Donald Trump’s allies are quietly engaged in low-profile battles over who will serve on the committee to set the Republican Party’s national platform.
NBC News spoke with nine people familiar with the situation across the country, including in Arizona, South Carolina, Kansas and Iowa, who said the campaign’s involvement was intended to stop those on the party’s right wing from trying to push. On issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, the official Republican National Committee’s platform veered far to the right heading into the general election.
A Trump campaign official admitted to NBC News that there are conversations about culture war policies in the party, and that they have watched and engaged in some state-level races for seats on the RNC’s Platform Committee. plays an important role in the formation of platform changes.
The official also noted that it is not unusual for the people closest to the president to take on key convention roles.
“I know some people are probably upset with us, but these positions are generally reserved for those who help the president,” the official said. “It includes things like that.”
Current platform a 66 page document Reflects the position of the Republican National Committee on dozens of issues, including abortion, marriage, police reform, the Federal Reserve, technology and the environment. The platform committee consists of one man and one woman from each state and territory of the United States.
Platform changes are generally made every four years at the same time as presidential elections. But in 2020, the RNC made no adjustments — skipping it for the first time in more than 150 years. Officials said at the time that the decision was made due to the difficulty of holding full meetings during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. This angered both social conservatives and more moderate Republicans, all of whom wanted change.
Now, some of the platform battles that could have happened in 2020 are moving into the 2024 election cycle.
“They’re definitely concerned about who gets on these committees,” said Shiri Verdone, who served as Trump’s Arizona campaign co-chair in 2016 and 2020. [committees]but God knows if there are normal people in that delegation.”
Verdone, who previously served on RNC platform committees, is no longer directly affiliated with the Arizona Republican Party.. Arizona GOP Chairwoman Gina Svoboda did not respond to a request for comment.
At a low level, this participation means that the Trump team and its allies choose the candidates they want to be on the platform committee and give them a foothold in the elections.
The committee’s leadership, elected earlier this month, is staunchly pro-Trump.
Randy Evans, Trump’s former ambassador to Luxembourg, will serve as executive director; Russ Voth, former director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, will serve as policy director; and Ed Martin, head of the conservative groups Phyllis Schlafly Eagles and the Eagle Forum Education and Advocacy Center, will serve as deputy policy director.
Most of those interviewed by NBC News said they support what the campaign is doing because Trump is the party’s presumptive nominee. But they also admitted it wasn’t all smooth sailing; Ahead of July’s convention in Milwaukee, there is an intra-party debate over abortion and the definition of marriage.
There is a perception among some party leaders that Trump’s team wants to make sure that people on the platform committee do not come up with a platform that could be considered too extreme in the general election. marriage and abortion, the latter after the Supreme Court — with the help of three conservative Trump picks — Roe v. After overturning Wade, he established political influence.
“The campaign is really coming in and taking part this year [platform committee] races in the states,” said a veteran Republican operative who has worked for the RNC in the past. “There’s a sense among them that the platform shouldn’t be pulled too far to the right on a few issues, but I hear abortion and marriage in particular.”
“The addition that I’ve seen is very strange,” said another longtime RNC member of Trump allies’ involvement in selecting platform committee members. “It’s definitely unusual from past experiences; some worry that they want to engage only to change or control it.”
“I think clearly [former] the president will get what he wants, that’s appropriate,” added a former RNC Platform Committee member. “But that’s an internal party conversation at the moment.”
The The RNC’s current platform mentions “abortion” 35 times, including opposing the use of federal funds to perform or promoting abortions and supporting state abilities to ban abortion providers from federal programs like Medicaid.
The current platform reads: “The Democratic Party is extreme on abortion.” “Democrats’ almost unwavering support for abortion and staunch opposition to even the simplest restrictions on abortion have sharply alienated them from the American people.”
As abortion becomes a dominant election issue in 2022 after Roe is overturned, the issue has forced Trump to try to balance unpopular social conservatives, who have long pushed for strict federal abortion bans, and the fact that abortion access remains popular with a broader range of voters. An NBC News poll last year found that 60% majority of voters in Roe v. He didn’t like Wade’s cancellation.
In recent interviews, Trump used a common comment answer questions about abortionsaying that abortion policy should be determined by individual states.
This response often displeases the more socially conservative factions of the party, including the former vice president Mike Penceand former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben CarsonConsidered by some to be on the short list to serve as Trump’s running mate in 2024.
“You don’t need a federal ban,” Trump said in an April interview with Time magazine. “Roe v. Wade…wasn’t about abortion, it was about bringing it back to the states. That’s why the states should discuss deals.”
Another issue with the RNC platform is over the definition of marriage. Into current documentit is defined as “between one man and one woman” and called “the cornerstone of the family is natural marriage, the union of one man and one woman.”
“It’s just politically stupid,” said one Republican official running for a seat on the RNC’s Platform Committee, who disagreed with the party’s decision to moderate on social issues. “How do you return to the language you have lived in for decades? What, maybe you’ll influence half of one percent of the electorate and freeze more.”
In 2019, the Trump administration launched a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality, led by then-US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell. He became the first openly gay person to be appointed to a Cabinet-level position in 2020 when Trump named him director of National Intelligence.
Grenell spoke at the 2020 RNC convention, the year Trump also received the endorsement of the Log Cabin Republicans; the group did not support him in 2016. Melania Trump also hosted Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for the group in April.
That group, nor Grenell, responded to requests for comment on whether they wanted to make changes to the RNC platform.
However, Trump has not been respected by LGBTQ rights groups outside of the conservative political ecosystem.
The former president said he would do it to return government programs supporting transgender rights and to punish doctors gender-affirming caregivers of minors. He often mocked trans athletes and went to schools to push them.”transsexual madness.”
For example, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights group, plans to spend $15 million in key states to support President Joe Biden. reported first Monday by NBC News.
Trump said he would roll back government programs aimed at trans rights if he returned to the White House and criticized “left-wing gender madness.”
“This moment feels very important, not just for this election, but for what it means for the future of our society,” HRC President Kelley Robinson told NBC News. “We’re seeing an incredible response to the progress we’ve made in states across the country … driven by an opposition that doesn’t want us to have the rights we have today.”