Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has been ousted from the party’s national leadership as Donald Trump seeks another presidential nomination and asserts leadership of the party. He will resign from his position on August 8th.
McDaniel, the longest-serving leader of the committee since the Civil War, announced his decision in a statement at the party’s conference Monday morning.
“Historically, the RNC has changed when a candidate is chosen, and it is my intention to honor that tradition,” she said in a statement.
This move was not surprising. President Trump announced earlier this month that he would replace McDaniel with North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley, a little-known veteran operative who has focused on potential voter fraud in recent years. Trump also selected his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to co-chair the committee.
McDaniel, 50, the niece of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, was a strong defender of the former president and helped rebuild the party in his image. But President Trump’s MAGA movement has increasingly blamed McDaniel for the former president’s loss in 2020 and the party’s failure to live up to expectations in the past two elections.
The party is also having trouble raising funds. The RNC reported $8.7 million in the bank as of early February, compared to $24 million for the Democratic National Committee.
In addition to McDaniel, RNC co-chairman Drew McKissick also announced his resignation.
Mr. Trump cannot make a leadership change without the formal backing of the RNC’s 168-member governing body, but Mr. McDaniel’s status as a candidate for the party’s presidential nomination and his popularity with party activists have led to Mr. Given his popularity, he had little choice but to comply with Trump’s wishes. RNC members across the country are expected to approve President Trump’s decision in March.
“He has to fight his own legal battle.”
While the new leadership structure (effectively a takeover of the RNC by the Trump campaign) is widely expected to be accepted by members, National Commissioner Henry Barber of Mississippi is circulating a pair of draft resolutions. Trump is officially a presidential candidate, and the committee is also the candidate to prevent Trump from paying his legal fees.
Lara Trump recently said that the RNC would cover her father-in-law’s legal costs, as Republican voters see the 91 felony charges against him as an example of “an attack not just on Donald Trump but on this country.” He suggested that he might be hoping for.
Barbour made his position clear to Reuters on Saturday, but it is unclear whether the RNC’s 168 members will ultimately agree.
“The RNC’s job is to win elections. It’s not to pay legal fees to leading candidates. He has to fight his own legal battles.”
Chris Lacivita, Trump’s senior campaign adviser who runs day-to-day operations at the RNC, said the RNC does not intend to use party funds to pay for Trump’s legal costs.
Trump’s trial on charges of falsifying business records to conceal secret payments to three people ahead of the 2016 presidential election continues as scheduled, with jury selection set for March 25. It begins.
President Trump also faces a trial scheduled for May 20 in Florida on charges of illegally preserving government documents after leaving office in early 2021, but a pre-trial ruling and Given the pace of the hearing, there are doubts whether that start date will be met.
After defeating Nikki Haley in the South Carolina primary, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is gearing up for his next campaign in Michigan. Trump is now comfortably winning four states in a row, but Haley has refused to drop out of the race.
Dates have not yet been set for two trials, one at the federal level and one in Georgia, that center on attempts to block the formal certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Carolina allies back claims of voter fraud
The leadership shakeup comes as the Republican Party moves from the primary stage to the general election for the 2024 presidential election. While former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley remains in the race, Trump has won every state on the primary calendar and could clinch the Republican nomination by mid-March. Voters go to the polls in Michigan on Tuesday.
Haley told reporters Monday in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that the RNC is becoming “Donald Trump’s playpen.”
“The idea of choosing committee chairs and board members before the primaries is a massive control move by Donald Trump,” she said.
Mr. Trump, on the other hand, wants allies who align with his false theories about voter fraud, which is the main reason why Mr. Trump is thought to have wiretapped Mr. Whatley.
Whatley took credit for hiring an army of lawyers ahead of the 2020 election, which he argued hampered Democratic efforts to combat voter fraud that year. Multiple investigations and court cases have found no evidence that he intentionally committed widespread voter fraud.