Who is Lara Trump? Former president wants daughter-in-law in Republican Party leadership

Donald Trump on Monday threw his support behind daughter-in-law Lara Trump for the co-chair position at the Republican National Committee.

"Lara is an extremely talented communicator and is dedicated to all that MAGA stands for," Trump said in a statement. "She has told me she wants to accept this challenge and would be GREAT!"

Trump's support of his son's wife elicited backlash from those who said the move smacks of nepotism. He also drew criticism for backing North Carolina GOP leader Michael Whatley, who has echoed Trump's baseless claims of massive election fraud in the 2020 election, for RNC chief saying Whatley "has been with me from the beginning."

GOP rival Nikki Haley said Trump was stacking the deck at the RNC for anti-competitive purposes.​"He’s going and changing out leadership, so that it’s somebody that he prefers and his daughter-in-law to co-chair” Haley said. “He’s putting his campaign manager as the director? Are we gonna let him just take over the party that’s gonna control the convention, too? At what point do we not see the problem? We don’t have kings in this country.”

The moves follow reports this month that Trump wanted to oust current RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, the niece of U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, from the job she has held for seven years. Despite catering to Trump's demands, McDaniel has been under fire from those in the MAGA movement, including former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who brazenly called for her to resign during one presidential primary debate.

So who is Lara Trump? Here are three things to know.

Lara Trump is from North Carolina

Lara, 41, married Trump's second eldest son, Eric, in 2014 and the couple has two children. She is from Wilmington, North Carolina.

She has political ambitions.

Lara Trump was active in both of her father-in-law's two previous presidential campaigns. In 2016, she was active in building support among women for the Trump-Pence campaign. In 2020, she took on an even more active role that included a broader number of TV appearances, which she has continued since Trump left the White House in 2021.

She also seriously considered running for a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Previous story: Jupiter resident Lara Trump will not run for North Carolina US Senate seat

Lara Trump is also a vocal animal welfare advocate.

Lara Trump, who has taken in rescue dogs, has helped raise money and awareness for groups like the Loxahatchee-based Big Dog Ranch Rescue, the largest no-kill dog rescue in the Southeastern United States.

"It would be easy to take the very easy cases, the puppies that everybody likes," she said at a fundraiser in 2019. "But they take in every dog they get. No matter what, they never say no."

She was also a major proponent of a successful, bipartisan 2018 Florida constitutional amendment that outlawed greyhound racing in Florida.

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Who is Lara Trump? Former president wants daughter-in-law in RNC post