OAN’s Brooke Mallory
4:28 PM – Friday, March 8, 2024
The Republican National Committee (RNC) on Friday officially elected Michael Whatley as its new chairman and Lara Trump as its co-chair. The vote solidified former President Donald Trump’s desire to reshuffle the RNC’s leadership ahead of the November election.
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At the RNC leadership meeting in Houston, Texas, officials chose a replacement for outgoing chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, a decision that many Republicans were overjoyed about.
Whatley promised the RNC in his address to lawmakers that he would be “laser-like focused on getting out the vote and protecting the ballot.”
“In eight months, we will decide the fate of not just the United States, but the entire world,” Whatley said. “And this organization, the RNC, will continue to work tirelessly every day to elect our candidate, Donald J. Trump, as the 47th President of the United States, flip the Senate, and expand our majority in Congress. He will be the vanguard of the movement,” the House of Representatives. ”
Whatley is a Trump supporter and has served as general counsel for the RNC and as chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party. After the 2020 election, which President Trump repeatedly said was rigged, Whatley reiterated the former president’s claims about “election integrity.”
During a 2021 panel discussion on “Securing Elections” at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Whatley detailed his efforts to recruit hundreds of lawyers and volunteer poll watchers in North Carolina. He also expressed skepticism about absentee and mail-in voting unless combined with voter ID laws.
As the new co-chair, Lara Trump will be heavily involved in fundraising. The RNC has lagged behind Democrats in funding over the past 12 months, ahead of a long and grueling general election campaign.
Speaking to RNC committee members on Friday, Lara happily said the organization had already received a check for $100,000 and emphasized the value of early voting and fundraising.
“We have to play the game a little differently. We have to encourage people to vote early and things like that,” she said.
Chris Lacivita, a top Trump campaign adviser who joined the RNC to manage its day-to-day operations, rejected the idea that the RNC would pay for Trump’s legal costs.
“The fact of the matter is that not a penny is in the RNC’s coffers, and for that matter, no campaign money has gone or will go to pay for attorney fees,” Lacivita said. Associated Press.
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