Republicans Tap Election Denier, Trump’s Daughter-in-Law to Run RNC

Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican National Committee is now official.

The RNC voted on Friday to elect Michael Whatley — an election denier — as its new leader, and Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law and campaign surrogate, as co-chair. The move comes after chairwoman Ronna McDaniel stepped down from the job following a MAGA pressure campaign.

Beth Bloch, an RNC member from West Virginia, essentially admitted that Lara Trump is not qualified to hold the position. “In a world where qualifications are often measured by titles and years of experience, we are reminded of a powerful truth: God does not call the qualified; he qualifies the called. Lara Trump is the embodiment of this truth,” Bloch said while introducing Trump’s daughter-in-law.

The New York Times reported last month that Trump was tapping Whatley and Lara Trump to succeed McDaniel — whom the former president didn’t feel adequately support the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was rigged against him. Whatley very much does support the lie, and the Times added this week that Trump believes he will stop Democrats from “cheating” this November.

The RNC could do a lot more for Trump than support the false claim that he won the 2020 election. The committee’s members are reportedly warming to the idea of paying Trump’s legal fees as he tries to fight off an array of legal trouble — including four criminal indictments. Henry Barbour, a committee member from Alabama, started pushing a resolution last month holding that the RNC will not pay “the legal bills of any of our candidates for any federal or state office.”

Reuters reported earlier this week that the resolution is “dead.”

Republican senators reportedly support the idea of the RNC paying Trump’s bills. “I believe so,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said this week when asked by HuffPost whether the committee should bail the former president out of legal trouble. “They’re trying to drain the guy dry,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) added. “I’ll leave it up to the RNC to figure out what’s the best way forward. I just think we need to help our nominee as best we can.”

The RNC’s purview is supposed to extend beyond the presidential nominee, though. The committee is in position to support all of the party’s candidates running for office and money ferried to Trump’s lawyers is money not spent on key races in the Senate and House of Representatives. It’s why Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, took very kindly to a clip of Lara Trump talking about the prospect of the RNC paying her father-in-law’s legal expenses. “I want her to spend every single penny they get on Donald Trump’s legal fees,” he said earlier this week. “Go, Lara, go!”

Lara Trump seemed excited to raise money in her new role on Friday. “We have to raise a lot of money,” she said before brandishing a fresh check for $100,000. “We’re starting today, folks.”

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