The Purge: Election Year – Team Trump Axes 60+ RNC Staffers

On its very first day in control of the Republican National Committee following last week’s takeover, Team Trump wasted no time as it ventures to reshape the RNC in Trump’s image — immediately bringing the axe down on more than 60 of the organization’s 200-some staffers. Vendors are also bracing for possible terminations of their RNC relationships. 

“[The new leadership is] in the process of evaluating the organization and staff to ensure the building is aligned” with its vision, said new RNC chief operating officer Sean Cairncross in an email to staff. 

Among those whose career blood is splattered on the walls of RNC headquarters are five senior staffers, including the leaders of the political, communications and data teams. Some employees are being asked to resign but with an opportunity to reapply for their jobs. “If you choose to not reapply, your last day of employment will be March 31,” wrote Cairncross. In a possible indication of the new leadership’s urgency to reorganize the party, Cairncross’s own name was misspelled on his email.  

Last week, RNC members voted to put Trump’s endorsed candidates in command. North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley is now the RNC chairman, Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump is co-chair and Trump senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita is the chief operations officer.  

The RNC renovation isn’t just about achieving Trumpist purity — it’s also aimed at cost-cutting: 

Trump advisers have described the RNC’s structure as overly bloated and bureaucratic, which they believe has contributed to the party’s cash woes. The RNC had about $8 million at the end of December, only about one-third as much as the Democratic National Committee. – Politico

The new organization will consolidate some functions — such as fundraising, communications and data — into a single department. The finance and digital teams are likely to move to Palm Beach, where Trump’s reelection campaign is headquartered, an insider tells the New York Times. 

Lara Trump told Fox News the RNC will focus on three pillars to ensure a winning November: “Turn out the vote, protect the vote, and raise money, but I would argue that maybe the most important of those three is protecting the vote; election integrity.” 

The RNC has already established an election integrity division, she said, and will augment it with a nationwide network of volunteers, to include poll-watchers, poll-workers and lawyers, adding, “We can never allow what happened in 2020 and the questions surrounding that election to ever happen again.”