The Republican National Committee tried to calm Ben Carson’s fears Friday by telling him that a takeover of the nominating process by bosses at the GOP convention in July is unfounded and “quite silly.”
Responding to Carson’s threat to leave the Republican Party, RNC spokesman Sean Spicer pressed that the GOP hopeful has nothing to worry about. In his statement, Carson said he will not “sit by and watch a theft” of the nominating process by the “political elite.”
“I would say to Dr. Carson: Don’t worry, your prayers have been answered,” Spicer told CNN’s Kate Bolduan, going on to talk at length about Monday’s dinner that, according to the Washington Post, included talk about a possible brokered convention.
Multiple times throughout the interview, Spicer argued it was nothing different than a meeting held in October with 150 members of the press (which the Washington Examiner also attended), during which nuts and bolts of the nominating process and the convention were discussed at length.
“This is really, to be honestly with you, quite silly,” Spicer told the CNN host. “It really is [much ado about nothing].
“I feel very confident that [Carson] will stay in the Republican Party, as will Donald Trump, as will everyone else. We’re going to have a great nominating process,” Spicer said. “Everybody will stay in. We will select the best nominee for this party and we will take back the White House. It will all work out. I promise.”
“Here is the bottom line in all of this: Republican voters will choose the delegates that will go to the convention in Cleveland next July. Those people will decide the nominee. that’s it. Bottom line, plain and simple,” Spicer said. “If you want to know who’s going to elect the next president of the United States, it’s going to be the delegates Republican voters elect, plain and simple.”
Carson is currently sixth in the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings.
