Trump Guts RNC
A purge of the professional staff for, well, reasons.
WaPo (“Trump takes control of the RNC with mass layoffs, restructuring“):
Former president Donald Trump took charge of the Republican National Committee this week with the political equivalent of shock and awe — leaving dozens out of work, revamping strategic priorities and raising fears among some former officials about the party’s future support for down-ballot candidates.
The senior leadership has been almost entirely replaced or reassigned, while dozens of lower-ranking officials including state directors were either fired or told to reapply for their jobs. A nationwide network of community outreach centers, once a fixture of the party’s efforts to attract minority voters, will be shuttered or refocused on get-out-the-vote efforts. The much heralded “Bank Your Vote” program, aimed at getting Republicans to vote early, will shift to a “Grow The Vote” program focused more on expanding the party’s outreach to less likely Trump voters.
Trump’s team, led by campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, is bringing in allies with what LaCivita says will be a leaner, more aggressive operation with more political experience.
“It is about changing a mind-set,” LaCivita said in an interview Tuesday. “The RNC is as much a part of the Trump campaign as the Trump campaign is part of the RNC. It is really important from our standpoint that everyone understand in a campaign that will be unprecedented in history that everyone has the same stated goal.”
The RNC’s political director, its lead data officer and communications director have all been replaced, according to people familiar with the moves. The chief of staff and top counsel voluntarily left before LaCivita took over.
One of the most experienced lawyers in GOP politics, Charlie Spies, who recently served as the architect of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s shuttered presidential effort, will take over as chief counsel.
Additionally, LaCivita is installing Christina Bobb — a former OAN reporter who has espoused false claims that the 2020 election was stolen — as senior counsel for election integrity. Bobb is the author of a book called “Stealing Your Vote: The Inside Story of the 2020 Election and What It Means for 2024” and promoted the audit of Arizona elections.
[…]
The new leadership at the RNC has discussed a broader effort over the coming months to challenge voter identification and signature verification rules that were put into place for the 2020 election.
“The RNC’s new posture as it relates to litigation is much more offensive and much less defensive,” LaCivita said in the interview.
Some Trump allies privately questioned the hiring of Spies, a longtime GOP lawyer who previously worked for super PACs that supported the presidential campaigns of Republicans Mitt Romney in 2012 and Jeb Bush in 2016.
LaCivita praised Spies as one of the party’s top campaign attorneys, who is well respected by donors for his fundraising innovations and actively involved in election litigation.
Some former Republican officials — caught off guard by the dramatic changes — have expressed concerns about the takeover, which normally happens in some form at the end of an open primary fight. Former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, long a close adviser to Trump, was described as blindsided by the scale and speed of the changes, which target her efforts to balance Trump’s interest with the rest of the party’s interests.
“There won’t be a RNC operation to help the greater party. They don’t care about the greater party,” said a former RNC official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect future job prospects. “The RNC is important to lots of people in down-ballot elections. They’re cutting off any service that doesn’t provide help to anyone but Donald Trump. It’s just all about Trump.”
While this had been foreshadowed for quite some time, it’s still truly and utterly bizarre. A major shakeup in 2016, when Trump first became the nominee, at least makes sense: a huge swath of the RNC staff openly despised Trump and what he stood for. But this has now been a Trump-loyal apparatus for eight years.
Beyond that, even if the only thing Trump cares about is loyalty to him and his own re-election campaign, he needs to get Republicans elected across the board to be able to implement his agenda. This will almost surely make that harder.
Axios’ Sophia Cai (“‘A harbinger of things to come’: Trump’s RNC shakeup signals plans for 2025“) sees it as a warning sign:
President Trump’s ousting of a huge chunk of the Republican National Committee’s staff is a preview of what he plans to do with federal agencies if he’s re-elected in November.
Why it matters: The Republican Party is now effectively the Trump Party. It’s been remade in a way that echoes Trump’s 2025 plan to oust moderates and nonpartisan civil servants from the government, pack federal offices with loyalists and expand presidential powers.
- Trump “clearly wants a Republican National Committee that dances to his tune, jumps when he says jump,” said Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
- “That is a harbinger of things to come,” Ornstein added. “One thing we know about Trump is that his attitude toward the federal government is clear.”
Driving the news: Trump’s new team atop the RNC — led by new party chair Michael Whatley and Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump — fired 60 staffers on Monday.
- The moves decimated the party’s data and political teams, including dozens of regional RNC staffers based in key states across the country, two people familiar with the situation told Axios.
- The RNC’s financial and digital teams are being asked to relocate to Palm Beach, Fla., where Trump spends most of his time at his Mar-a-Lago resort, the two sources said.
What they’re saying: Trump die-hards cheered the RNC firings.
- “You got the RNC that’s now purging the deep state,” conservative activist and MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk said on his podcast.
- “The RNC right now has to be taken apart brick by brick and rapidly rebuilt,” said Steve Bannon, who’d been calling for former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel to step down for two years before Trump pushed her aside last month.
[…]
Zoom in: Trump has promised to gut the federal workforce by reintroducing an executive order known as Schedule F if he wins a second term.
- As Axios has reported, a consortium of Trump allies are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government if he’s elected.
- The idea would be to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents and empower Trump to wield unprecedented power.
- Trump’s plan, as outlined in his policy platform, would involve firing “rogue bureaucrats” and “corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus,” and moving up to 100,000 government positions out of D.C.
These people are delusional. Thankfully, their incompetence makes their attaining control of the government less likely.
Do not interrupt the enemy when he’s committed to a long term blunder.
Purging of the RNC. To be followed by the looting of the bank accounts.
In what way is this bizarre? He obviously wants unfettered access to the funds, and can’t have people who know the system and the rules watching him.
Booting all the people who know how things work and replacing them with people whose only “qualification” is how deeply they can get their noses up Trump’s voluminous ass…what could go wrong?
@MarkedMan: It’s bizarre for those of us who have worked in politics, because if you want to actually WIN an election, you don’t gut the organization with all of the institutional knowledge that you will need to actually get things done…eight months before a national election.
They have also effectively fired some of the third-party companies that the RNC has worked with–this was in the Politico article that first reported on this topic. I don’t know which ones, but data vendors and direct mail vendors, along with media purchasing specialists, would be my guess.
It’s difficult to overstate what a shitshow this is going to be.
@Jen: Way back in the 80’s or 90’s I remember reading an article about Trump where an actual Manhattan real estate tycoon was discussing why no one would do business with Trump any more. Almost as an aside, the interviewee offered words to the effect, “It’s not just that he’ll cheat and lie to your face, we deal with people like that all the time. It’s that he is so anxious to rip you off for a dollar that he grabs it and walks away, leaving a fortune on the table.”
Trump is good at exactly one thing: conning suckers. He has failed at virtually everything else for his entire life.
Genuinely curious: In this age of PACS that coordinate effortlessly with the candidates, especially on the Republican side, does the RNC serve any purpose? And, considering that what remains of it will only be focussed on the presidential race, will its absence have a significant on the Senate and House races?
From the WaPo article:
Yeah, that ain’t gonna work. Trump doesn’t have it in him to cater his message to persuadable voters.
Kind of a detail, but pretty sure federal civil service protections didn’t arrive until Chester Arthur, so previous 25.
@MarkedMan: Well, I can’t speak for the candidates out there who flaunt the rules and actively work with PACs, despite the prohibitions on doing so, but unless things have changed dramatically, the RNC does things like manage the acquisition and cleaning of various lists, which are critical for things like mail and GOTV efforts. They also help state parties fundraise–both in coordinating visits of high-profile figures, and on-the-ground planning. There is (was?) a lot of cost-sharing that was invaluable to cash-strapped parties.
The RNC would also help when states would find themselves without critical positions filled, either at the party or on campaigns, for whatever reason.
Again, it’s hard to overstate what a mess this could be.
The January 6 insurrection and Trump’s openly fascist rhetoric weren’t warning enough?
These “insider” clowns would crack me up if their total abdication of responsibility hadn’t materially contributed to the situation which we are in.
This is like reading tea leaves with deeply furrowed brows when the dragon is already breathing down your neck.
JFC on a humping pogo stick…
Every GOP operative in America: “I never thought the leopards would eat my face!”
Trump’s plan of firing “corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus” is a giant warning sign. Good lord. Could he be any more obvious about being in the tank for Putin?
Firing the RNC data team eight months out.
Hiring a veteran of DeFailure 2024, Jeb! 2016, and Romney 2012.
Whst could possibly go wrong? Or go better, if you’re a Dem voter? Please proceed lol
Come the next trumpist regime, such niceties as legislative majorities won’t needed as he’ll be a dictator that will install his lackeys throughout the system. Though he may receive push back from the judiciary, if not the SC that he believes owe him.
I do wonder about what the R donor class thinks of this. I doubt that very many contribute to the RNC intending it to become part of a trump slush fund, the next few months of fund raising should be interesting.
@Jen:
A caudillo-based system that revolves around personal loyalty to the leader rather than optimized outcomes always ends up as a flaming mess.
It would be just deserts if the mess he caused at the RNC would prevent Trump from doing the same to the country as a whole.
@Jen: I am thinking of the disaster that is the GOP in Michigan. No help for them!
Trump has an agenda? Beyond getting elected and killing his prosecutions?
A question occurs. The Kochtopus maintained a parallel RNC with their own funding and data operations. Is it still operating, or did it merge with the RNC when Koch and his accessories succeeded in becoming the Republican Establishment? If it still independently exists, how does it fit into this takeover?
@Sleeping Dog:
I imagine there will be a certain amount of “momentum” donation. There are people who donated to the RNC before, and a fair number of them won’t be tuned in enough to understand the changes and so will continue to do so. I mean, from Trump’s point of view, he wasn’t getting any money before, and now he gets some.
So, the Trumpists think that people who have been working for the RNC are “deep state”?
Clearly not a cult.
Meh. It was already Trump’s party. This just formalizes it. Local elections are more nationalized than ever before so doubt this matters very much.
Steve
@gVOR10:
Revenge on his many enemies, people who’ve wronged him, people who made fun of him, people who are better than him*, maybe also people who love dogs.
*You’d think this would be about 99.9999% of the world’s population, but that’s not the case. Arguably his base of deplorables, and those who are willing to vote for him, are objectively worse, as they were taken in by Lardass’ scam.
@Kathy: So, 99.9999% – 27% = 72.9999% ?
He does not care about a legislative agenda.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Looks right.
Of course, you realize the 9s run to infinity.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Even in his only term, he kind of thought he could do what he wanted, when he wanted, as he wanted, with the results he wanted, without checks, balances, legislative action, or even giving orders to anyone in particular. You know, like a child’s fantasy of a king.
Since he’s incapable of learning, he may still think this. Or maybe his top lieutenants will take care of it, as he’d expect his flunkies to do.
If we’re lucky, we’ll never know how that works out.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I am sure that he doesn’t even know the difference between legislation and executive action.
“When I’m President, I’ll be boss,” AKA Trump’s theory of government.
Trump’s own fundraising efforts aren’t coming up with all the cash he needs, just at a time when he’s really starting to need it, so he’s making a grab for the RNC piggy bank. Just wait until the candidates who expect some funding from the RNC are told that it won’t be coming, or will come later on at some unspecified time. Why else is his daughter-in-law in charge of the RNC now?
Republicans running this fall deserve whatever they get, and they’re going to get it good and hard. It’s one thing to totally sell out your principles or cave in to MAGA threats but when you’re hit in the wallet, that takes it all up to a higher level. Good luck explaining it to the spouse and kids.
The more interesting finances to watch will be the respective House and Senate committees (NRCC and NRSC). If major donors start funneling dollars there, instead of the RNC, that could be a long-term problem for the RNC. Once money goes elsewhere, it’s really hard to claw it back.
James, his agenda is getting elected and using executive power.
Everything else is gravy.
@DrDaveT:
According to the MAGAs, you’re part of the Deep State if you don’t worship Trump.
@Jen: House Republicans are a shambles, so I expect the NRCC will struggle with fundraising accordingly.
The net effect of it all may be a windfall for the NRSC, to the benefit of Republican efforts to flip it all.
Was anyone else as happy as me to see old Donny try to give himself a nickname? That’s not how this works, son.
If you didn’t notice, over on Truth Social he has started calling himself “Honest Don.” Needless to say, nobody beyond his original 27% is buying one ounce of it… I forget the precise count, but even the R-adjacent WaPo said Trump lied over 30,000 times during his term.
@Gavin:
Lardass is all about appearances. Worse, about delusions of how he appears to others. So calling himself something, makes him that.
I do wonder if he knows placing “honest” before one’s name, is a cliche for crooked used car dealers.
@Gavin:
Oh, we noticed. A grasp of irony is not among Trump’s defining traits.