Trump tightens grip on US Republican Party as daughter-in-law takes key
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[March 09, 2024]
By Nathan Layne and Alexandra Ulmer
HOUSTON, Texas (Reuters) -Donald Trump cemented his grip on the
Republican National Committee on Friday after his daughter-in-law and
another ally assumed top leadership posts amid a debate among members
over whether the organization should help pay his legal bills.
RNC members meeting in Houston voted to appoint North Carolina
Republican Party head Michael Whatley and Lara Trump as chair and
co-chair of the organization, which will play a key role in marshaling
voters and funds for the Nov. 5 general election.
The move comes after Trump swept the Super Tuesday primary contests,
prompting Nikki Haley to drop out of the Republican race and all but
assuring the former U.S. president will be the nominee and face off
against President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
"The goal on November 5th is to win, and as my father-in-law says
'bigly'," Lara Trump said, promising that "every single penny of every
dollar raised" would go toward the goal of winning the White House, the
House of Representatives and the Senate for Republicans.
The reshuffling sees Ronna McDaniel replaced atop the organization.
McDaniel was a staunch Trump ally but faced pressure to step aside
following sluggish fundraising and a weaker-than-expected performance
for Republicans in the 2022 congressional midterm elections.
A number of RNC members have called for the committee to help pay for
Trump's legal expenses, which along with penalties have ballooned to
hundreds of millions of dollars. In speeches on Friday, neither Whatley
nor Lara Trump directly addressed the issue, which has made some donors
wary of writing checks.
"Donors don't want to pay some other rich guy's legal bills. They want
to help win elections, because that's the RNC's job," said Henry
Barbour, an RNC member from Mississippi who drafted a resolution barring
using funds for that purpose. The resolution failed to gain enough
support to be put to a vote on Friday.
Trump's push to have the wife of his younger adult son Eric as
second-in-command symbolizes his takeover of a political institution
whose mission is to get Republicans elected up and down the ballot. Not
since President Ronald Reagan's daughter Maureen Reagan was RNC co-chair
in the 1980s has a family member of a president or nominee served in
such a position of power.
One of the new leadership's most pressing tasks will be money. After
recording its lowest fundraising year in 2023 in a decade, the RNC had
less than $9 million in the bank at the end of January, a little more
than a third of the Democratic National Committee's $24 million, federal
filings show.
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Lara Trump looks on as she speaks, at the Conservative Political
Action Conference (CPAC) annual meeting in National Harbor,
Maryland, U.S., February 22, 2024. REUTERS/Amanda
Andrade-Rhoades/File Photo
"We have to raise a lot of money," Lara Trump said, showing a check
for $100,000 she said had been donated on Friday.
TRUMP'S LEGAL BILLS
Lara Trump created a stir last month by saying she believed
Republicans have a "big interest" in paying the former president's
legal bills and by not ruling out using RNC funds.
Trump's legal costs are expected to mount this year as he grapples
with 91 criminal counts across four cases and faces more than $500
million in damages tied to civil case judgments in New York. On
Friday Trump posted a $91.6 million bond to cover the defamation
verdict in favor of writer E. Jean Carroll.
With Friday's vote, Trump's campaign and the RNC will start working
more closely together, including on fundraising. That will be
overseen in part by Chris LaCivita, a co-manager of the campaign set
to double as the RNC's chief operating officer.
LaCivita has repeatedly said RNC funds would not be used for legal
costs, a stance he reiterated to reporters on Friday.
Oscar Brock, an RNC member from Tennessee, said there wasn't enough
money in the budget for Trump's legal bills and that he was
personally against it. However, Brock said some of his constituents
want the RNC to help Trump and that he could see it coming up for
debate if fundraising exceeded expectations.
Solomon Yue, an RNC committeeman from Oregon, said he had spoken
with some 20 members who agree with him that the organization should
pick up the bill for Trump's legal troubles.
Two RNC donors who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said
they planned to wait to see the impact of the leadership changes
before contributing funds. Both expressed concerns about their money
going to pay legal bills.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne, Alexandra Ulmer and Jason Lange; editing
by Ross Colvin and Jonathan Oatis)
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