Republican National Committee Panel Approves Trump-Backed Platform

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump delivers remarks during the CNN Presidential Debate at the CNN Studios in Atlanta on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Republican National Committee’s (RNC) platform committee on July 8 approved a new policy platform, a document detailing the party’s aims and strategy for the next four years.

The platform is titled “Make America Great Again!” The policy statement mirrors former President Donald Trump’s agenda and includes 20 action points that appear frequently in his campaign speeches.

The draft platform was released one week ahead of the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where former President Trump will be nominated as the Republican candidate for president.

The former president praised the draft document on social media, writing, “Ours is a forward-looking Agenda with strong promises that we will accomplish very quickly when we win the White House and Republican Majorities in the House and Senate.”

Although the draft platform is unofficial until ratified by convention delegates next week, it represents former President Trump’s strong influence over the party in which he fought for acceptance eight years ago.

The Trump Agenda

The 2024 platform is just 16 pages long and reads more like an action plan than a policy manifesto. The 2016 platform ran 66 pages, partly because committee members lobbied for their interests to be included, according to Chris Ager, chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party and a delegate to this year’s convention.

“This time, the president himself appeared to have his fingerprints on that shortened platform that focuses on the major aspects that he wants to focus on,” he told The Epoch Times.

The platform committee approved the document by a roughly 4–1 margin, Mr. Ager said.

The release of the draft platform illustrates the melding of the Trump organization and the Republican Party.

The platform was first released in an email from the Trump campaign. Several minutes later, the RNC issued an announcement, with the subject line containing ICYMI, an acronym for “in case you missed it.”

In the statement, Trump Campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles referred to the document as “President Trump’s 2024 Republican Party Platform” in the RNC announcement.

Lara Trump, co-chair of the RNC, has frequently said that the Trump campaign and the RNC would operate in sync.

“We are now one combined effort,” Ms. Trump said in a televised interview on April 4. “There is no daylight between us.”

Border, Economy, Social Policy

The platform is dedicated to “the forgotten men and women of America.” Several policy points relate to concerns of blue-collar workers. Those include eliminating taxes on tips, making the United States a “manufacturing superpower,” and protecting Social Security and Medicare.

It also talks about making the American Dream affordable again, pledging to reduce the cost of housing, higher education, and health care.

Several action points address national security, including sealing the border, deporting illegal immigrants, beefing up the U.S. military, and creating an anti-missile defense system similar to Israel’s Iron Dome.

To strengthen the economy, the GOP platform proposes increasing U.S. energy production, lowering taxes, maintaining the strength of the U.S. dollar, and eliminating mandates aimed at accelerating the switch to electric vehicles.

The Republican social agenda includes traditional GOP policies related to law and order, such as halting the importation of drugs and fighting urban crime.

Other policy points appear aimed at protecting the rights of individuals against government overreach.

For example, the traditional Republican promise to protect the Second Amendment right to bear arms shares billing with protecting the freedoms of speech and religion.

The platform pledges to end the “weaponization of government” and to withhold funding from schools that promote critical race theory and gender ideology. The platform also opposes biological males competing in female-only sports.

The platform does not mention some policy topics traditionally favored by Republicans. Those include balancing the federal budget, eliminating the national debt, and reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy.

Restricting abortion, long a centerpiece of Republican policy, is reduced to a single line. “We will oppose Late Term Abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments),” it reads.

The platform states that the power to regulate abortion now rests with the states and with the people, a reference to the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Democrat Alternatives

Democrats have not yet issued a 2024 platform. President Joe Biden has campaigned on several issues that directly oppose planks of the GOP policy planks.

Democrats have embraced the protection of abortion access as a key campaign issue this year. President Biden has announced aims to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, extend access to health insurance, and defend democracy against extremists. The president has long insisted that little more could be done to secure the border without additional funding from Congress, although he issued new rules to improve the asylum process, strengthen border enforcement, and crack down on fentanyl smuggling on June 4.

Hours after the Republican platform was released, President Biden posted comments on social media repeating his claim that former President Trump’s agenda is tied to Project 2025, an initiative authored by the Heritage Foundation. President Biden labeled the project an “extreme” agenda.

Former President Trump has stated that he has no involvement with Project 2025.

The Biden campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.