The Republican National Committee on Friday voted to install former President Donald Trump's hand-picked choices to lead the party: North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley as its new chairman and Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, as co-chair.
The move effectively completes Trump's takeover of the Republican Party, giving the ex-president his top picks to replace outgoing chair Ronna McDaniel. Chris LaCivita, a top adviser to Trump's reelection bid, will also serve in a key role at the RNC as its chief operating officer, running the day-to-day operations.
McDaniel, who ran the party since 2017, opened Friday's meeting by recognizing Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee -- though he has not received the required number of delegates to formally clinch the nomination -- before stepping aside.
"It is a little bit bittersweet to be with all of you here today as I step down as chair after seven years of working with you all," McDaniel told the gathered crowd at the RNC's spring meeting in Houston on Friday.
"I'm stepping aside today because I have long promised to put the nominee and their plans for the RNC first," she added. "Winning the White House back is just too important for me to do otherwise. President Trump deserves to have the team he wants in place at the RNC. When I made the decision to step aside, there was no one else I supported to be the next chair more than Michael Whatley."
Whatley, who embraced the former president's baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, said that the RNC "will be focused like a laser on getting out the vote and protecting the ballot," saying that they "hired election integrity directors in battleground states." Those individuals, he said, are "already recruiting and training tens of thousands of volunteers to serve as poll judges workers and observers who will act as real-time monitors whenever votes are being cast and counted."
"And we will do more," he pledged. "If our voters don't have confidence that our elections are safe and secure, nothing else matters."
Whatley in his remarks was quick to "thank president Trump for his trust and support," adding: "I'm grateful for the opportunity to work with him to win, and help revitalize our nation."
Lara Trump's role will be focused on media appearances and fundraising, which comes at a time that the committee is strapped for cash. Democrats currently hold a major financial advantage over Republicans, with the RNC reporting to the Federal Election Commission that it started the year with roughly $8 million in cash on hand. The Democratic National Committee, by contrast, ended 2023 with roughly $21 million in cash on hand.
In her remarks, she acknowledged that "we have to raise a lot of money," before pulling out an envelope which she said contained a $100,000 donation for the RNC. "We're starting today, folks!"
When pressed by a reporter after her speech, Lara Trump, the wife of former President Trump's son Eric, declined to detail who wrote the check.
Trump’s team is promising not to use the RNC to pay his mounting personal legal bills. But Trump and his lieutenants will have firm control of the party’s political and fundraising machinery with limited, if any, internal pushback.
People speculating about the RNC paying for legal bills, LaCivita said, do so “purely on the basis of trying to hurt donors," he told The Associated Press in an interview. Trump’s legal bills are instead being covered largely by Save America, a separate political entity.
“The fact of the matter is not a penny of the RNC’s money or, for that matter, the campaign’s money has gone or will go to pay legal fees,” he said.
Trump faces four criminal indictments and a total of 91 counts as well as a $355 million civil fraud judgment, which he is appealing. His affiliated Save America political action committee has spent $76 million over the last two years on lawyers.
In a statement, a spokesman for the DNC called the election of Whatley the equivalent of pouring "gasoline on a dumpster fire."
"Whatley has embraced Donald Trump’s dangerous and extreme agenda, and is so out-of-touch he even broke with other GOP leaders and failed to denounce a white supremacist with neo-Nazi ties," said DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd. "This latest MAGA rebrand will not change the RNC’s dire fundraising issues or string of electoral losses, and Republicans will regret elevating a fringe election denier as chair when he leads them to another Trump defeat in November."
Of Lara Trump, Floyd said she's "a self-described ‘ultra-MAGA’ extremist who won’t back down from her position that at the RNC," referencing her cover version of the Tom Petty song.
He went on to say "she’ll tell anyone who doesn’t support Donald Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda to leave, rejecting roughly one-third of Republican primary voters right out of the gate. Her new nepo title only ensures that the RNC will keep putting up disastrous fundraising numbers and continue to underperform in election after election."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.