EXCLUSIVE – New Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Joe Gruters outlined his mission as he took over steering the GOP’s national party committee.
‘The midterms are ahead, where we must expand our major majority in the House, in the Senate, and continue electing Republicans nationwide,’ Gruters said as he addressed committee members moments after being unanimously elected chair at the RNC’s summer meeting, held this year in Atlanta, Georgia.
Gruters, a state senator and RNC committee member from Florida, who, until his election as chair on Friday, briefly served as the national party committee’s treasurer, is a longtime ally of President Donald Trump. His move to the RNC chairmanship cements Trump’s dominance over the GOP as it prepares for midterm battles next year.
And a month ago, Trump endorsed Gruters to succeed now-former RNC chair Michael Whatley, who stepped down as he runs for the Senate in battleground North Carolina in the blockbuster race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Thom Tillis.
The ascension of Gruters to RNC chair is the latest sign of Trump’s complete control over the national party committee.
‘This is the president’s party. This is the president’s vision, overall. The party fully embraces the president,’ Gruters said as he and Whatley stood for an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.
Whatley, who Trump picked to steer the RNC a year and a half ago, noted that ‘we have transformed the RNC, basically the way that President Trump has transformed the Republican Party.’
Gruters has been a major Trump supporter dating back to the president’s first campaign for the White House. Gruters served as Florida co-chair Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The Democratic National Committee, taking aim at Gruters following his election as chair, claimed that ‘Gruters and Trump will have a lot to bond over while they turn the Republican Party into even more of a personal propaganda machine for Trump.’
Republicans swept back to power last November, with Trump winning the White House, the GOP retaking control of the Senate and holding onto their fragile majority in the House.
But looking ahead to next year’s midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses House and Senate seats, the GOP will be defending their congressional majorities.
A key part of the RNC’s strategy going forward is Trump.
‘We’re gonna ride the president all the way to victory in the midterms, and we are going to win big,’ Gruters emphasized.
Asked about the top three items on his to-do list as he takes over as RNC chair, Gruters said, ‘number one, it’s still election integrity. That’s the most important thing, protecting the vote. And it’s about winning the midterms.’
‘It’s about going back to the fundamentals of registering voters and turning our voters out,’ the new chair added.
Gruters also highlighted Trump’s sweeping GOP-crafted domestic policy bill, which the Republican majorities in Congress passed this summer along near-party lines.
‘It’s our agenda,’ Whatley said in a Fox News Digital interview last month, as he pointed to the massive tax cuts and spending bill that Trump signed into law on July 4.
The measure is stuffed full of Trump’s 2024 campaign trail promises and second-term priorities on tax cuts, immigration, defense, energy and the debt limit.
It includes extending the president’s signature 2017 tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay.
By making his first-term tax rates permanent – they were set to expire later this year – the bill will cut taxes by nearly $4.4 trillion over the next decade, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The measure also provides billions for border security and codifies the president’s controversial immigration crackdown.
And the new law also restructures Medicaid – the almost 60-year-old federal program that provides health coverage to roughly 71 million low-income Americans.
The changes to Medicaid, as well as cuts to food stamps, another one of the nation’s major safety net programs, were drafted in part as an offset to pay for extending Trump’s tax cuts. The measure includes a slew of new rules and regulations, including work requirements for many of those seeking Medicaid coverage.
Democrats, for months, have repeatedly blasted Republicans over the social safety net changes. And they’ve spotlighted a slew of national polls conducted both before and after the measure was passed into law, that indicate the bill’s popularity in negative territory.
But Gruters sees the new law as campaign ammunition.
‘Every single Democrat in Congress voted for a tax increase on average everyday Americans,’ Gruters argued. ‘And that big, beautiful bill has something for every single American, whether you’re working class, whether you’re a small business owner, everybody benefits, and we’re going to be able to ride that bill all the way to victory.’