Former President Trump, in a stunning public rebuke of a longtime ally, suggested on Fox News today that RNC chair Ronna McDaniel should get the boot, Axios' Alex Thompson and Erin Doherty report.

• The RNC reported this week that it had its worst fundraising year in almost a decade last year — entering 2024 with just $8 million in cash.

Why it matters: It's a sign of Trump flexing his muscle as the de facto head of the Republican Party, even though the soonest he could clinch the nomination is March.

• The comments also reflect growing friction between Trump and the RNC, even as McDaniel has faced criticism for publicly trying to push Nikki Haley out of the race to consolidate around Trump.
• A shakeup at the RNC would be extraordinary just five months before the Republican National Convention.

Driving the news: Trump distanced himself from McDaniel on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures."

• "You have to understand, I have nothing to do with the RNC, I'm separate," Trump told host Maria Bartiromo.
• "I think she did great when she ran Michigan for me, I think she did OK initially in the RNC. I would say right now there will probably be some changes made," Trump said when asked about McDaniel.

Zoom in: The RNC raised $87.2 million in 2023 and ended the year with $8 million left in the bank, according to its year-end FEC filing.

• The DNC raised $119 million in 2023 and ended the year with $21 million in cash on hand, according to their FEC filing.
• The Democratic Party and three affiliated fundraising committees entered 2024 with over $117 million on hand.

State of play: The DNC and Biden have built up a large money lead by leveraging the benefits of incumbency and hosting joint fundraisers with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

• Some RNC members tried last month to declare Trump the party's nominee with Haley still in the race, which would have given him full access to the committee's data apparatus and fundraising.
• Before Biden was the nominee during the 2020 cycle, the RNC and Trump amassed a huge fundraising advantage over the DNC.

Zoom out: If Trump clinches the GOP nomination soon, the 2024 election could be the longest and most expensive election cycle in history.

• That's after a 2020 campaign in which each side spent more than $1 billion among the campaigns and allied committees.
• The RNC got a boost in January 2024, reportedly raising $12 million.
• "The RNC is not only raising the necessary funds, but we're making strategic investments early in battlegrounds to win up and down the ballot this fall," RNC spokesperson Anna Kelly said.

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President Biden's landslide victory in South Carolina yesterday gave him exactly the visual he wanted — and needed — as the starting gun fires for a marathon general election campaign.

Why it matters: Biden did not face serious competition from Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and Marianne Williamson. But with more than 95% of the vote in all 46 of South Carolina's counties, an incumbent president couldn't have asked for a stronger show of force.

• It's a vindication of Biden's decision to award South Carolina the first slot on Democrats' primary calendar, after the state's Black voters helped resurrect his campaign in 2020.
• And while his approval rating remains dangerously low, Biden will welcome the contrast of a united Democratic Party with a GOP still clashing over the near-inevitable nomination of former President Trump.

Between the lines: Watch for the Biden campaign and its allies to attempt to use the results to discredit negative polls, a tactic they relied on after Democrats over-performed expectations in 2022 and 2023.

• "The best way to predict how people will vote is to look at how they voted. Last night Biden beat polls by 20% in SC, and got 96% of the vote," Obama 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina tweeted.
• Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), Biden's top surrogate in South Carolina, said on CNN that the president's dominance in heavily Black areas "demonstrates to me what I have been saying all the time: that Joe Biden has not lost any support among African Americans."

Zoom out: Just 24% of Democratic voters turned out compared to South Carolina's competitive 2020 primary, and real challenges lay ahead in a general election in which Biden will face a far stiffer challenge.

• A new national NBC News poll out today found Trump leads Biden by five points — with the former president boasting huge advantages on the border (+35), the economy (+23), and being competent and effective (+16).
• "On every measure compared to 2020, Biden has declined. Most damning, the belief that Biden is more likely to be up to the job — the chief tenet of the Biden candidacy — has evaporated," Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, who conducted the survey, told NBC.

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Nikki Haley had an eye-popping month of fundraising in January, hauling in almost as much cash as the prior three months combined, Axios' Erin Doherty reports.

Why it matters: The Haley campaign has the money to keep her long-shot presidential bid alive, even as many leaders in her party have called for the GOP primary to come to an end.

• Haley raised $16.5 million in January, including $11.7 million from grassroots supporters, according to her campaign.
• The campaign also added 69,274 new donors last month.

Zoom in: Haley brought in more than $5 million in online grassroots donations the week after New Hampshire. She saw a surge in support after Trump threatened to bar any Haley donor from "MAGA camp."

• "It was just a sort of gasoline on the fire," said Mark Harris, the lead strategist for the pro-Haley super PAC Stand for America.
• Haley has 10 fundraisers over the next two weeks in California, Florida, New York and Texas to continue to make her case to mega-donors who were key to her rise.

The intrigue: As part of an aggressive media strategy, Haley made a surprise appearance on "Saturday Night Live" last night — typically not friendly ground for Republicans.

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Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) surprise announcement that the House will vote on a standalone $17.6 billion Israel aid package this week has undercut today's expected rollout of the Senate's border security compromise.

Why it matters: Johnson has already declared the border deal — which would combine immigration reforms with aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan — is dead on arrival.

• His new attempt to de-link the components of Biden's supplemental national security funding request puts the House on a major collision course with the Senate.
• "We've been awaiting their action. We cannot wait any longer. The House is willing to lead," Johnson told NBC's "Meet the Press" today, defending his decision and stressing that Biden does not need legislation to take action at the border.

The other side: White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan dismissed Johnson's move as a political "ploy," while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Democrats would evaluate the standalone Israel package as a caucus on Tuesday morning.