The Trump gravy train is about to run over the Republican National Committee.
Former president Donald Trump officially endorsed his daughter-in-law Lara Trump to become co-chair of the RNC. This would be her first leadership role within the party, but she’s nonetheless considered qualified for the job because she’s related to the likely 2024 nominee. Hey, it definitely says something when your foremost professional achievement is marrying Eric Trump.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has endorsed two other staunch allies for top RNC posts: Michael Whatley, chair of the North Carolina Republican Party and a rabid 2020 election denier, to be chairman; and Chris LaCivita, a Trump campaign senior adviser, to be chief operating officer. LaCivita would still keep his role with the Trump campaign, CBS News reports.
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These positions are not exactly appointments; chair and co-chair must be elected by RNC committee members. But given Trump’s stranglehold on every other GOP-connected institution — up to and including the U.S. House of Representatives — they should be shoo-ins.
Trump critics have chided Republicans for these choices. They argue that the former president’s picks are just another sign that the party is a subsidiary of Trump Inc. That he’s attempting to run the party like his incompetently-run family business. That the plan is to fleece GOP donors in service of paying off Trump’s mounting legal bills and subordinate the party’s national interests to his own.
By golly, let’s hope so.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...c_magnet-op2024elections_inline_collection_19
Trump has already run his own business and charitable foundation into the ground — and sometimes outside the contours of the law. You may recall the bankruptcies; the unpaid bills; the defrauding of banks and insurers; the appointments of unqualified family members who proved equally allergic to the truth; the criminal convictions of staff and attorneys. Trump himself has legal restrictions on his ability to serve on charity boards, after he admitted to personally misusing funds.
Trump ascended to office on promises to run government like a business, and as president, that he did — by taking those exact kleptocratic, nepotistic business instincts and applying them to the executive branch.
He managed to siphon money away from taxpayers through exorbitantly priced Secret Service rentals of Trump-owned properties. Also from Saudi, Chinese and Turkish government officials, plus U.S. corporate lobbyists and GOP bigwigs hoping for favorable government treatment. Astonishingly, once he left office and sold off the Trump International Hotel in downtown D.C., it became a much less popular location for political events.
Trump’s family relations also did okay in this arrangement. For instance, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner ran the administration’s Middle East policy — then shortly after leaving office, secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS. When asked this week about this investment and the U.S. intelligence report finding the crown prince had murdered Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, an exasperated Kushner responded: “Are we really still doing this?”
Meanwhile, MBS recently affirmed he would maintain his investment in Kushner’s private equity fund if Trump gets reelected.
I dredge all this up partly because right-wing outlets have tried to memory-hole it — more fun to talk about Hunter Biden’s shady art sales, I guess. But also because it’s a useful preview of what Trump familial leadership of the RNC could look like. Trump’s grift-first-and-govern-later management style may have been disastrous for democracy when his people ran the White House, but could be terrific when applied to ravaging the GOP.
For instance: Lara Trump recently said on Newsmax that, if elected RNC co-chair, she’d ensure “every single penny” of RNC funds goes toward putting her father-in-law back in the White House. This might unsettle down-ballot candidates, who also need a few pennies here and there. But hey, if past is prologue, they might be able pry away some RNC money for their own events — assuming those events are held at Mar-a-Lago or another venue that channels donor money to their party leader’s bank account.
In any case, the RNC is on its worst financial footing in at least a decade. With the Trump family in charge, it seems likely that any available funds will be diverted not toward the races where they’re put to best use, but to wherever they’re most advantageous (politically, legally or financially) for the paterfamilias.
Good. The RNC needs to go broke, to be as poorly run as possible, if the Grand Old Party is to ever shake out of its Trump trance.
None of this means incompetent management of the party will doom Trump in November. This is man adept at failing upward. But win or lose, Trump will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Former president Donald Trump officially endorsed his daughter-in-law Lara Trump to become co-chair of the RNC. This would be her first leadership role within the party, but she’s nonetheless considered qualified for the job because she’s related to the likely 2024 nominee. Hey, it definitely says something when your foremost professional achievement is marrying Eric Trump.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has endorsed two other staunch allies for top RNC posts: Michael Whatley, chair of the North Carolina Republican Party and a rabid 2020 election denier, to be chairman; and Chris LaCivita, a Trump campaign senior adviser, to be chief operating officer. LaCivita would still keep his role with the Trump campaign, CBS News reports.
ADVERTISING
These positions are not exactly appointments; chair and co-chair must be elected by RNC committee members. But given Trump’s stranglehold on every other GOP-connected institution — up to and including the U.S. House of Representatives — they should be shoo-ins.
Trump critics have chided Republicans for these choices. They argue that the former president’s picks are just another sign that the party is a subsidiary of Trump Inc. That he’s attempting to run the party like his incompetently-run family business. That the plan is to fleece GOP donors in service of paying off Trump’s mounting legal bills and subordinate the party’s national interests to his own.
By golly, let’s hope so.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...c_magnet-op2024elections_inline_collection_19
Trump has already run his own business and charitable foundation into the ground — and sometimes outside the contours of the law. You may recall the bankruptcies; the unpaid bills; the defrauding of banks and insurers; the appointments of unqualified family members who proved equally allergic to the truth; the criminal convictions of staff and attorneys. Trump himself has legal restrictions on his ability to serve on charity boards, after he admitted to personally misusing funds.
Trump ascended to office on promises to run government like a business, and as president, that he did — by taking those exact kleptocratic, nepotistic business instincts and applying them to the executive branch.
He managed to siphon money away from taxpayers through exorbitantly priced Secret Service rentals of Trump-owned properties. Also from Saudi, Chinese and Turkish government officials, plus U.S. corporate lobbyists and GOP bigwigs hoping for favorable government treatment. Astonishingly, once he left office and sold off the Trump International Hotel in downtown D.C., it became a much less popular location for political events.
Trump’s family relations also did okay in this arrangement. For instance, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner ran the administration’s Middle East policy — then shortly after leaving office, secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS. When asked this week about this investment and the U.S. intelligence report finding the crown prince had murdered Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, an exasperated Kushner responded: “Are we really still doing this?”
Meanwhile, MBS recently affirmed he would maintain his investment in Kushner’s private equity fund if Trump gets reelected.
I dredge all this up partly because right-wing outlets have tried to memory-hole it — more fun to talk about Hunter Biden’s shady art sales, I guess. But also because it’s a useful preview of what Trump familial leadership of the RNC could look like. Trump’s grift-first-and-govern-later management style may have been disastrous for democracy when his people ran the White House, but could be terrific when applied to ravaging the GOP.
For instance: Lara Trump recently said on Newsmax that, if elected RNC co-chair, she’d ensure “every single penny” of RNC funds goes toward putting her father-in-law back in the White House. This might unsettle down-ballot candidates, who also need a few pennies here and there. But hey, if past is prologue, they might be able pry away some RNC money for their own events — assuming those events are held at Mar-a-Lago or another venue that channels donor money to their party leader’s bank account.
In any case, the RNC is on its worst financial footing in at least a decade. With the Trump family in charge, it seems likely that any available funds will be diverted not toward the races where they’re put to best use, but to wherever they’re most advantageous (politically, legally or financially) for the paterfamilias.
Good. The RNC needs to go broke, to be as poorly run as possible, if the Grand Old Party is to ever shake out of its Trump trance.
None of this means incompetent management of the party will doom Trump in November. This is man adept at failing upward. But win or lose, Trump will be laughing all the way to the bank.
