Report: RNC threatened to pull support from Donald Trump
Reince Priebus recently warned Donald Trump that the Republican National Committee would consider shifting party resources away from his presidential campaign and toward House and Senate races if he didn't turn his campaign around, according to a report published by Time magazine.
In early August, when Trump declined to endorse Speaker Paul Ryan for re-election, Priebus was on vacation and called the GOP presidential nominee to address the situation, the report said, and threatened to pull resources away from the candidate in favor of down-ballot races. Trump eventually endorsed Ryan, only a few days before he won handily won his primary on Tuesday.
Time magazine reports that at the time, Priebus told Trump that internal polling suggested he was on track to lose the election in November.
Sean Spicer, the chief strategist and communications director at the RNC, tweeted Thursday that the story is not true.
story about @reince telling @realDonaldTrump reallocating resources not true
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) August 11, 2016
The report said that Trump denies that the phone call ever happened.
"Reince Priebus is a terrific guy," Trump told the magazine. "He never said that."
During the interview with Time on Aug. 9, Trump was openly discussing the pressure he had been under to change his tell-it-like-it-is approach.
"I am now listening to people that are telling me to be easier, nicer, be softer. And you know, that's O.K., and I'm doing that," Trump said. "Personally, I don't know if that's what the country wants."
Powerful outside groups, the report notes, have already shifted funds and staff away from the presidential race and toward House and Senate races and one source told Time that the RNC might have to consider doing that still.
"There's going to have to be some resource reallocation," a senior Republican official familiar with internal party deliberations said.
Trump, for his part, has a fundraising agreement with the RNC that allows him to raise money for the party and was flabbergasted by what the RNC is considering.
"Why would they state that when I'm raising millions of dollars for them?" he asked Time.