Donald Trump successfully pushed out Ronna McDaniel as chair of the Republican National Committee, and next his allies are planning to purge insufficiently loyal committee members.
The former president endorsed his own daughter-in-law, an election denialist state party chair and a Trump campaign senior adviser to take over the RNC's top positions, and Steve Bannon and other sources told The Daily Beast that staffers and committee members were next.
“I think within 30 days you’ll see a purge of staffers from the RNC, because it’s a hotbed for anti-Trumpism,” Bannon told the website. “That’s the open secret.”
The Trump-backed leadership slate – Lara Trump, campaign adviser Chris LaCivitia and North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley – still needs the approval of a majority of the party's 168 members, but once installed they intend to expunge the organization of careerist "partycrats" and replace them with staffers who have more campaign experience.
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“I think there will be a whole new 168, and they’ve been working around the country to make it a full Trump 168,” said one source close to the RNC. “Trump’s gonna make his own rules here, and he wants his own people in there.”
The MAGA takeover comes as the former president is hitting a cash crunch related to his myriad legal battles, and there are serious concerns that he'll tap into RNC funds to pay those bills, but the new regime intends to transfer more money to state party organizations, especially in battleground states like Arizona and Michigan – both of which are close to going broke.
Lara Trump, who's married to Eric Trump, would serve as co-chair chiefly responsible for fundraising, and one former official on the Trump 2020 campaign expressed happiness that McDaniel was leaving, but said the ex-president's daughter-in-law wasn't a serious choice as a replacement.
“Lara Trump as the solution is a joke," that former campaign official said. “She’s not there to be an asset to the RNC, she’s there to be Trump’s eyes and ears."
Another GOP operative agreed, saying donors were concerned.
“GOP donors are in full panic mode over the possibility of Lara Trump” taking a leading role, that person said. “The RNC needs someone who can rack in the dough for Trump. She ain’t it.”