Alex Smith, executive director of the conservative America Rising PAC, on Tuesday said the group has started gearing up for the 2020 presidential election by conducting opposition research on a wide variety of Democrats who have expressed interest in challenging President Donald Trump.
Smith, who formerly served as the chairwoman of the College Republican National Committee, appeared on Fox News to discuss America Rising's strategy in assisting Trump defeat the Democratic field in 2020.
"We're looking at anyone who's really expressed an interest so far and that's been a wide variety of people," Smith said. "Everyone from traditional candidates like Senator Elizabeth Warren to nontraditional candidates—CEOs—that would be out there that might be looking at running for president. So we're looking at everyone."
She went on to reflect on America Rising's strategy in defeating two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 and how they started assembling a 5,000 page opposition research book on the candidate in 2013.
Politico reported on Monday that the PAC has started "carpet-bombing" potential Democratic candidates looking to defeat Trump in November 2020.
Host Julie Banderas asked Smith to discuss their efforts to dig up dirt and to talk about where they are targeting Democrats geographically.
"We are looking primarily at the ideological shift to the left that we are seeing among these candidates. And as Brian Walsh, our partner at America First who leads up the president's Super PAC—we're working in tandem with them on this project, as he mentioned, the path to the presidency doesn't run through liberal states like New York or California, it runs through the middle of the country," Smith said.
Banderas mentioned how America Rising brought attention to a video of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) last year saying she wanted to "cut open" the bodies of Republicans to see if they have hearts, and she asked whether potential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) has any skeletons in his closet.
"Bernie Sanders is actually pretty honest about who he is—which is a socialist—which is a different tactic to take in Washington these days. These Democratic candidates are adopting all these socialist positions but claiming that they're not socialist. Things like guaranteed jobs and Medicare for all, those aren't socialist [according to the Democratic candidates]," Smith said.
Smith said they have over 75 full-time staff, including 25 trackers that are all over the country capturing video of Democratic candidates live.
"We are methodically cataloguing that video, saving it, and waiting for the exact right time to drop it," Smith said.