Appearing as a surrogate for Trump at an RNC meeting, Carson condemned the current system of nominating a Republican nominee as ‘corrupt’

Donald Trump will change Republican party rules to make the nomination process more uniform if he becomes the GOP presidential candidate, Ben Carson said on Thursday.

In response to a question from the Guardian, Carson – once a rival to Trump in the Republican race and now one of the billionaire’s most high-profile backers – said that he thought Trump was committed to changing the rules of the Republican Party so that they would be “consistent across the country and not this way here and that way there”.

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He added: “The only reason [for the current system] is if you wanted to manipulate the system.”

A source inside the briefing confirmed to the Guardian that Carson made similar remarks inside the room.

Carson, who was appearing as a surrogate for Trump at the RNC’s spring meeting in Hollywood, Florida, condemned the current system of nominating a Republican nominee as “corrupt”.

Trump has repeatedly bashed the delegate nominating processes in a number of states such as Colorado and Wyoming as rigged and complained about a delegate selection process that has meant that there have been relatively few delegates loyal to him selected in several states that he has won.

The resulting issues with delegate selection prompted a shakeup in the Republican frontrunner’s campaign in recent weeks, with veteran operative Paul Manafort taking a much larger role and sidelining Trump’s longtime campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in the midst of conflict within the campaign.

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By standardizing the rules of the Republican presidential primary, it would make the party’s system far more like that of the Democrats, where delegates are awarded proportionately by congressional district in every state. Currently, Republicans have an array of rules in each state ranging from winner-take-all to absolutely proportional.