RNC chair bows out as Trump seeks new leadership for party
NEW YORK — Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel will leave her post on March 8, having been forced out of the GOP’s national leadership as Donald Trump moves toward another presidential nomination and asserts control over the party.
McDaniel announced her decision in a statement Monday morning.
“I have decided to step aside at our Spring Training on March 8 in Houston to allow our nominee to select a Chair of their choosing,” McDaniel said in the statement. “The RNC has historically undergone change once we have a nominee and it has always been my intention to honor that tradition.”
Trump had announced his preference for North Carolina GOP Chair Michael Whatley, a littleknown veteran operative focused in recent years on the prospect of voter fraud, to replace McDaniel. Trump also picked his daughterin-law, Lara Trump, to be committee co-chair.
The 50-year-old McDaniel was a strong advocate for the former president and helped reshape the GOP in his image. But Trump’s MAGA movement increasingly blamed McDaniel for the former president’s 2020 loss and the party’s failures to meet expectations in races the past two years. RNC co-chair Drew McKissick said he also would leave.
The leadership shakeup comes as the GOP shifts from the primary phase to the general election of the 2024 presidential contest. While former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has remained in the race, Trump has won every state in the primary calendar and could clinch the Republican nomination by mid-March.
Haley told reporters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Monday that the RNC was turning into “Donald Trump’s playpen.”
“The idea that they would be choosing a chair and a director before a primary is a massive control move by Donald Trump,” she said.
Trump cannot make leadership changes without the formal backing of the RNC’s 168-member governing body. RNC members from across the country are expected to approve Trump’s decision in March.
McDaniel was the committee’s longest-serving leader since the Civil War. The niece of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and a former chair of the Michigan GOP, she was Trump’s choice to lead the RNC chair shortly after the 2016 election.
The party is now struggling to raise money. The RNC reported $8.7 million in the bank at the beginning of February compared to the Democratic National Committee’s $24 million.
Lara Trump has suggested that GOP voters would likely want the RNC to cover her father-in-law’s legal bills.
A former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge ruled Monday, reversing an order releasing the man.
U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles ordered Alexander Smirnov’s detention days after he was freed by another judge, then rearrested while meeting with his lawyers at their offices in Las Vegas. Wright said he did not believe there were release conditions he could set that would guarantee that the man who has claimed to have ties to Russian intelligence would not flee the country.
Smirnov, 43, pleaded not guilty to the charges accusing him of falsely telling his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid President Biden
Smirnov to stay in jail:
and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of the president in Congress.
White House meeting:
President Joe Biden will convene the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday to press lawmakers on passing an emergency aid package for Ukraine and Israel, as well as averting a looming government shutdown, according to a White House official.
The top four leaders are House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.; and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
The president will discuss the “urgency” of passing the aid package, which has bipartisan support, as well as legislation to keep the federal government operating through the end of September, the White House official said.
The GOP-led House is under pressure to pass the $95 billion national security package that bolsters aid for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific. That legislation cleared the Senate 70-29 this month, but Johnson
has been resistant to putting up the aid bill for a vote in the House.
The first tranche of government funding is due to expire Friday. The rest of the funding, for agencies such as the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, expires March 8.
War in Ukraine: Ukrainian troops have pulled out of a village in the east of the country, an army spokesman said Monday, as Russian forces display advantages in manpower and ammunition on the battlefield at the start of the war’s third year.
The latest setback for Kyiv’s soldiers was in the village of Lastochkyne, where they fell back to nearby villages in an attempt to hold the line there, Dmytro Lykhovii, a spokesman for one of the Ukrainian troop groupings, said on national television.
Lastochkyne lies to the west of Avdiivka, a suburb of Donetsk city that the Kremlin’s forces captured Feb. 18 after a four-month battle. The outnumbered defenders were overwhelmed, and Ukraine chose to mount a defense elsewhere.
An internal review blames privacy restrictions and staff hesitancy
Pentagon review:
for the Pentagon’s failure last month to quickly notify the president and other senior leaders about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization for complications from prostate cancer surgery.
The review, done by Austin’s subordinates, largely absolves anyone of wrongdoing for the secrecy surrounding his hospitalization. It says flatly there was “no indication of ill intent or an attempt to obfuscate.”
Austin has been called to Capitol Hill for a House hearing Thursday. The Defense Department’s inspector general is also conducting a review.
case: The United Nations’ highest court wrapped up historic proceedings Monday into the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation of lands sought by Palestinians for a future state, with most voices at the hearing arguing against the Israeli government.
The court says it will issue its opinion in “due course.” On average, advisory opinions are released six months after oral proceedings.