Subject: Excerpts from POLITICO Playbook Breakfast conversation with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus
From: POLITICO <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 May 2016 15:40:54 -0600

Excerpts from POLITICO Playbook Breakfast conversation with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus
By Mike Allen
05/06/2016 05:38 PM EDT

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was interviewed as part of the Playbook Breakfast series in Washington, D.C., on May 6.

MIKE ALLEN: We're going to start with a gift to the guest, which we've never done before. In your profile with CNN, which was done before Tuesday, they asked you how you were feeling about how the primaries were going, and you said, "Well, I'm not exactly pouring Baileys in my cereal." So, thanks to my colleague Daniel Lippman, Kevin Robillard, a little present [a bottle of Baileys] for you, Mr. Chairman.

REINCE PRIEBUS: Oh, excellent. Now, where's the Lucky Charms and the bowl? 

MIKE ALLEN: Your job now is to elect Donald Trump president of the United States. That makes you feel how?

REINCE PRIEBUS: We've said all along that whoever our nominee is, we're obviously here to support the nominee. I think that we're as prepared as we've ever been. I tell you what, if we had the RNC of today four years ago, I think Mitt Romney would be president... We've gone from a committee that was in disarray to a committee that's raised over $75 million more dollars than DNC just this cycle, hundreds and thousands of people out in the field, 5,000 people going through 6 weeks of training, and a $100 million makeover in our data operation. So, we're prepared to keep the Senate, keep the House, and win the White House. And, if you look at Hillary Clinton, look, I would rather take a few
 elbows being thrown than the director of the FBI interviewing your top aides and potentially the Democrat nominee.

MIKE ALLEN: Tell us what happened when you decided and you tweeted that Donald Trump was the presumptive nominee.

REINCE PRIEBUS: I had thought--heard some rumors about the potential of Ted Cruz dropping out in the afternoon. I didn't go out of my way to confirm any of it or make any phone calls because, you know, sometimes there are times you actually don't want to be in the information loop on things like that; because once you're in the loop, then if something leaks, you're one of the people in the loop.

So, I went to the fundraiser and, sure enough, the cell phone starts buzzing--you know, a few buzzes is one thing, but when you get, like, 15 in a row and you don't want to look down at your phone when you're talking to people and you pick it up and you realize, okay, I guess the rumor was true. 

Went back to the house in Kenosha, which I hadn't been to in a very long time, which was nice, and that was it, and made some phone calls. Obviously talked to Donald Trump a couple of times. I think he did a nice job and very gracious in his speech that night, and I think we need, obviously, more of that. I think being presidential, 30,000 feet, gracious. I'm hoping that we're going to see more of that.

MIKE ALLEN: Does "crooked Hillary" count as presidential?

REINCE PRIEBUS: I think he's done an effective job of labeling, and look, I think she does have a history of being crooked. I think that she's got a lot to answer for. I think that she's got families of dead heroes in Benghazi to answer for. She's got a tenure as Secretary of State to answer for. I think she's got a lot of material for us to cling on to and use.

MIKE ALLEN: What's he like behind the scenes?

REINCE PRIEBUS: Far more gracious and personable than I think you see at rallies. I've never had a problem behind the scenes. I've never had a situation where something was said by him that wasn't followed through. So, all of my interactions have been extremely positive, which made the "system rigged" stuff, you know, so out of place for me, compared to what was being said personally behind the scenes.

REINCE PRIEBUS: I think he's said it himself that there's going to be a time to shift to general election mode, and I think that's the way he sees it. I think that's the way he feels about it, that now the general election is starting and what you saw on Tuesday night I think is going to be more of what you see in the future. And really, the person you saw on Tuesday night was the person that I got used to dealing with on the telephone and in person. So, that general election approach is the type of approach I've been dealing with for six years.

MIKE ALLEN:  Is there any way that in Cleveland the rules could be used to nominate someone other than Donald Trump?

REINCE PRIEBUS: My personal view is it's highly, highly doubtful. As I said before, the Rules Committee of 2016 writes the rules for the convention. I don't write the rules. And, in fact, the RNC's role at the convention is fairly limited, and I know we've been through this now for months together, walking through our rules, but the RNC is basically a caretaker, an administrator, of the convention.

MIKE ALLEN: So, I hear you saying it's unlikely but not impossible.

REINCE PRIEBUS: Well, nothing is impossible but it--like I said, I've said this many times, highly--and I add another one--highly unlikely.

MIKE ALLEN: Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, one of your rising stars, had a Facebook post and tweet storm two nights ago... calling for a draft of an adult conservative challenger to Trump, and he pre-loaded it with hashtags #WeCanDoBetter and #GiveUsMoreChoices. Is there any danger of a third party run from the right?

REINCE PRIEBUS: I don't believe so. I think that the amount of time, energy, money, and also it's a guarantee to elect Hillary Clinton... And I think when people start to take a breath and let some of this stuff calm down, I think that people are going to understand that the Supreme Court is too important to let differences of opinions and choices in our primary to get in the way.

MIKE ALLEN: But the Republicans that I talked to say that there's no way to guarantee what the--Donald Trump will nominate conservatives to the court.

REINCE PRIEBUS: Well, that's why I think that a smart thing for Donald Trump to do would be to release five to ten names of people that he would pool from to say, "Here's ten folks that I think would make great Supreme Court justices," and work with people to come up with that list. I think things like that would be helpful in kind of recalibrating some people's minds as far as, "Okay, what is this about why do we need to support the Republican nominee"--which I think we're going to get there. 

MIKE ALLEN: Now, after Speaker Ryan made his comment that he was not ready [to support Donald Trump] to Jake Tapper on CNN's The Lead, how quickly did Donald Trump call you?

REINCE PRIEBUS: Well, I had talked to him already once that day, but I had talked to Donald Trump and Paul Ryan multiple times yesterday afternoon.

MIKE ALLEN: But Donald Trump called you within minutes?

REINCE PRIEBUS: Uhh...[Laughter.]...you're pretty good. 

MIKE ALLEN: Okay. What was his mood?

REINCE PRIEBUS: You know, it wasn't, like, furious or anything, it's just like, "What do I need to do? I mean, I'm"--and I--so, I said, "Listen, let me just"--my view is just relax and be gracious and I'll talk to Paul and we'll try to work on this... I know Paul really well and I know he's being honest, and I know how he feels. And so, I'm comfortable with the idea that it's going to take some time and some cases for people to work through differences. 

MIKE ALLEN: Joe Scarborough said on Morning Joe yesterday that for him to vote for Donald Trump, Trump would have to change some of his positions or at least some of his emphasis, including the idea of restricting the entry of Muslims or forced deportation. Do you sense that with Speaker Ryan, who you're very close to, that it also will take some change in position?

REINCE PRIEBUS: First of all, I'm in agreement on the deport--on the ban coming in. I mean, I put a statement out on that already, that it's not something that I believe in or our party believes in. I believe our party is the party of the open door. Our party is the party of opportunity and freedom and equality, and it always will remain such. So, there are some things I don't agree with.

MIKE ALLEN: Do you hope to persuade Donald Trump that the Republican Party should be the party of the open door?

REINCE PRIEBUS: Yeah, and I think he believes that...I am going to work very hard on making sure that some of these issues are discussed and talked about and understood and I'm confident that given my experience so far with him that he's going to have an open mind to some of these issues.

MIKE ALLEN: Mitt Romney said last night when he announced that he wouldn't support Donald Trump, he said, "I see way too much demagoguery and populism on both sides of the aisle." Do you agree... there's way too much demagoguery and populism?

REINCE PRIEBUS: I think there's plenty of it. Now, whether there's too much of it I think is a result of what people have been served up in this country and people feel cheated. People feel like they're not bringing enough money home. They feel like government hasn't been doing its job or too big in many cases. So, I think that you sometimes get the result that you build, and I think that's sort of what happened across the country.

MIKE ALLEN:  So, during the primaries, what's the biggest thing that you learned about Republican base primary voters?

REINCE PRIEBUS: Something that people don't report on a lot, which is there is an incredible enthusiasm out there in our party. I mean, we have record turnout: 70 percent higher among Republicans, 30 percent lower among Democrats. We have an advantage over voter registration in battleground states that we haven't seen in 25 years. In the first quarter of this year at the RNC we raised more money than ever in any first quarter in the history of the RNC. So, we were raising more money in the first quarter than we raised in 2012.

MIKE ALLEN: What's the biggest thing you learned about the press during the primaries?

REINCE PRIEBUS: That there's so much of it and there's so many people, and a lot of talented people online, traditional, that almost nothing breaks through. So, if you have a really good story that you're really proud of and you think that you've done a great job, it's very difficult for you all to break through, because there's just so much.

I also believe that, in too many cases, it's all about clickbait... In many cases, I'm not that worried about the copy. I'm worried about the headline, because a lot of times the headline doesn't match the reality. I mean, you take this group of articles about the RNC meeting in April, all of you that wrote articles about how there's going to be a rules fight that erupts...I think you just owe everyone an apologize, because it's ridiculous. There's no rules fight; it was 54-to-2. And so, it's that kind of stuff where you're just, like, bog down organizations with clickbait and people have to answer for things that are inaccurate.

MIKE ALLEN: Do you agree with Donald Trump that beating Hillary Clinton will be easy?

REINCE PRIEBUS: Well, I didn't know he said that... I don't think anyone would have predicted that Trump in this fashion would have, you know, taken out 16 other candidates. He certainly defied the odds, and I would say that--first of all, I personally don't think it's going to be easy, because I think raising the money, building the ground game, having the data, targeting voters. The truth is, our party is a great midterm party but we've had a real hard time winning presidential elections, and it's nothing new... the last time we've won with relative ease was 1988. And so, I think it's a difficult task but I think we're up to it and I think that we have--we have a big upside, too. So, I
 know that there are perils, but I also know that there's an upside.

MIKE ALLEN: The night of the Indiana primary, ABC Political Director, Rick Klein, posted analysis headline, "Donald Trump completes takeover of weary Republican Party." Do you agree this is Donald Trump's party?

REINCE PRIEBUS: No, it's the party's party. The party is, was, and will remain the Republican Party of the open door, freedom, opportunity, and equality, and our platform remains--I believe our platform will remain much the same as it is right now. 

MIKE ALLEN: Donald Trump repeatedly said, as you mentioned earlier, that the GOP nominating process is rigged. I guess it worked out pretty well for him, but as we look ahead do there need to be changes? 

REINCE PRIEBUS: I have my preferences, but it really doesn't matter. What matters is that the states themselves adopt their own delegate rules. The Rules Committee at the convention will look at all of this and make recommendations as to how to be better... the changes we made to the rules over the two-year period that we had an opportunity at the RNC were at the time... were historic changes. I mean, the idea of making states that have caucuses or beauty contests tie the allocation to those contests was a big change. You saw the Ames Straw Poll is no more. Why? Well, because candidates were going to Ames, spending tons of money and getting nothing out of it, but they had to go. And we
 said, "If you're going to do these things, you better tie delegates to it."...

There are things that we need to do to improve the debate process...we're not going to have a calendar that no one can count on where one week goes by and then you have an ABC debate and then ten days later we're going to be in Myrtle Beach and no one knows what's going on. We're going to have a set calendar. And we're going to have some say on who the moderators are. I mean, we're not going to have Chris Matthews conducting the Republican Party debate.

And now, what's going to happen is four and eight years from now... the party's going to have even more control. I'd actually like to see one day, if it's possible, I know there's FEC problems, but for the party to actually own the rights of the nomination process. One day, that's going to happen. Both parties are going to own the rights and they will--they will have media outlets hook into the--just like the NFL does.

MIKE ALLEN: So, you said it's like the NFL. So, you would charge for access to the nominating process?

REINCE PRIEBUS: No, just on the debates. I mean, the point is, should media outlets be making tens of millions of dollars on a product that the parties should own?...the nomination process, I think, should go to the benefit of both parties, not the benefit of the media.

MIKE ALLEN: In December 2012, you commissioned the Growth and Opportunity Project, which was called an honest review of the 2012 election cycle... What is the biggest recommendation of that report that has been achieved?

REINCE PRIEBUS: Getting data, buying consumer data, census data, melding it over to voter file, and then putting in an application that's easy for field staff to use... the other big change is, and it sounds very basic, but it is actually important, is that we're a year-round party, now. I mean, we used to be a party that would accumulate cash in a bucket and, you know, so you'd have $50 million cash on hand, and then the nominee would walk in in May or June, and you'd say, "Okay, here's the money. Now, let's go spend it all."... We're spending a ton of money, too, and that's the difference, deciding that we're not going to be a party that shows up three months before November...

What the Democrats do is they actually build their operation around the nominee, around the candidate. So, it was Barack Obama that built the $100 million data system in Chicago. It was Barack Obama that never let the field staff off the ground in Ohio and Florida. But what Hillary Clinton has now going is something that she never expected. She didn't want to spend millions of dollars in New York and millions of dollars in Indiana and now millions of dollars in California. So, instead of worrying about voter registration in Florida, they're worrying about how in the world are we going to put this thing away.

MIKE ALLEN: On Page 4 of the Growth and Opportunity Project, it says, "Many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not want them or want them in the country." ... how do you scale that perception with what Donald Trump has been saying?

REINCE PRIEBUS: If you're not there mechanically in the community with people from the community trying to talk about our party, talk about school choice, talk about SBA loans for business owners--if someone's not there, nothing is going to change. You also need to have the tone...people believe obviously you like them. If people don't think you like them, then they're not going to vote for you. 

MIKE ALLEN: Do Hispanics think that Donald Trump likes them?

REINCE PRIEBUS: I think there's work to do, and I think that there's work on tone to do. I've been clear about that.... I think he gets it...I think you're going to see the change in tone...

We're in Hispanic and black communities every day, and you saw the numbers in 2014. Now, granted, that's a midterm, but Cory Gardner got 46 percent of the Hispanic vote in Colorado. We spent $7, $8 million on the ground in Colorado. John Kasich got 28 percent of the black vote in Ohio. If Romney would have just gotten 10 percent, he would have won Ohio. So, we're talking about long-term commitment to Hispanic, black communities, Asian communities, every community in between, and a full-time, year-round party that [Trump] understands that it's important for us to do that work.

MIKE ALLEN: You saw yesterday that Donald Trump tweeted a picture of himself digging into a tortilla bowl, a big dollop of sour cream in it-

REINCE PRIEBUS: I didn't see it, I heard about it. So, I had other--you can imagine I had other things to deal with yesterday afternoon.

MIKE ALLEN: Anyway, the tweet says, "Happy #CincoDeMayo. The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!"

REINCE PRIEBUS: He's trying. [Laughter.] Honestly, he's trying. And I tell you what, I honestly think he understands that building and unifying and growing the party is the only way we're going to win, and I think he gets that.

MIKE ALLEN: What are your plans for the convention?

REINCE PRIEBUS: There's a lot of things that are already done. I mean, the stage is done. There are things that just have to happen. We moved the convention up seven weeks to July. Certainly, when we were talking about an open convention, it seemed like I was a genius for doing that, but now we just have to get cruising and get going...

I think we've done a great job at the RNC. I think that when it comes to a competent, national party, I don't think anyone in this room can say that this national committee isn't the best mechanically rounded, competent committee that we've ever had.

I think having our convention in Cleveland is going to pay off big dividends to winning Ohio, because I think people there, even if they're independent and Democrats, I think they understand what we've done for the city of Cleveland, by going to Cleveland and putting them in the spotlight.

MIKE ALLEN: In an interview with The Washington Post last month, Donald Trump said, "It's very important to put some showbiz into a convention; otherwise, people are going to fall asleep." Do you agree the convention should have more of a showbiz feel?

REINCE PRIEBUS: I like the idea of having more of a fun convention, if it's showbiz, if it's entertainment, whatever the case may be. I like that idea, but with every suggestion comes millions of dollars in money. So, the suggestions are great, but there has to be, you know, a pretty big influx of cash to do something like that.

MIKE ALLEN: Both Presidents Bush, Jeb Bush, Senator John McCain, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, they all say they're not coming to the convention. Senator Kelly Ayotte in a tough race in New Hampshire says it unlikely. Do you worry about so many of your key leaders sitting it out?

REINCE PRIEBUS: Many of these people didn't come to the last two conventions, and so I think you have to kind of look at it that way. You have to look at people in-cycle. If they're in-cycle, most of the time, they're not coming to the convention. I mean, just off the top of my head, you asking that, I don't think Claire McCaskill went to the convention that was four years ago. 

MIKE ALLEN: Democrats are licking their chops about the possibility of a blowout. One Republican said to me, "Donald Trump is either going to win 48 states or lose 44 states." Do you sometimes feel that way?

REINCE PRIEBUS: You know, I don't. I think this is going to be a really close election. I think they will be. I think people are divided. You've seen the last couple of elections have been close, even though the Electoral College looks different. I think it's going to be tight and we're going to do everything we can to make sure that we win...

I think sometimes in our party we get criticized because we don't hit hard enough. You know, we didn't talk about Bill Ayers. We didn't talk about some of the things that happened in Barack Obama's life during 2008. I don't think Donald Trump is going to have a hard time bringing out some of the things that are going to be very not good for Hillary Clinton.

MIKE ALLEN: What other states could Trump win that Romney didn't?

REINCE PRIEBUS: I think he can win Ohio. I think he can win Florida. I think he can win Pennsylvania. I think he can win Iowa. I think he could put Michigan and Minnesota in play. 

MIKE ALLEN: You were elected RNC Chair in 2011, you were reelected in 2013, reelected 2015. Are you going for a four-peat?

REINCE PRIEBUS: I'll figure that out after November... But highly doubtful.

To view online:
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=33e22255b98255ac133a106ec21a5a5f023970af0dd13d93f7845e4d0aee894d
 To change your alert settings, please go to http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=33e22255b98255ac2c9f5892eb740ca50cdfa56a1a1225036d41179264f3df7a or http://click.politicoemail.com/profile_center.aspx?qs=57cf03c73f21c5ef65b9c058ca0f6cfa66691761e73177ec169f999723ef055b88b7a18103d638fd9d07a34e7f96dbda86a979a5d6f31ac7This email was sent to [email-masked] by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA

To unsubscribe,http://www.politico.com/_unsubscribe?e=00000154-8802-dd11-affc-fe5625b90000&u=0000014e-f112-dd93-ad7f-f917a8270002&s=b584e64c7a6a214d9547120892f580f1dbd398207f1d579c7bb384a696c13520f9d3aa6f84d520841cceb94450df77b8330c32445fc7d4256e4a4c390a970d26