Even though the Republican National Committee will not move forward with a proposal that would’ve seen it recognize Donald Trump as its foregone nominee for the presidential election this year, committee members are still holding closed-door meetings this week to discuss the issue.
RNC officials said that a resolution that would’ve declared Trump as the party’s presumptive nominee was removed from its agenda for meetings it is holding this week in Las Vegas.
That proposal was brought forward by David Bossie, an RNC committeeman from Maryland, after Trump destroyed his competition in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Bossie is a Trump loyalist, as he served as the former presidents’ campaign manager during his successful 2016 run.
Bossie even advised Trump’s legal team as Congress was pursuing its second impeachment of Trump following the Capitol riots in early 2021.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race following his distant second-place finish in Iowa, leaving only Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the UN during the Trump administration, as Trump’s only competitor.
Despite the fact that Haley has enormous mountains to climb in order to overcome Trump, she said she has no plans of halting her campaign anytime soon.
Not long after it was leaked that the RNC was considering naming him the GOP’s presumptive nominee, Trump criticized the move, posting on his Truth Social platform:
“While they have far more votes than necessary to do it, I feel, for the sake of PARTY UNITY, that they should NOT go forward with this plan.”
The RNC meetings that are being held this week are shuttered to members of the press, which is not usual practice. Most of these gatherings have had at least one session that was open to the public.
The chairperson of the RNC would typically give a speech at that portion of the meetings, while also ending the week by announcing resolutions, budget items and rules.
Since the proposal has been withdrawn, Trump will need to win the requisite number of delegates before the RNC will officially recognize him as the GOP nominee. At the very earliest, that won’t happen until March — if Haley decides to stay in the race that long.
Last week, the chair of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, said that Haley didn’t really have a legitimate path to winning the Republican nomination, following Trump’s strong performances in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
As McDaniel said to Fox News on the night that the primary in New Hampshire was held:
“We need to unite around our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump, and we need to make sure we beat Joe Biden.”
Those comments riled up Haley, who said last week on a “Meet the Press” appearance that the RNC was “clearly not” an honest broker “if you’re going to go and basically tell the American people that you’re going to go and decide who the nominee is after only two states have voted.”
