They all robotically acceded to Trump’s order to install his hand-picked sycophant and his daughter-in-law so they will help pay his legal bills. And they’ll take millions in small donations from brainwashed Americans who can’t afford it. I’d feel sorry for them if they didn’t support that orange fascist which is inexcusable.
The Republican National Committee on Friday selected new leaders who were handpicked by former President Donald J. Trump, a move expected to tighten the expected nominee’s hold on the party’s machinery ahead of the general election.
The committee unanimously elected Michael Whatley, who led the North Carolina Republican Party and was the R.N.C.’s general counsel, as its chair and Lara Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter-in-law, as co-chair.
Both Mr. Whatley and Ms. Trump were endorsed by Mr. Trump last month after Ronna McDaniel, the committee’s leader since 2017, privately told the former president she planned to leave the position. Ms. McDaniel was for months the focus of intense pressure from inside and outside the Trump campaign to step down over the committee’s lackluster fund-raising and criticism over Republicans’ performance in 2022.
Many of Mr. Trump’s allies also criticized Ms. McDaniel, whom Mr. Trump originally picked for the position, for being insufficiently supportive of the former president. They cited her neutrality during the Republican primary and her resistance to his push to call off a series of debates that he refused to participate in.
The new leaders will take the reins of the national party at a critical juncture for Mr. Trump’s campaign, and their elevation is part of his larger effort to effectively merge the R.N.C. with his campaign.
After Mr. Trump dominated the primaries on Super Tuesday, his last remaining rival, Nikki Haley, exited the Republican race, effectively handing him the party’s nomination. Mr. Trump is now focused on the general election, and his campaign is expected to begin raising money in concert with the party, allowing him to raise far larger sums and to tap into the existing party apparatus.
During Friday’s meeting, the R.N.C. voted to officially recognize him as the party’s presidential candidate, even though he has not yet locked up the delegates necessary to clinch the nomination.
In a speech after his election, Mr. Whatley vowed that the committee would “be the vanguard of a movement that will work tirelessly every single day to elect our nominee, Donald J. Trump,” flip control of the Senate and expand Republicans’ slim majority in the House of Representatives.
Mr. Whatley also said his priorities as chair would be “getting out the vote and protecting the ballot.” He pledged to build on the committee’s efforts to recruit and deploy poll watchers, workers and judges to serve as “real-time monitors” as votes are being cast as well as counted.
Mr. Trump — who continues to make false claims about voter fraud as he faces criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election — has told allies that he believes the R.N.C. needed to spend more money on “election integrity” efforts.
Mr. Whatley has backed Mr. Trump’s false election claims and has asserted, without basis, that Republican efforts in North Carolina prevented Democrats from cheating Mr. Trump out of victory there in 2020. In a statement, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee criticized Mr. Whatley as a “fringe election denier.”
On Friday, he said that the committee would “work relentlessly in every state to ensure that it is easy to vote and hard to cheat.” Mr. Trump has frequently and falsely contended on the campaign trail that Democrats pervasively cheat during elections.