HOUSTON — The Republican National Committee’s 168 members plan to gather in a downtown hotel on Friday to rubber-stamp new senior leadership who were handpicked by former President Donald Trump.
The leadership elections come just weeks before Mr. Trump is likely to clinch the Republican presidential nomination for a third time after knocking his final rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, out of the race in the Super Tuesday primaries.
Members will elect their new chair and co-chair Friday morning and then participate in a training session from the early afternoon into the early evening.
Mr. Trump endorsed North Carolina GOP Chairman Michael Whatley, who served as the RNC’s General Counsel, to replace outgoing RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
Along with his support for Mr. Whatley as chair, Mr. Trump threw support behind his daughter-in-law Lara Trump for co-chair and his senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita for the RNC’s chief operating officer.
Mr. Whatley told members in a letter following Mr. Trump’s endorsement that the RNC must be “laser-focused on registering new voters, pushing voters to the polls, and taking advantage of every opportunity to run up our margin in key states across the country.”
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He stressed that he would stay on top of voter integrity issues and “work around the clock to file aggressive litigation where needed, recruit and train tens of thousands of poll watchers and poll workers.”
Ms. Trump said the party’s mission is all about her father-in-law.
“Every single penny [of RNC money] will go to the No. 1 and the only job of the RNC — that is electing Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and saving this country,” she said on Newsmax.
On “Real America’s Voice,” she also has warned that there’s no room for anti-Trump Republicans at the RNC.
“There will be no funny business,” she said. “Anyone who is not on board with seeing Donald Trump as the 47th president and America-loving patriots all the way down the ticket being supported by the RNC is welcome to leave, because we are not playing games. And we have no time to waste.”
“We have to ensure that every single penny of every dollar donated goes to causes people care about. That’s part of the reason that I think I’m such a great fit for this: There’s no one more loyal to Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again movement than this person you’re looking at right here — than me,” she said.
The RNC is anxious to elect its new leadership team and move forward into the general election campaign and the job of fundraising for the party’s candidates.
The RNC has struggled financially over the past several months and its presumptive top of the ticket is currently facing 91 indictments in four separate court cases.
A committeeman proposed a resolution to prohibit the RNC from paying Mr. Trump’s legal bills, but the proposition failed to get enough support to go to a vote at the Houston meeting.
Henry Barbour, a national committeeman from Mississippi, told The Washington Times that his proposed resolution is now “dead” after it failed to receive the required support of two out of three RNC members from at least 10 states. He said it had support in eight states.
Mr. LaCivita, however, said the campaign has no plans to use RNC funds to pay Mr. Trump‘s legal bills.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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