Priebus: Republican Party 'Open for Repairs'

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the overhaul of the GOP has begun, with the goal of transforming the party into one that will regain prominence in national elections.

“We recognize that our party has to be a year-round party in every community across the country,” Priebus said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We have to be on the ground — Hispanic, Asian, African-American — we have to be there with people from the community, working in those communities on a year-round basis.”

Priebus said the efforts show that the Republican Party was "open for repairs."

His remarks came when asked about a recent statement by former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, who said the party should be “closed for repairs” and doubted that former GOP presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon would be welcomed into the current party.

While Priebus said the Republican Party is “open for repairs,” he called out Democrats for creating a culture of power-grabbing amid a trio of sobering scandals.

Priebus said the controversy surrounding the Benghazi talking points, the Department of Justice’s targeting of reporters, and the Internal Revenue Service scandal involving conservative nonprofits “screams” of corruption.

"These scandals and these episodes are clearly targeted to the president’s rivals in order to help him win an election,” Priebus said. “It doesn’t take a whole lot of dots being connected for us to think that that is the case.”

Priebus said part of the problem is the politicization of the Justice Department.

“The fact of the matter is, [Attorney General] Eric Holder is not representing the American people. He is representing the Democratic Party, and it’s very clear. I think that we need to go back to a constitutional America that respects the Bill of Rights that this president and this AG don’t do.”