Now, because they depend on the american umbrella, will reconsider that. I know china doesnt well leave this discussion at this point to go live to a conversation with the chair of the Republican National committee, Reince Priebus, on the Republican Party underdonald trump. The partys presumptive president ial nominee. This is live coverage. We have rnc chairman Reince Priebus with us this morning. Looking forward to a great conversation with him, talking about tuesday, looking ahead. Talking about the convention and about november. Before we kick off i would like to thank bank of america for continuing to support these great conversations at. Bank of america is here. We really appreciate our partnership with bank of america that has taken us all over the country to talk about the most important issues in politics and policies. So thank you to bank of america for being a great partner for many years now. We appreciate your support. Welcome all of you out in live stream land. Well be taking your questions too. I have the twitter machine up here. So just hashtag your questions, playbook breakfast, and they will pop right up for me. Without further adieu, chairman priebus. [applause] good morning, mr. Chairman. This is off the record, right . Really appreciate it [laughter] we wont tell a soul. Wait a minute. So mr. Chairman, we started this is first of pray book breakfast which we have never done before. In your profile of cnn which was done before tuesday they asked you how you were feeling about how the primaries were going and you said, well, im not exactly pouring baylys in cereal. Thanks to my call leagues, daniel lipman, a present for you where is the lucky charms and the bowl . There you go. Thank you, michael. [applause] daniel points out, two glasses. One for you and one for your nominee. Right. Who is the one person in washington who has a harder job than you . Maybe my chief of staff. Your job now is to elect donald trump president of the united states. That makes you feel how . Well, look, weve said all along that whoever our nominee is were obviously here to support the nominee. I think that were as prepared as we have ever been. Ill tell you why. If we had the rnc of today four years ago, i think mitt romney would be president. What we talking data . Data, field staff. Weve gone from a committee that was in disarray, to a committee that has raised over 75 million more dollars than dnc just this cycle. Hundreds and thousands of people out in the field. 5000 people going through six weeks of training. And 100 million makeover in our data operation. So were prepared to keep the senate, keep the house, and win the white house. 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. Now, take us behind the scenes. Tuesday night you were home in milwaukee. Yes. Which you rarely do. Tell us what happened when you decided and you tweeted donald trump was the presumptive nominee . I said he would be. Obviously kasich was still in the race. Presumptive nominee you still have to be at 1237 to be the presumptive nominee. No one else is running i think it is safe to say at some point here he is going to be presumptive nominee but let me tell you where we were. So we plan ad fundraiser in milwaukee and obviously those are kind of family members to me. They have been helping me ever since ive been chairman of the wisconsin party. And we had gone into the fister, which you have been to. I had thought, heard some rumors about the potential of ted cruz dropping out in the afternoon. I didnt go out of my way to confirm any of it or make any phone calls you know, sometimes, you know, there are times you actually dont want to be in the information loop on things like that because once youre in the loop, if something leaks, youre one of the people in the loop, well find out soon enough but i did call my chief of staff, katy walsh, you know, what if ted cruz actually drops out tonight, what do you think of that . We talked a little bit. I dont think its going to happen. So went to the fundraiser and sure enough you know, when the cell phone starts buzzing, a few buzzes is one thing. When you get like 15 in a row, you dont want to look down at your phone talking to people and you pick it up, you realize, i okay, i guess the rumor was true. I went back to the house in kenosha which i hadnt been to in very long time which was nice. And, that was it. And made some phone calls. Obviously talked to donald trump a couple times. I think he did a nice job, very gracious in his speech that night. I think we need, obviously more of that. I think being president ial, 30,000 feet, gracious. Im hoping well see more of that. Does crooked hillary count as president ial . Look. I know he has done an effective job of labeling. Look i think she has a history of being crooked. She has a lot to answer for. She has families of dead heroes in benghazi to answer for. A tenure as secretary of state to answer for. I think she has a lot of material for to us cling on to and use. What is he like behind the scenes . Far more gracious and personable than i think you see at rallies. I have never had a problem behind the scenes. I never had a situation where something was said by him that wasnt followed through. So all of my interaction has been extremely positive, which made the, you know, system rigged stuff, you know so out of place for me, compared to what was being said personally behind the scenes. Does that bother you, that there is one donald trump behind the scenes and one saying Something Different on camera . I think he said himself there will be a time to shift to general election mode and i think that is the way he sees it. I think that is 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 dealing with for six years. You about is there recidivism issue the next morning he is on Television Im sure it will take some time to, i mean to get into general election mode and out of primary mode. Is there any way that in cleveland the rules could be used to nominate someone other than donald trump . Well, see got some rules experts out in the crowd. Look, my personal views, it is highly, highly doubtful. As i said before, the rules committee of 2016 writes the rules for the convention. I dont write the rules. In fact the rncs role at the convention is fairly limited and i know that weve been through this now for months together walking through our rules but the rnc is basically a care taker administrator convention. I hear you say it is unlikely but not impossible . Nothing is impossible, like i said, i said this many times, highly, and i add another one, highly unlikely. Senator ben sasse of nebraska, one of your rising stars had a Facebook Post and tweet storm two nights ago, tweets calling for a draft of an adult conservative challenger to trump. He preloaded with hashtags, we can do better, give us more choices. Is there any danger of a third party run from the right . I dont believe so. I believe the amount of time, energy, money, and also it is a guarranty to elect Hillary Clinton. No doubt. 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. Republicans i talk to there is no way to guarranty you that donald trump will nominate conservatives to the court. Thats why i think a smart thing for donald trump to do would be to release five to 10 names of people that he would, he would pool from to say, here is 10 folks that i think would make great Supreme Court justices and work with people to come up with that list. I things like that would be helpful in kind of recalibrating some peoples minds as far as, okay, what is this about . Why do we need to support the republican nominee. Which think were going to get there. Keep in mind, can i justi dont think, maybe you all, some of you did but i dont think too many people thought that tuesday and wednesday would be the end of ted cruz and john kasich. And so, for some people, and i would say in paul ryans case, he thought he had 30 more days to kind of, you know there was this meeting planned next week by the way. Something that the media is not really talking about, there was a plan to start having meetings on capitol hill and paul ryan and leadership were planning that meeting with donald trump. So, in their minds theyre thinking weve got another month to talk about this to get comfortable. All of sudden you have got cameras in your face saying what do you think, what do you think . I think paul is being honest how he feels. I think he will get there. By the way, he wants to get there, he just want some time to just work through it. Now politico reporting this morning that meeting on capitol hill next week is expected to go ahead. Do you expect speaker ryan to be there . I mean, i do. I talked to him multiple times yesterday and he wants it to go forward. Im being honest. He says he is not there yet but he wants to get there. So yes, he will meet. Now after speaker ryan made his comment that he was not ready to jake tapper on cnns the lead, how quickly did donald trump call you . Well i had talked to him already once that day but i had talked to donald trump and paul ryan multiple times yesterday afternoon. But donald trump called you within minutes . Ah, youre pretty good. [laughter] i cant lie. No, i wouldnt lie anyway. Okay. Thats right. What was his mood . You know, it wasnt like furious or anything. It was like, what do i need to do . I mean im and so, i said listen, let me just, he my view is just relax and be gracious and ill talk to paul and well try to work on this. And you are the person i kind of like dont get overly hot either quickly. So i mean, i know paul really well. I know he is being honest and i know how he feels and so im comfortable with the idea that it is going to take some time in some cases for people to work through differences. We talked about it and multiple times and theyre very comfortable with sitting down with donald trump and it may be at my office. It may be somewhere else but were going to have that meeting to start the process of unifying. Joe scarborough said on morning joe yesterday, for him to society on donald trump, trump would have to change positions or some of his emphasis, restricting the entry of muslims or forced deportation do you sense with speaker ryan, that you spoke to it will take some change of position . No, first of all, im in agreement on deportation, the ban coming in. I mean i put a statement out on that already that it is not something that i believe in or our party believes in. I believe our party is the party of open door and the party is opportunity and freedom and equality and will always remain such. So wait, are you going to be able to convince donald trump for that. I dont know. We havent it has been like three days. So not quite there yet. But you do hope to get the speaker on board and well get into some of those details later. Do you hope to persuade to donald trump that the Republican Party should be party of the open door . I think he believes that. And i will make sure that some of these issues are discussed and talked about and im confident given my experience so far with him that he will have an open mind to some of these issues. Mitt romney said last night when he announced he wouldnt support donald trump, he said i see way too much demagoguery and populism on both sides of the aisle. Do you agree . Well, i mean i guess, you know, everyone has their opinion. One thing that i have learned very quickly, every person, they have just asking about yours . Do you think there is way too much demagoguery and populism . I think there is plenty of it and i certainly believe theres, listen, i think there is plenty of it. Whether there is too much of it i think is result of what people have been served up in this country and people feel cheated. People feel like they are not bringing enough money home. They feel like government hasnt been doing its job or is too big in many cases. So i think that you know, you sometimes get the result that you build. And i think that is sort of what happened across the country. So during the primaries, what is the biggest thing that you learned about Republican Base primary voters . Something that people dont report on a lot there is incredible enthusiasm out there in our party. I mean we have record turnout, 70 higher among republicans. 30 lower among democrats. We have a, an advantage over Voter Registration in battleground states we havent seen in 25 years. In the First Quarter of this year at 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 that we raised in 2012. So i mean, the press, and it is okay, you do what you have to do, it is always focus on the drama, which i get, that is what people are interested in the drama. That is why they call it drama. Theyre not interested in the mechanics. Mechanically because of all the enthusiasm in our party and seventeen serious candidates you have a result that think really built us into a machine that will complete very well in november. What is the biggest thing you learned about the press during the primaryies . I think there is so much of it and there is 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 youre really proud of and you think that youve done a great job, it very difficult for yall to break through because there is just so much. I also believe that in too many cases it is all about click bait. It is all about the headline. In many cases im not worried about the copy. Im worried about the headline. A lot of types the headline doesnt match reality. Take this group of articles about the rnc meeting in april. All of you that wrote articles about how there is going to be a rules fight that erupts, not you all, but people watching this, owe everyone an apology. That was ridiculous. It was 542. So it is that kind of stuff bog downorg sayings with click bait and people to answer for things that are inaccurate. Of course it was all inaccurate. There was no rules fight. It was smooth sailing. I think, at least some. Stories said youre prepared for rules fight which was the case. We would like to welcome our cspan viewers. Thank cspan for carrying us live. Welcome the live stream viewers, shoot us a question, playbookbreakfast. Do you agree with donald trump beating hillary would be easy . I dont know that he said that. While youre thinking, he said in indiana, 48 hours ago, he said folks i havent even started yet. Now i will focus on hillary. It is going to be easy, it is going to be so great. [laughter]. Well, you know, look, i dont think anyone would have predicted that trump in this fashion would have, you know, taken out 16 other candidates. He certainly defied the odds. I would say that, first of all, i personally dont think it is going to be easy, i think raising money, building ground game, having data, targeting voters, the truth is our party is a great Midterm Party but weve had a real hard time winning president ial elections and its nothing new. Not just like this happened. In 04, it was 1 30 in the morning and still, fairly popular president had a, really tough time putting away i think horrible candidate as far as saleable in john kerry. We know what happened in 2000. 96 wasnt good. 92, clinton lost six primaries initially or Something Like that. Obviously there was ross perot, but bush 41 was very popular president. Last time we won with relative ease was 1988. I think it is a difficult task but i think were up to it. I think we have a group, we have a big upside too. There are perils but i know there is an upside. How does having a soon to be presumptive nominee affect the building, the formal rnc . Well i think, you look at the fact, i think clarity has been helpful. You know, there is no one else running and so therefore there is not this daily unknown, which i think has been helpful. I think it has been helpful on the money side too. Will trump bring some of his own people into the rnc . There is no mechanism for it other than me agreeing to it. That is the only mechanism for such a thing. I dont know what this myth is all about the nominee comes in someone has to issue a key card, okay . Someone has to give out the key. Would you do that if sure, but there is not going to be, there is not going to be any layering that would be any different than what happened when i was chairman under the mitt romney nomination time frame. So, in the case of mitt romney, remember brian jones was in our building and ward baker were in the building but they werent saying what to do or not to do or sitting in on our meetings. There was a lot of trust that we knew what we were doing. I would say that so far we see that same approach with some of the folks on the trump campaign, that they have no intention of taking over anything. So you will remain in charge . 100 . There was never, there were never any doubt. The night of indiana primary abc political director rick klein posted analysis headline, donald trump completes takeover of weary Republican Party. Do you agree this is Donald Trumps party . It, no it is the partys 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 and so, and we will remain continuously. So im not, i dont buy into that. So sean spicer who is here is chief strategist of the rnc tweeted this was 100 not true, 100 false. Front page story in the morning times said some Staff Members were told at rnc if they were told if they were unable to get behind the nominee they should leave by the end of week. Sean asked for correction. What have you told your staff . Nothing. I mean i talked to, ive been gone, i talked to katy, our chief of staff. I think what sean, this is what i know, what sean says every other year to the staff in the com