This is a kind of tab-clearing, but with a theme, and it also relates, at least in part, to James Joyner’s post earlier today about Trump’s mounting legal liabilities. Especially these three stories:
Like the party itself, McDaniel made changes and accommodations to aid and ally with Trump. Much has been written about her decision to drop her maiden name, Romney, at Trump’s behest. But the more consequential choice McDaniel made was to help move the party away from its establishment bearing — from which she herself came — into one that echoed Trump’s political fancies. She stood by him even after he threatened to form his own party, spread conspiracies about widespread fraud, lost the 2020 election and then attempted to overturn those results.
In the end, it wasn’t enough, and under pressure from Trump, McDaniel decided it was time to step aside. After a nearly two-hour meeting at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, Trump posted that McDaniel was a “friend” but that he would be “making a decision the day after the South Carolina Primary” on “RNC growth.”
The pledge comes just days after the former president threw his support behind his daughter-in-law to serve as co-chair of the RNC. Donald Trump called her “an extremely talented communicator who is dedicated to all that MAGA stands for” while also endorsing North Carolina GOP Party Chair Michael Whatley to serve as RNC chair.
Lara Trump is married to Eric Trump and has been involved with the RNC and party donors since the her father-in-law’s time in the Oval Office. If she and Whatley are elected by RNC members, it would secure a full takeover of the committee by the former president.
Donald Trump said Sunday he also asked his senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita to essentially serve as the RNC’s chief operating officer to supervise the day-to-day operations of the committee ahead of the general election.
Several senior Republican officials are concerned that Donald Trump’s expected takeover of the RNC will ultimately pave the way for the committee to once again cover his legal bills.
Those fears come in the aftermath of Trump endorsing a trio of officials, including his daughter-in-law, to take on top roles at the RNC. While those endorsements have been well-received by many committee members — who note that it is customary for a presidential candidate to put his imprint on the party’s main campaign apparatus — others fear a potential misallocation of party resources.
[…]
The RNC spent nearly $2 million on two legal firms working on Trump cases in 2021 and 2022 before stopping once Trump jumped into the presidential campaign. The committee will continue to have a legal fund to pay for recount efforts, lawsuits and typical party legal business.
[…]
But, quietly, there has been some pushback from the committee’s more traditional conservative faction to Lara Trump’s potential role. A third member of the RNC, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump’s daughter-in-law being installed as co-chair “will make it easier” for Trump to receive approval from the RNC to cover his legal bills, should the campaign ultimately decide to do so. The member complimented Lara Trump as a “great woman,” but said Trump tapping her for the job “smacks of nepotism.”
You don’t say.
On the one hand, the notion that the party’s presidential candidate (especially the most recent president of the party) would have significant influence over the leadership of the RNC is not unusual. On the other, the blatant corruption here, including trying to place his daughter-in-law into a position of power alongside the obvious need to use RNC funds for his own legal bills is outrageous.
Meanwhile, other examples of Trump’s influence.
- Via WaPo: Lindsey Graham, a longtime foreign policy hawk, bows to Trump on Ukraine. Graham may well be one of the most remarkably craven politicians I can remember insofar as he has demonstrated not just the ability to radically change his mind but to be utterly and dramatically dedicated to whatever position he is holding at the moment.
- Via The Atlantic: Why Republican Politicians Do Whatever Trump Says. I will summarize and amplify the thesis of the piece, which is essentially that re-election is the main motivator for members of Congress (not policy or outcomes, as David Mayhew noted in his now classic book from 1974). My amplification is that the pathway to re-election is through the primaries, where factions like MAGA can have disproportionate influence. Once the primary is won, the odds are that the winner is a foregone conclusion).
Really, I think this is a central explanation of what we are seeing with contemporary GOP political behavior. A lot of politicians are simply making a re-election calculation. I would note that many of them are getting it wrong (see, e.g., Kevin McCarthy).
Sidenote, part of the issue is simply that there is a far-right, nationalist faction of American politics that is part of the GOP coalition. For example, Via TNR: GOP Congressman Spews Racist Screed on Fall of “Western Civilization”. Trump is the leader of the coalition and by capturing the nomination in 2016 he has catapulted himself into the position he currently finds himself. It gives him influence over the RNC, as noted above, and provides the kind of political influence generated by the faction that he leads having significant influence in the primaries.
Moreover, once he became the nominee in 2016, knocking him out of that position became very difficult because clearly there is not a faction of the GOP powerful enough to topple him. There is also the incentive to wait him out, which may be the coward’s way out, but if elected officials are primarily motivated by re-election (and I think they are) then it is not irrational behavior (whether it is morally defensible is a different discussion).
