Donald Trump’s allies are quietly engaging in little-noticed fights over who will sit on the committee that will define the Republican Party’s national platform.
NBC News spoke with nine people familiar with what’s happening in states across the country, including Arizona, South Carolina, Kansas and Iowa, among others, who said the campaign’s involvement is aimed at stopping those on the party’s right flank try to pressure the Republican National Committee’s official platform is too far to the right on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage heading into the general election.
A Trump campaign official acknowledged to NBC News that there is talk across the party about culture war-infused policies and that they have been watching and getting involved in some state-level races for seats on the RNC Platform Committee, which is the governing body which will play a significant role in shaping platform changes.
The official also noted that it is not uncommon for people more closely aligned with the president to take senior roles at the convention.
“I know there are probably some people upset with us, but these positions are generally reserved for those who have been useful to the president,” the official said. “That includes that kind of thing.”
The current platform is a 66-page document which outlines the Republican National Committee’s stance 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 U.S. state and territory.
Platform changes are generally made every four years to coincide with presidential elections. But in 2020, the RNC made no adjustments — the first time it failed to do so in more than 150 years. That decision, officials said at the time, was made due to the complications of holding full meetings during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. It angered both social conservatives and more moderate Republicans, all of whom wanted change.
Now, some of the platform fights that could have happened in 2020 are having repercussions in the 2024 election cycle.
“They’re definitely concerned about who’s going to get on these committees,” said Shiree Verdone, who served as Trump’s Arizona campaign co-chair in 2016 and 2020. “Trying to get normal people on the platform and the rules. [committees]but God knows if there are any normal people in that delegation.”
Verdone, who previously served on RNC platform committees, is no longer directly involved with the Arizona Republican Party. Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Gina Swoboda did not return a request for comment.
At the grassroots level, this involvement amounts to the Trump team and its allies handpicking the candidates they want to be part of the platform committee, giving these individuals an advantage in the elections.
The committee’s leadership, chosen earlier this month, strongly supports Trump.
Randy Evans, Trump’s former ambassador to Luxembourg, will serve as executive director; Russ Vought, 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 Legal Defense 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, after all, the party’s presumptive nominee. But they all also acknowledged that he is not entirely calm; There are intraparty debates over abortion and the definition of marriage ahead of the July convention in Milwaukee.
There is a feeling among some party leaders that the Trump team wants to ensure that the people who sit on the platform committee do not present a platform that could be seen as too extreme in a general election on issues such as the definition of marriage and abortion, with the latter taking over the definition of political influence after the Supreme Court – helped by three of Trump’s conservative picks – overturned Roe v. Wade.
“The campaign is really getting into it and involved this year in [platform committee] races in the states,” said a veteran Republican operative who once worked for the RNC. “There’s a sense among them that the platform shouldn’t be pushed too far to the right on some issues, but I keep hearing about abortion and marriage specifically.”
“The insertion I’m seeing is very strange,” another longtime RNC member said of the involvement of Trump allies in the selection of platform committee members. “It’s definitely out of the ordinary from past experiences; some are worried that they just want to get involved to change or control it.”
“I think obviously the [former] the president will get what he wants, what is appropriate”, added the person, who was previously part of the RNC Platform Committees. “But it’s currently a conversation within the party.”
O Current RNC platform mentions “abortion” 35 times, including opposition to the use of federal funds to perform or promote abortions, and support for the state’s ability to ban abortion providers from federal programs like Medicaid.
“The Democratic Party is extremist on abortion,” the current platform says. “Democrats’ almost unlimited support for abortion and their strident opposition to even the most basic abortion restrictions put them dramatically out of step with the American people.”
As abortion has become a dominant election issue since the overturn of Roe in 2022, the issue has left Trump trying to balance the pleasure of social conservatives who have long pushed for strict federal abortion bans, and the fact that access to abortion remains popular among the wider electorate. . An NBC News poll last year found that 60 percent of voters disapproved of overturning Roe v. Wade.
In recent interviews, Trump has used a general comment to respond to questions about abortion, saying it should be up to each state to determine abortion policy.
That response often doesn’t placate the party’s more socially conservative factions, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who is considered by some to be on the list to serve as fellow Republican. Trump’s ticket in 2024. .
“You don’t need a federal ban,” Trump told Time magazine during an interview in April. “Roe v. Wade… wasn’t so much about abortion as it was about bringing it back to the states. Therefore, states should negotiate agreements.”
Another critical point of the RNC platform is the definition of marriage. At the current documentis defined as “between a man and a woman” and called “the cornerstone of the family is natural marriage, the union of a man and a woman.”
“It’s just politically stupid,” said a Republican official vying for a spot on the RNC Platform Committee and who disagrees with any decision to moderate the party on social issues. “How do you retrace decades of life language? Maybe you’ll impact about half a percent of voters and freeze many more.”
In 2019, the Trump administration launched a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality, an effort led by then-US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell. He became the first openly gay person named to a Cabinet position in 2020 when Trump named him Acting Director of National Intelligence.
Grenell spoke at the RNC convention in 2020, a year in which Trump also won support from Log Cabin Republicans; the group did not support him in 2016. Melania Trump also held a Mar-a-Lago fundraising for the group in April.
Neither that group nor Grenell responded to requests for comment on whether they would like changes to the RNC’s platform.
Trump, however, has not been revered by LGBTQ rights groups outside the conservative political ecosystem.
The former president said he will to reverse government programs that support transgender rights and punish doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors. He frequently mocks trans athletes and has gone after schools for pushing “transgender insanity.”
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights group, for example, is planning to spend $15 million in swing states to support President Joe Biden, a spending campaign first reported by NBC News on Monday .
Trump has said that if he returns to the White House, he will roll back government programs focused on trans rights, and has criticized the “gender insanity of the left.”
“This moment feels really important, not just for this election, but really for what this means for the future of our community,” HRC President Kelley Robinson told NBC News. “We’re seeing an incredible backlash in states across the country to the progress we’ve made…it’s led by an opposition that doesn’t want us to have the rights we have today.”
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
