The Hill
By Ben Kamisar
July 27, 2015
Republican
National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus on Monday said GOP
presidential candidates shouldn’t seek a third-party challenge for the
White House, less
than a week after Donald Trump floated the idea in an exclusive
interview with The Hill.
“Our
candidates should pledge not to run as a third-party candidate,”
Priebus said on NBC’s “Today,” adding that he doesn’t expect any 2016
GOP candidate to run a third-party
campaign if they don’t win the Republican nomination.
“I
think everyone understands that if Hillary Clinton is going to get
beat, she is going to get beat by a Republican and most people that run
for president run to win.
If our candidates want to win, then they will have to run as a
Republican.”
The
chairman’s comments come days after Trump told The Hill that he would
“absolutely” consider a third-party bid for president if the RNC treats
him unfairly through
the debate process.
“The
RNC has not been supportive. They were always supportive when I was a
contributor. I was their fair-haired boy,” Trump said last Wednesday.
“The RNC has been, I think,
very foolish.”
On Sunday, Trump said RNC officials became “really nice” after The Hill interview.
“They’ve
been really nice over the last few days, they’re starting to see what’s
happening,” Trump said on CNN’s “State of the Union with Jake Tapper.”
The
real-estate magnate turned GOP candidate has repeatedly clashed with
the RNC during his brief candidacy. Priebus reportedly called Trump and
asked him to tone his
rhetoric down after controversial statements about Mexican immigrants.
And the party issued a statement panning Trump’s recent comments on Sen.
John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) war record.
Priebus
didn’t directly address those criticisms of Trump, but did tell “Today”
host Savannah Guthrie that “tone matters and how you speak matters,” a
message likely directed
at Trump.
While
many in the party are skeptical that he’ll finish with the nomination,
Trump has been skyrocketing up the polls since last month’s announcement
and is now in the
top tier nationally and in early primary states.
Priebus
also framed the party’s new debate format, which limits the prime
debate to only the top 10 candidates, as the party taking control of the
process. Many Republicans
have criticized the party for ceding too much control to the media.
“We’ve
taken control of the debates, we’ll have fewer debates, we’ll have some
say over who the moderators are…and we’ll have a definite calendar,” he
said. Priebus added
that every candidate will debate on primary night, since the networks
added a second event with the rest of the field ahead of the main-stage
debate.
He
added that the robust number of perspectives is good for the party and
would give it a leg up over Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
“It’s not bad to have a battle instead of a coronation like Hillary Clinton,” he said.
“No
one is asking the question of when is Hillary Clinton going to debate
Bernie Sanders...there seems to be no interest on the other side."
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