According to two anonymous people in positions to know stuff, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel is planning to resign from her job just a year after being reelected to it, because that’s what Donald Trump wants. She’s expected to step down after the February 24 South Carolina primary, according to the New York Times (gift link), which broke the story.
As Yr Wonkette previously covered, the Great Man has grown tired of McDaniel even though she’s been a complete toady for him and his Make Trump Dictator agenda, standing by him through his impeachments and scandals and indictments and trials. But look, she has to be doing a terrible job, because Republicans keep losing elections by sticking with Trump, and that certainly can’t be his fault. Shame on her! Trump is also mad that the RNC has had trouble raising money, especially from the small-dollar donors who have been giving him all the cash he needs to pay his mammoth legal fees. Added to that, the Washington Post reports that Trump was super angry with McDaniel over the Republican primary debates, which he wanted her to cancel altogether. But like a monster, she didn’t, allowing people who don’t matter to act like they had a shot at the nomination. Some even bad-mouthed him!
In a Fox Bidness Channel interview Sunday, Trump told Maria Bartiromo that McDaniel “did great when she ran Michigan for me. I think she did okay initially in the RNC. I would say right now there will probably be some changes made.” And just like that, the desk drawers and file cabinets in McDaniels’s office began magically emptying themselves into cardboard storage boxes.
Trump met with McDaniel at his Florida Trash Palace and Classified Documents Emporium, and just to make the nudge in the ribs official, Trump posted on his imitation Twitter that she is “my friend,” but also that she is “now Head of the RNC, and I’ll be making a decision the day after the South Carolina Primary as to my recommendations for RNC Growth.” The Times did not clarify whether McDaniel left the meeting with the stiletto still in her back, or if Trump staff had thoughtfully removed it and presented it to her in a commemorative frame.
Hilariously, the Times says that Trump has been “uncharacteristically gentle” toward McDaniel as he points her firmly toward the exit. No, the one in back, for servants and deliveries, not the front door.
“I think she knows that,” Mr. Trump told the right-wing media site Newsmax in an interview that ran shortly after his meeting with Ms. McDaniel, when asked if it was time for her to step aside. “I think she understands that.”
Well of course he’s too chickenshit to be mean to her in person while she’s still around. He’ll wait until she’s gone to unleash his usual charming claims about how nasty and terrible she is.
The Times reports that McDaniel is likely to be replaced by Michael Whatley, who’s currently the chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, who still in 2024 insists that the 2020 election was rigged and stollen, so of course Trump loves him (for now). Trump also believes Whatley did real good in helping win North Carolina in 2020 by actually stopping a nonexistent steal, good for him:
Mr. Whatley has baselessly claimed that election security efforts from Republicans in North Carolina stopped Democrats from cheating. He is also currently the general counsel at the Republican National Committee and has endorsed efforts to develop new voting laws.
The story notes that Trump won’t be able to simply name Whatley as McDaniels’s replacement; first there has to be an “election” in which the Chosen MAGA could conceivably “face internal party dissent,” even though Republicans know better than to upset Trump and have a burned steak with ketchup hurled at them.
Also too, since the Republican Party is apparently rife with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies Republicans usually rail against, the Times reports,
Should Mr. Trump pick a new male chairman, the role of co-chairwoman would then open up. Several prominent Republican activists have begun lobbying over that potential slot. For instance, Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who supports Mr. Trump, is publicly opposing Jessica Patterson, the chair of the California Republican Party, for that position.
Yes, that Laura Loomer, who just a few days ago was lying like a maniac about Rep. Ilhan Omar because Loomer is a racist Islamophobic asshole, or as they say in Trumpworld, a potential Cabinet appointee.
However! In a competing scoop, NBC News reported yesterday that there’s also a scheme afoot that would keep McDaniel in her post as a figurehead, but give the real decision-making power to Trump allies, maybe.
A Trump ally also said the former president has often preferred schemes that would, in the end, spare people.
“The best kept secret with Trump is that he doesn’t actually like to fire people,” a Trump ally said.
As the Great Man says, we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the next short period of time, but that seems unlikely — Trump is a coward, but he may now decide that there’s been so much reporting on McDaniel’s imminent departure that keeping her would make him look weak, and Donald Trump is never weak.
In conclusion, we’re looking forward to the eventual revelation in a few months that Donald Trump won’t be able to pay his grifter attorneys anymore because the MAGA loyalists he’s currently stacking the party apparatus with ran off with all the funds first, the end.
PREVIOUSLY, LIKE THIS WEEK!
[NYT (gift link) / WaPo / NBC News / Photo: Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons License 2.0]
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Will the leopards run out of faces before November?
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All of the people in this post are pathetic, but because they all are also hateful, they get no sympathy from me.