Trump makes RNC establishment great again with an eye on making money and winning
Trump loyalists decry return of "swamp" to RNC, old hands praise top Trump aide, Chris LaCivita
Former President Trump is making the establishment great again, handing the reins of the Republican National Committee to George W. Bush-era operative Chris LaCivita so he can install his team of veteran party officials at the GOP headquarters as they absorb it into the former president’s highly buttoned-down third campaign, according to interviews with more than a dozen Republicans familiar with the overhaul.
The return of longtime GOP power players to the RNC, including top LaCivita allies Sean Cairncross and veteran GOP lawyer and fundraiser Charlie Spies, prompted some Trump loyalists to trash the overhaul.
“If it was the swamp before, it’s even more swamp now,” said one veteran Republican familiar with the moves.
But others close to the tight-knit operation running Trump’s comeback bid have praised the transition as putting the Republican Party’s official apparatus in very experienced hands at a time when the embattled nominee needs it most.
“LaCivita is trying to win. A lot of other Republicans just want to fight with other Republicans. This is about winning the general election,” veteran RNC committeeman Henry Barbour told 24sight Friday. Barbour pushed a measure to ensure the RNC didn’t pay Trump’s legal bills prior to Trump’s takeover of the RNC, but LaCivita in particular has repeatedly promised the RNC will no longer cover Trump’s legal tab.
Even Roger Stone, the longtime Trump confidant and establishment hater, sang LaCivita’s praises Friday.
“I have total confidence in LaCivita. His loyalty to Trump is unquestionable. At the same time he puts a high premium on competence and performance,” Stone told 24sight. “I think he may be the single best strategist/operative in the party today. The proof of this is in Trump's overwhelming and historic victories in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and on Super Tuesday.”
The reality of LaCivita and Trump co-campaign manager Susie Wiles plugging in new staff at the RNC after Trump forced out former chair Ronna McDaniel undercuts the shock-and-awe rollout of the new RNC, which was touted as the MAGA-fication of the official party partly because of the arrival of Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump and one of Trump’s top election-denying lawyers, Christina Bobb.
Instead, veteran Republicans from across the modern GOP political spectrum described a meticulous team building effort that took months and returned RNC alumni under the direction of LaCivita.
It has also calmed the nerves of numerous top operatives who helped other campaigns in the primary and have been fundamentally leery of Trump since the January 6th insurrection and his string of high-profile losses by handpicked candidates like former football star Herschel Walker and celebrity physician Mehmet Oz.
“The adults are in the room,” texted one veteran Republican who opposed Trump through the primaries but is now on board with the RNC overhaul.
But it has also angered people who have worked with Trump for years.
“Charlie (Spies) worked for fucking Ron DeSantis, and Jeb (Bush) and Mitt (Romney) before that. This is not a Trump guy,” said a second Republican familiar with the reorganization.
Political spectators have billed the realignment as an organizational “bloodbath” that’s likely “ruinous” for the party, denouncing the personnel swaps and proposed policy changes as MAGA overreach at its worst. Some of the apparently unsettled issues that have drawn early fire include plans to rejigger existing early voting and mail-in voting programs, as well as shutting down experimental minority outreach centers that began disappearing last year.
Asked about the ascendance of LaCivita and his lieutenants and the quick dismissal of the political and data teams at the RNC, reported in POLITICO, the Washington Post and other media outlets, an RNC spokesperson now working for the Trump campaign told 24sight it was about “streamlining” operations ahead of the November election.
“This is a group of people who truly believe in President Trump and want to deliver,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez, who was previously the communications director at the RNC through Trump’s re-election bid in 2020. “That’s why it’s so important to streamline and move ahead in the same direction.”
Rebuilding time
The opening week for the new RNC team has been rocky, marred by initial plans to scuttle outreach centers for Latino and minority voters and an early-voting effort launched by the RNC to offset the Democrats’ advantages there.
But in a week-ending memo to RNC members, Whatley denied reports that 10 remaining minority outreach hubs were history. “Despite what you may have heard, we are not closing community centers,” he wrote without offering any further explanation about the locations in question or the short-lived outposts in Nevada, Arizona and other battleground states.
Whatley also pushed back against axing any voting programs. “Our Bank Your Vote program will continue educating and empowering voters to feel confident in early voting and voting by mail,” he wrote, adding that a companion “Grow the Vote” project aimed to corral “nontraditional Republican voters and low propensity voters.”
Lara Trump seconded the push to make the most of early and mail-in voting – for now – during an online Q&A. “We’ve gotta start telling people to vote early … bank that vote!” she instructed her followers.
Should Republicans clinch unified control of the House, Senate and Oval Office this fall, Lara Trump said scrapping the status quo and tweaking voting access as they see fit would be an easier lift.
“Then you could have one day of voting,” she dangled for those, like her criminally-charged in-law, who baselessly blame rigged elections for losses at the ballot box.
While longtime RNC committeeman Whatley, who was close with McDaniel during her time as chair, is technically the new chairman of the RNC and Lara Trump is formally co-chair, giving Trump a family footing at the party much akin to when Donald Trump Jr. friend Tommy Hicks served as co-chair, Republicans who spoke with 24sight almost unilaterally described it as LaCivita’s operation — at Trump’s behest.
And the top order, they say, is to shake the money tree from every reticent GOP donor as they look to overcome a massive cash deficit with President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.
Behind the moves, Republicans see a sharp coalition-building effort to win back Republicans who, in many cases, openly opposed Trump in the past – particularly after January 6th.
LaCivita, Cairncross and Spies all have deep ties to Senate Republicans, long led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. They also know Sen. John Cornyn from his days as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Cornyn has long been a top McConnell deputy and is now running to replace him as the Senate Republican Leader.
The realignment could help mend fences for Trump on Capitol Hill, where his relationship with Senate GOP leaders has been on the skids since the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Congress.
McConnell said Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the Capitol siege but also provided cover for him by voting against the corresponding impeachment charges because Trump was no longer in office.
McConnell recently half-heartedly endorsed Trump while one of the GOP establishment’s rising stars, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, has enmeshed himself in Trumpworld as he vies for the vice presidential slot on the 2024 ticket.
But Wiles and the Trump MAGA-verse also put allies in top positions at the party after kicking out McDaniel and her team. James Blair, a longtime Wiles deputy, is now serving as political director for the RNC and the Trump campaign. And Lara Trump has been tasked with invigorating the MAGA grassroots for Trump, Republicans familiar with the plans told 24sight.
“The bottom line is these elections aren’t marathons -- but they’re like relay marathons. This transfer of power was more a passing of the baton, then replacing someone – so you have fresh legs for the end,” said a veteran Republican familiar with the RNC. “Ronna shouldn’t have run again, but she did.”