'Pro-Trump machine': Columnist details ex-president's scheme to finally take over the GOP

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel has given an official date for her departure from that position: Friday, March 8. McDaniel's co-chair at the RNC, Drew McKissick, is leaving as well.

Former President Donald Trump has made no secret who he would like to see replace them: Michael Whatley (who heads the North Carolina Republican Party) as chairman and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair.

Now Donald Trump and his loyalists are suspected of pushing for total MAGA domination of the RNC not unlike the top-to-bottom MAGA makeover they reportedly envision for the United States' federal workforce with the Project 2025 agenda.

In an article published Monday, The New Republic's Tori Otten stresses that, with McDaniel's departure, Trump will have a total stranglehold on the RNC.

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Otten explains, "The former president has grown increasingly frustrated over the past few months with McDaniel for continuing to host RNC-backed primary debates. … Another reported reason why Trump and his allies want McDaniel out is that they hope to replace her with a loyalist who will use RNC funds to pay his massive legal bills."

Otten laments that Donald Trump's picks for the RNC's new chair and co-chair "make it clear that he wants to stack the RNC with stooges."

"Whatley, who has helped state Republicans chip away at voting access and gerrymander district maps, is a major proponent of 2020 election fraud conspiracies," Otten observes.

"Lara Trump said two weeks ago, before McDaniel even officially announced she would resign, that her goal was to turn the RNC entirely into a pro-Trump machine."

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