who Donald Trump truly is. 

Washington Reporter:
I’ve listened to 700 episodes of Joe Rogan, so if he needs extra prep going into this, I’m happy to lend my expertise on this. I want to hear from both of you about North Carolina and the response, or the lack thereof, from the Biden administration to Hurricane Helene. Chairman Whatley, you have family in the part of the state that’s been completely devastated by this; setting the politics aside for a second, what is going on there?

Michael Whatley:
It really is very devastating. I spent a day last week with Samaritan’s Purse up in Watauga County, North Carolina, where I grew up. And just to see the devastation, where you go into people’s homes, where they’ve lived for 40, 50, 60 years, it’s the only home they’ve ever known, and five feet of water, six feet of water, destroys literally everything inside the home. We saw that we had to completely clear a home, everything out of the house. We had to take down the walls to stud, take out the insulation, take out the floors, in order to let it dry and then go back in and try and make sure that you don’t have mold coming in. We saw homes where 50 foot tall trees are coming down through the house. The private sector response has been absolutely astounding, to see the goodwill of the American people from all across the country. The day that I was with Samaritan’s Purse, they had 1,000 volunteers. 800 of them were first time volunteers from Ohio, Kentucky, from Georgia, from Florida, just all across the country. It’s frankly uplifting, and it’s heartwarming. And I’ll say this, the people of western North Carolina, they’re good people. They are community-oriented, they’re family-oriented, and they’re strong. And so these communities are going to recover, but it has been tremendously important to see the Red Cross, to see the Baptist missionaries and ministries that have been up there, to see all the different groups that have come together. Every church is acting as a depot for food, for clothing, for water, where people are coming from dropping stuff off or picking stuff up. We see private businesses that are getting depots to get people to supplies and the relief that they need. Thankfully, electricity has been restored for the most part throughout the region. Water has been restored for most of the region, other than to downtown Asheville. The private response has been overwhelming. The strength of the people has been overwhelming. And so I’m not surprised that when they opened up early voting last week, that the response was overwhelming, that we broke records in basically every one of those western counties for first day early voting returns. People want to come out there and they understand that FEMA was not there. The number of people that I talked to who were very upset with with a slow response, no response from FEMA, the fact that Kamala Harris couldn’t come back from a fundraiser in San Francisco, Joe Biden couldn’t come off the beach in Delaware to be able to help respond to this storm, really hit a nerve throughout all of those communities, and we’re continuing to see very, very strong support for people actually coming out to vote, even though their entire community has been devastated, or their homes have been devastated, they want to go and cast that vote and are supporting President Trump is really remarkable. And I have to say, before I turn it over to Lara, the fact that President Trump went into the mountains in Swannanoa earlier this week was tremendously important. The fact that he was meeting with sheriffs and first responders and some of the folks that were flying helicopters for different organizations out there, with the state legislators, the Speaker of the House, Tim Moore, with Congressman Chuck Edwards, and was listening to them talk about what they need, and just assure everybody up there that when he’s president, western North Carolina will not be forgotten, is tremendously reassuring to the people of that region.

Lara Trump:
So well said, Michael, and I don’t know how much more I can add to it, but that the one thing I have noticed that I will piggyback on what Michael just said, is the way you’ve seen the best of America come out and the best of North Carolina come out to help the people of the western part of the state. I have dozens of friends who sent me videos and photos of them loading up their cars in Wilmington, North Carolina, and driving six hours west to deliver diapers and canned goods and water and blankets and towels and anything that these people needed. And it really struck me that as divided as the political landscape tends to make us, really Americans, when we need each other, we are there for one another, and I think it’s been a beautiful thing to see. Now I’ll say the lack of response from the federal government was very devastating to these people. I have a couple friends in western North Carolina who told me that they’ve applied for that $750 loan and they didn’t get approved for it, and I think that’s been very frustrating. Obviously, you’ve heard a lot made of the fact that we’re spending billions of dollars on pretty much everywhere else other than America, and I think that is one of the reasons that people have turned out in such a big way, like Michael just described, in those really devastated areas of North Carolina, to vote the way they have already, because they even understand, although they’ve lost so much, their lives have been upended, that this is a critical election, and they want to make their voices heard, and they want their vote to count and matter. And it makes me very proud to be a North Carolinian, and obviously this is deeply personal to me and to Michael, as this is our home state, and I’ve just been very impressed with the incredible nature of the American spirit on display in the midst of all the negatives, there has been that beautiful kind of silver lining to it.

Washington Reporter:
There have been three attempted assassination attempts on your father-in-law over the past four months. What was it like just talking with your kids about this? I think the RNC convention focused on humanizing the man who is Donald Trump. But what was that like for you as his daughter-in-law, and as the mother of his grandkids?

Lara Trump:
My brother-in-law, Don, posted something to the effect of, ‘I can’t believe I have to talk again with my children about the fact that someone tried to kill their grandfather.’ And I can tell you that was the hardest thing for me and for Eric. Our kids are young. Our kids, at the time, were four and six. They’re now five and seven when this happened. And so I don’t want to burden them with all of the heavy nature of this, but I did need them to know before the convention that something had happened to grandpa’s ear, because I knew they were going to see him. And kids are kids, and they asked a lot of questions. And when my daughter, my four year old daughter, said to me, ‘why would someone try to hurt grandpa?’ I mean, I’ll tell you, it was, it was just went straight to my heart. It’s devastating, and it really is. It’s completely unacceptable and just kind of crazy that we found ourselves in this space. And it’s hard to separate, sometimes, the family aspect of this from the fact that, obviously, I’m the co-chair of the RNC, and we’re running this crazy campaign and everything, but it’s hard. It’s horrible to see someone you love and that you care about, who you know their heart. You have to go through all of this, but I’ll tell you the strength and resilience of my father-in-law. And really, talk about a great spirit. I know we’re talking about that with North Carolina. This is a man who I think just defies all logic for so many people. There are so many others who one of the things that have happened, one impeachment, one indictment, one assassination attempt would have been enough, but the fact that he’s still in this and still going strong and has let nothing deter him, it really shows you his character, and I think he also knows that he truly was made for this time, I would say, was made for such a time as this. He understands the gravity of what’s going on, not just for our country, but for the world. And he knows he can do the job. He’s done it once before. And I think he really knows that God spared his life on July 13, and it’s because God is not finished with him, and Donald Trump is not finished with this country. He still has plenty of work to do, and I think that will be apparent in his second term.

Washington Reporter:
It reminds me of the concept in Judaism, called ‘dayenu,’ which means that it would have been enough. One impeachment would have been enough. One assassination attempt would have been enough. You were just talking about the vision for the country. How are you both making sure that Republicans are able to hit the ground running if Trump wins? You’ll likely have full control of the House, and Senate, and White House. How are you making sure that he has the best possible people working for him in January 2025?

Michael Whatley:
You’ve got Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon who are the co-chairs for the transition, and they have already begun laying the groundwork to make sure that we will hit the ground running. I know that Speaker Mike Johnson and the folks in the Senate have had multiple conversations across the chambers to make sure that legislatively, they know what they’re going to need to do to be able to hit the ground running. It is going to be absolutely critical. We’ve got four years, and we know that that first 100 days are going to be essential to making sure that we get out of the gate. We’ve got to get out of the gate strong. We feel very confident with Howard and Linda, and what they are putting together as an apparatus that when President Trump wins, they’re going to be able to, on day one, set up the transition team and be able to hit the ground running, to have all of the positions that we’re going to need to fill, that we’re going to have people lined up and ready to go for vetting all of the policies that are going to have to be put in place, and analyses of all of the different departments and agencies that we’re going to have to review and be ready to make recommendations on, a very organized approach that I think is going to yield a lot of very good work here. 

Lara Trump:
If you listen to Donald Trump himself, he often talks about the fact that in 2016 he kind of came in and really had never done any of this before, and was sort of unprepared, in many ways, for the number of roles he would have to fill, after winning the presidency, and I think he often talks about the fact that he may have learned his lesson the first time, so to speak, and that he really understands what needs to happen and how to vet people and get great people in these positions. And as Michael said, I think we have a great transition team who is going to do an amazing job and really pick incredible people for these roles, who are doers, who are going to, from day one, be ready to go and work for the American people. He’ll be the first to admit that the second time around, he doesn’t want to make the same mistakes, and he probably would have done a lot of things differently the first time. 

Washington Reporter:
Lara, you had looked at running for Senate in North Carolina last cycle; as you’ve been traveling the country, do you feel like you’d be interested in giving being a first-time candidate a go, or has this soured you on what it takes to run for office yourself? It would be a fun Thanksgiving if you’re in the Senate, and your father-in-law is the President.

Lara Trump:
That is true. That certainly be, certainly unique. Well, listen, I will say that I’ve seen both sides of this, and I hate that things have gotten to such a level that you really are deterring good people from running for higher office. And that’s a shame, because we should want the best and the brightest. We should want titans of industries, people who are the greatest in whatever their career and have great new ideas to come in, to be our leaders and to be elected officials and represent all of us around the country. And so I’ve seen that side, and I’ve seen the lengths that that the left will go to, that the media will go, to smear someone and attack them and clearly try to throw them in jail or worse. But I’ve also seen the other side of that, which is really how impactful one person can be on the lives of so many. Michael said that Donald Trump is a once-in-a-generation candidate; I think he’s a once-in-a-lifetime candidate. I don’t think we’re ever going to see anything like him. And he certainly has inspired me, personally, and to know the impact that you can have on the lives of the American people, people all around the country. I think it’s really incredible. And it does continue to make me think about it a lot, I will say I’m focused right now 100 percent on November 5. If you ask me, speaking of Thanksgiving, what I’m doing for this Thanksgiving, I have no idea. I can’t even think outside of November 5. I haven’t even thought about the 6th, yet, or my 10-year wedding anniversary coming up on November 8. But I would say one thing I’ve also learned being part of this family is you never say never. Anything is possible. Donald Trump has defied all logic, none of the rules applied to him. And I think he’s really opened up, the realm of possibility for future leaders in our country. And I hope that he has opened up a channel where we really do have the best and the greatest continuing to want to run for these offices, because I do think it’s very important. 

Washington Reporter:
Chairman Whatley, you have any interest in getting your name on the ballot?

Michael Whatley:
Right now, my interest is making sure that Donald J. Trump is our 47th president, that we flip the Senate, and that we expand our majority in the House.

Washington Reporter:
Chairman Whatley, we talked about election integrity and your efforts there, last time we spoke. What do both of you say in final days to the Republicans who aren’t convinced that their votes matter? How do you convince those people to get off the sofa and either fill out a ballot and mail it in, or convince them to vote early, or convince them to get out and vote on Election Day?

Michael Whatley:
When you think about our election integrity program, we really came at it with three different angles. First, we wanted to set the right rules of the road in place before Election Day that states would enforce the law that only American citizens can vote. Voter ID, states need to clean up their voter rolls, basic protections on mail-in balloting, things like that. So we’ve been very, very aggressive for the last six months, 130 lawsuits. We’ve seen major rules changes adopted in places like Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Georgia. So we’re pretty happy on that front. Number two, we’ve got to have people in the room. Lara and I said we were going to recruit 100,000 volunteers to serve as poll workers and poll observers. Glad to say that as of this week, 230,000 people have registered. We’re going through training, and we’re going to be able to deploy them all across the country to be able to be in the room, which is essential. The third part that we don’t spend a lot of time talking about, but it’s really important, is the exact messaging that you just talked about. We want to convey to every Republican, your vote is going to matter. Your vote is going to count. They are not going to cheat and cancel it. So you have got to get up and you’ve got to go out and vote. If you have 1 percent of Republican voters in any one of our battleground states, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, 1 percent of our voters stay home because they think their vote isn’t going to count, that guarantees that we lose. So we have got to get that message out to everybody that this election integrity program is the first ever national election integrity program, is very, very important. There’s a flip side to it as well, and I’m going to let Lara take that away, because this is her tagline.

Lara Trump:
Obviously we never want to see somebody stay home because they don’t trust our electoral process. It is obviously fundamental to who we are as Americans that we trust that process. And look, the work that I think the RNC has done over the course of the past seven months, for sure, goes to heal some of what happened in 2020; we want people to trust this process, and our message is very clear: if you are a person who is planning to cheat in an election, don’t do it. Because we will find you, we will track you down, and we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law. Likewise, if you are someone who is illegally here and voting in our elections, we’ll find you and prosecute you to the full extent of the law, and that means you’re going to leave this country. We want to get the message out. So we want to be a deterrent for people who even consider voter fraud or cheating in an election. We also want to make sure that we encourage our voters that your vote really does matter. I always tell people, ‘if for some reason you’re thinking of sitting this out, just realize you could be the vote, your vote is the one that puts Donald Trump over the top. Your vote is the one that not just saves this country, but saves the world. Because we all know how big a deal this election truly is, not just here at home, but abroad and on a global scale.’ And so I try to talk to people and encourage them get out and vote. And I hope that what we’ve done and all the work we put into this election integrity operation, will encourage our voters not to sit this one out. It’s too critical an election.

Washington Reporter:
Thanks to you both for chatting.