RNC votes to install Donald Trump's handpicked chair as former president tightens control of party

The Republican National Committee voted on Friday to install Donald Trump's handpicked chair, completing his takeover of the national party as the former president closes in on a third straight presidential nomination.

Michael Whatley, a North Carolina Republican who has echoed Trump's false theories of voter fraud, was elected the party's new national chairman in a vote Friday morning in Houston. Lara Trump, the former president's daughter-in-law, was expected to become co-chair.

Trump's team is promising not to use the RNC to pay his mounting personal legal bills. But Trump and his lieutenants will have firm control of the party's political and fundraising machinery with limited, if any, internal pushback.