Trump also asked one of his campaign's senior advisers, Chris LaCivita, to take over as chief operating officer at the RNC.
Former US President Donald Trump announced his endorsement of the Republican National Committee (RNC) on Monday night, with Michael Whatley as chair and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair. CBS News reported.
Trump's endorsement of Whatley, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, and his daughter-in-law, who will hold a leadership position in the party for the first time, is expected to shake up the current GOP leadership.
The 77-year-old Republican presidential candidate also announced that he asked one of his campaign's top advisers, Chris LaCivita, to move to the Republican National Committee to take on the role of chief operating officer.
“This group of three is very talented, battle-tested and intelligent,” Trump wrote in a statement Monday night. “You have my complete and total support to lead the Republican National Committee.”
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel won a fourth term as chairwoman in January and has been replaced due to poor fundraising numbers and poor performance in recent national elections, despite having been in office since 2017.
In 2023, the RNC had its worst fundraising year in a decade, and entered 2024 with just $8 million in its coffers, its lowest cash on hand since 2014, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports.
Last week, McDaniel met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, where he told him he is a “team player,” expressing his commitment to the party's best interests, including resigning his presidency.
Trump announced that he would decide the future of the Republican National Committee leadership after the South Carolina primary on February 24.
Whatley, who currently serves as general counsel for the RNC, has echoed Trump's unproven claims of fraud after the 2020 election, stating that “we know there was massive fraud.”
Lara, married to Trump's second son, Eric, featured prominently in Trump's campaign and was introduced as a North Carolina Senate candidate for the 2022 midterm cycle.
LaCivita, an experienced Republican strategist, has worked on several campaigns, including Rand Paul's 2016 presidential bid and the pro-Trump super political action committee Make America Great Again Inc., before joining Trump's re-election campaign in 2022.
