Michael Steele: The Republicans Will Not Dump Trump
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The former Chairman of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele dismissed any chances of the party changing their convention rules to prevent Donald Trump from officially being named as their presidential candidate next month at the convention in Cleveland, despite growing demands among party members and pundits to do so.
Steele told Rich Zeoli on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that Trump is now the most powerful person in the party and that taking the nomination away in not possible.
"Any effort to do that will, first off, be met with severe backlash within the party apparatus itself, since Donald Trump now controls the party apparatus. People running around saying we can do this, no. Donald Trump is now the titular head of the Republican Party. He controls the RNC. He controls the convention. It is not a question of we can just go ahead and do this. No you can't because his people now, and certainly if he adds more people into the process, will make sure that there will be no shenanigans like that."
However, Steele did point out that Trump has sloppily handled the assemblage of his staffing and needs to get his business in order before the convention.
"This is part of the problem with Donald Trump. He's not done this in the conventional manner, which is fine, but there are some aspects of this that you have to do conventionally. Now you run the party. You need to get your people inside the building, because if you don't, guess what, the people who don't like you and the ones that are trying to stop you are going to still run the party. They're making those attempts I'm sure, but he, technically, is the one now who is calling all the shots."