US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally to support Republican House of Representatives candidate Ed Gallrein and Senate candidate Andy Barr, at Truist Arena in Highland Heights, Kentucky, US, October 17, 2026.
Republicans have been engaged in a heated civil war ever since President Donald Trump's incarnation of that party suffered devastating setbacks in the 2026 midterm elections. Now a new report reveals that Republicans are turning their sights on the chairman picked by Trump — and, in part, because of luxuries that he allegedly allowed the Trump family to receive at the GOP's expense.
"A nascent rebellion is underway against President Donald Trump's handpicked chairman at the Republican National Committee, and it's already getting ugly," reported the Associated Press (AP) on Sunday.
"Some members are calling for a forensic audit of spending decisions, including hair and makeup services for Trump and other officials, as well as the hiring of the daughter of Trump's former chief of staff. Feuding Republicans are leaking emails and opposition research on rival factions," the AP added. "The White House is threatening to cut off fundraising assistance if the rebels don't fall in line."
They continued, "The emerging fight, which will shape the 2028 presidential nominating contest, represents a rare challenge to Trump's dominance, even after the party's worst midterm performance in a generation. Despite the heavy losses, Republican leaders across Washington have shown little desire to move past Trump and have largely stood behind his most unpopular policies."
In June, Dan Vicuña, Senior Policy Director for Voting and Fair Representation at Common Cause, argued that Trump's ongoing efforts at the time to nationalize the midterms so his party would not lose were potentially illegal.
“I think some of these attempts to federalize, to nationalize elections are clearly illegal,” Vicuña told AlterNet at the time. “You've seen some of that overreach already struck down — attempts to order independent agencies to force a strict voter ID requirement on people. That has been rejected. Common Cause is in court challenging the latest executive order to turn the United States Postal Service into some election administration agency and to create a further bureaucratic layer to make it more difficult to vote by mail. In terms of the president's authority to order around USPS, it's illegal. In terms of USPS's authority to become some sort of national election administration agency, it far exceeds the legal authority that Congress gave to the postal service. The statute describing what kind of work the postal service would do is about postal service work — processing mail and selling stamps. It has nothing to do with election administration.”