Trump taunts GOP in private donor meeting Cruz's speech could have been 'career ending,' he told the crowd.

CLEVELAND — Just hours before accepting the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, Donald Trump taunted his party on Thursday, ripping into his rivals and joking that, had he run as an independent, he could have defeated the GOP.

During a luncheon with 300 top donors just blocks from the convention center here, Trump said the Republican National Committee wanted him to sign a loyalty pledge last year because it was afraid he’d run as an independent and it knew he would beat the GOP's candidates. POLITICO received a recording of portions of his remarks, and four sources in the room also described his comments.


"I was the only one who wasn't going to sign the pledge, and [RNC Chairman] Reince [Priebus] is going crazy because he thought I was going to run independent, and if I ran independent I promise you the Republicans would have had zero chance, OK?” he said. Laughter lit up from the audience. "The independents would beat the Republicans!"

He continued: "So Reince every day… was calling, asking me to sign the pledge. And so I said, ‘You know what, I’ll sign, but only if everyone else does.' And so I did, and everybody else did. … The pledge was only because of me."

Trump also remarked that the RNC had better do a good job at getting out the vote and hiring good people, noting that he's spending a lot of money and raising money for the party. He pledged to work hard for the party as the nominee, several sources said.

Trump also laid into Ted Cruz's performance on Wednesday night, when the Texas senator refused to endorse him and encouraged conservatives to "vote your conscience." Cruz expressed exasperation that even his wife, Heidi, had to be escorted from the convention hall as she was being yelled at by delegates who were angry about her husband’s speech.

"Honestly, it could have been a career-ending thing, what he did," Trump said of Cruz. "He got booed out. His Texas delegation was expecting him to and really thought he was going to endorse. Honestly, I don’t care."

Trump said the way the audience reacted to Cruz showed the party is united, lambasting the media for suggesting otherwise.

Cruz doubles down on refusing to back Trump

"They ran Ted Cruz out of the room!" he said. "There wasn’t a person in the room that liked him! … That's unity!"

He also continued his assault on Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has refused to endorse Trump or appear at this week’s convention, which is being held in Kasich's home state. Trump's and Kasich's forces have spent much of the week attacking one another.

“If I got beaten as bad as Kasich got beaten by me, I wouldn’t support him either,” two people quoted Trump as saying.

He went on to say that he didn’t care about Kasich’s endorsement, arguing that the governor is irrelevant and not a factor in the race.

Trump even teased former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a former rival who was in the audience, about negative things he said about Trump during the campaign. Trump said that before the race he and Perry were "good friends — and then I decided to run and he was, 'Donald, who?'

"And he announced he was going to make a speech … and I said to Melania, 'The governor is going to make a speech about me.' I thought I was" a good thing, he said. "I’ll never forget one of the lines. … He said, 'Donald Trump is a cancer on the Republican Party.' I said, 'Man! That’s bad!' And that was one of the nicer things!"

The crowd laughed.

"And then we ran and he did very well, but then … all of a sudden I got a call and the governor said, ‘What you’ve got is a movement.' And I said, ‘How do you pivot from 'I don't like Donald Trump'?'"

He then praised Perry, however, promising him that "you’re going to be a part of whatever we do."

He also called Sen. Marco Rubio gracious.

The Trump campaign had no comment, and the RNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump also said he's planning to add to his list of possible Supreme Court justices.

"I’m actually going to expand it by three or four very soon," he said, calling the candidates "fabulous."

