Report: Trump team, RNC meet at crucial campaign moment
Donald Trump's team will meet with Republican party officials in Orlando just as the campaign continues its downward tailspin, according to a new report in Politico out Friday.
The news site reported that while the campaign dismissed the meeting as "typical," other sources indicated that it was an "emergency meeting" and a "come-to-Jesus" moment for the Trump team.
"They want to patch up a rift that just keeps unfolding," one person told Politico. "They finally realize they need the RNC for their campaign because, let's face it, there is no campaign."
Another noted that what's "bothering" the Trump team is that "they feel like they're doing all the right things, but they're losing every news cycle to Hillary and there's nothing they can do about it."
The gathering comes at a time when relations between the campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) are increasingly strained, with outside interests lobbying the GOP to cut funding from the Trump campaign and RNC chair Reince Priebus reportedly threatening to do so when the billionaire first refused to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan ahead of the congressman's primary.
Trump has pushed back on the de-funding reports, however, saying in an interview with Fox News' Eric Bolling, "I'm the one that's funding, I'm the one that's raising the money and other people are getting to use the money that I raised. I'm putting up money from my own campaign and as you know I funded my own primaries. I'm putting up money from my own campaign but I'm raising a lot of money for the Republican party."
Of Friday's meeting, one senior campaign adviser scheduled to attend, Karen Giorno, denied that there was any "consternation" on the part of the Trump team.
"This is a typical meeting," Giorno said. "These are meetings we're having in the battleground states to get it all going. We keep seeing these reports that there's a rift between Reince [Priebus] and the boss and it's just false."
Reports of an "intervention" for Trump by prominent Republicans have circulated for awhile.
Last week, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani pushed back on a Washington Post report that he, along with ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and RNC Chair Reince Priebus, had staged a meeting to help Trump's flailing campaign.
"I find the word intervention completely out of line," Giuliani said in an interview with the Fox Business Network. "An intervention is for a drug addict, and is for someone who is a alcoholic. And I have had to do them with people at times, and there's nothing wrong with it if that's the case-- Donald Trump doesn't drink or smoke, by the way, so we don't have that problem."
He added: "I meet with Donald Trump all the time. Met with him two days ago, spent two and a half hours. We talk. We talk about issues. Sometimes we make changes. Sometimes he makes changes. It is not different than any campaign I have ever been in, including my own, in which I made changes probably 20 times. It's an evolving campaign. He is a new candidate."