RNC tightens its ties to Trump ahead of expected 2024 bid

At every turn, Republican activists who met here over the past week preached the need for unity.

“When Republicans come together, we win,” the Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, said Friday at the party’s general session.

But even before members could hop on planes to fly home, the party seemed to be defined more by its glaring divisions than any shared goals. The main point of tension: Donald Trump.

Both publicly and privately, some members bristled over the former president’s fixation on the election he lost rather than the upcoming midterm races that will determine control of Congress. While the party’s leadership has pledged to stay neutral, the RNC took positions that catered to Trump’s grievances and aggressively avenged a congressional investigation that is looking into his role in last year’s attack on the Capitol.

The committee overwhelmingly approved a resolution that censured two Republican members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot: Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. It also signaled that it would soon move to prohibit a future GOP presidential nominee from participating in debates sanctioned by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a target of Trump’s ire during the 2020 presidential cycle.

“Restoring faith in our elections also means making sure our candidate can compete on a level playing field,” McDaniel said. “And that starts by withdrawing from the biased Commission on Presidential Debates.”