Last month, electoral politics got a shake-up when staff changes were announced at the Republican National Committee (RNC). Michael Whatley and Lara Trump took over the top spots, with a cascade of other Trump affiliates being announced for positions throughout the organization.
This news was well received among the president’s supporters, many of whom saw the former RNC as an enforcement arm of the D.C. establishment, solidifying it while undermining his return to power. Reporting on the personnel change-up was quickly followed by an announcement that there would be a shift in focus at the RNC to election integrity. These changes at the RNC and other organizations signal that two broader principles of a more focused MAGA movement are being put into action: Personnel is policy, and election fraud is a real threat.
Personnel Is Policy
When Trump was first elected in 2016, there was a scramble between fresh blood and right-wing activists who wanted to see the America First agenda fulfilled and then the D.C. establishment to fill spots in the Trump administration. The establishment maintained some control of personnel placement at the RNC and other organizations, which ended up steering staff placement in the new administration in a way that crippled the America First policy agenda for years.
It was only in the fourth year of Trump’s term, when he brought on a new team of loyalists in his Presidential Personnel Office (PPO), that detractors began to be identified, removed, and replaced with other Trump loyalists who would diligently carry out his policy agenda. It was under the new PPO that I was brought into the Trump administration.
Part of my job was to conduct interviews to vet and hire new appointees and to replace those who didn’t meet standards. To quote a member of the new PPO about the nature of our job, “With the president’s new direction, PPO was finally exercising its critical function of quality control — so the will of the people, and the agenda they voted for, was being implemented.”
To do this, we used thorough screening techniques to assess whether or not current or prospective appointees should have a position in the Trump administration. The effectiveness of these methods was evident in the uproar they caused among appointees who should not have been there in the first place. Had there been a second term in 2021, the strategy for personnel changes would have allowed for much more effective implementation of the president’s policy agenda.
The recent staff changes at the RNC show continuity on Trump’s part in recognizing that personnel is policy and that he will take action to get the right people into the right places to prevent subversive staff from crippling the policy agenda that the American people want carried out leading into 2025.
Making Election Integrity a Top Priority
The old RNC leadership’s attitude toward election fraud was ambiguous at best. The new leadership at the RNC knows that for Trump to win in 2025, the RNC must be staffed up with people who aren’t afraid to say that election fraud and irregularities exist and will work with zeal to prevent it from happening in November. They are making the right move in using more effective vetting techniques and screening current and prospective employees for whether they see election fraud as a problem.
Personnel implements policy, and if the organization working to get Trump elected is filled with personnel who have disdain for anyone who doesn’t parrot talking points about 2020 being “the most secure election in history,” one can see how a disconnect could exist between the work that needs to be done and implementation of that work. Far too many people get hired or have jobs they shouldn’t simply because they know a donor and/or they have moved up a ladder they wouldn’t have been on at all if they were being vetted for their worldview or compatibility with the America First agenda. This, combined with a lack of willpower in management to fire subversive personnel, creates rampant dysfunction for any reform efforts in Washington.
However, the new leadership at the RNC is showing they are willing to get their hands dirty and make some bold changes to get more effective and aligned people into the places they need to be to secure a Trump win.
Other Republican gatekeepers need to take the RNC’s lead and vet current and prospective employees for compatibility with Trump’s agenda, or there will not be lasting opposition to establishment control of our elections and the broader policy agenda in the United States. Current staff in every branch of government, Trump-friendly think tanks, and adjacent organizations like the RNC should be doubling down on election integrity leading into the election in 2025.
If those currently holding positions of authority in these organizations don’t think it is feasible that there was election fraud in 2020, they should be removed from their position and replaced with someone serious. That is what just happened when Ronna McDaniel was replaced with Michael Whatley at the RNC. This is how we win in November and how we keep winning in the future.
Joe Guy is a former Congressional Chief of Staff, official from the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Trump Administration, and is currently the Director of Development at Personnel Policy Operations.
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