HOUSTON, Texas - Donald Trump cemented his grip on the Republican National Committee (RNC) on March 8 after his daughter-in-law and another ally assumed top leadership posts amid a debate among members over whether the organisation should help pay his legal bills.

RNC members meeting in Houston voted to appoint North Carolina Republican Party head Michael Whatley and Mrs Lara Trump as chair and co-chair of the organisation, which will play a key role in marshalling voters and funds for the Nov 5 general election.

The move comes after Trump swept the Super Tuesday primary contests, prompting Mrs Nikki Haley to drop out of the Republican race and all but assuring that the former US president will be the nominee and face off against President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

“The goal on November 5th is to win, and as my father-in-law says, ‘bigly’,” Mrs Trump said, promising that “every single penny of every dollar raised” would go towards the goal of winning the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate for Republicans.

The reshuffling sees Mrs Ronna McDaniel replaced atop the organisation. Mrs McDaniel was a staunch Trump ally but faced pressure to step aside following sluggish fund raising and a weaker-than-expected performance for Republicans in the 2022 congressional midterm elections.

A number of RNC members have called for the committee to help pay for Trump’s legal expenses, which along with penalties have ballooned to hundreds of millions of dollars. In speeches on March 8, neither Mr Whatley nor Mrs Trump directly addressed the issue, which has made some donors wary of writing cheques.

“Donors don’t want to pay some other rich guy’s legal bills. They want to help win elections, because that’s the RNC’s job,” said Mr Henry Barbour, an RNC member from Mississippi who drafted a resolution barring using funds for that purpose. The resolution failed to gain enough support to be put to a vote on March 8.

Trump’s push to have the wife of his younger adult son Eric as second-in-command symbolises his takeover of a political institution whose mission is to get Republicans elected up and down the ballot. Not since President Ronald Reagan’s daughter Maureen Reagan was RNC co-chair in the 1980s has a family member of a president or nominee served in such a position of power.

One of the new leadership’s most pressing tasks will be money. After recording its lowest fund-raising year in a decade in 2023, the RNC had less than US$9 million (S$12 million) in the bank at the end of January, a little more than a third of the Democratic National Committee’s US$24 million, federal filings show.

“We have to raise a lot of money,” Mrs Trump said, showing a cheque for US$100,000 she said had been donated on March 8.

Trump’s legal bills

Mrs Trump created a stir in February by saying she believed Republicans have a “big interest” in paying the former president’s legal bills and by not ruling out using RNC funds.

Trump’s legal costs are expected to mount in 2024 as he grapples with 91 criminal counts across four cases and faces more than US$500 million in damages tied to civil case judgments in New York. On March 8, Trump posted a US$91.6 million bond to cover the defamation verdict in favour of writer E. Jean Carroll.

With March 8’s vote, Trump’s campaign and the RNC will start working more closely together, including on fund raising. That will be overseen in part by Mr Chris LaCivita, a co-manager of the campaign set to double as the RNC’s chief operating officer.

Mr LaCivita has repeatedly said RNC funds would not be used for legal costs, a stance he reiterated to reporters on March 8.

Mr Oscar Brock, an RNC member from Tennessee, said there was not enough money in the budget for Trump’s legal bills and that he was personally against it. However, Mr Brock said some of his constituents want the RNC to help Trump, and that he could see it coming up for debate if fund raising exceeded expectations.

Mr Solomon Yue, an RNC committeeman from Oregon, said he had spoken with some 20 members who agree with him that the organisation should pick up the bill for Trump’s legal troubles.

Two RNC donors who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said they planned to wait to see the impact of the leadership changes before contributing funds. Both expressed concerns about their money going to pay legal bills. REUTERS