“I don’t think Reince has the courage to redirect resources publicly,” one GOP state chair said of RNC chairman Reince Priebus. | Getty 2016 RNC goes dark as party members demand answers With Trump campaign in freefall, RNC members greeted with ‘radio silence’ from party.

As Donald Trump’s campaign unravels, the Republican National Committee has gone dark — failing to give GOP vendors guidance on whether to keep working for the nominee or to move resources into down-ballot races, and not even returning calls from party members ahead of a critical late-afternoon meeting about the way forward.

Numerous Republicans on Monday used the same phrase to describe the response of the RNC to their questions: “radio silence.”


The RNC plans to conduct a closed conference call with members on Monday at 5 p.m., but numerous Republicans said they could not get through to the committee all day. And vendors working on Trump Victory, the effort dedicated to winning the White House, still have not yet been given the green light to restart pro-Trump mailings just four weeks until the election. On Saturday, one day after the bombshell tape was released, the committee sent an email to mail vendors asking them to “put a hold/stop on all mail projects.”

(After publication of this story, a committee spokeswoman, Lindsay Walters, said that the mail campaign would be “moving forward as scheduled.”)

Amid the confusion, an email chain that ballooned to include the entire RNC circulated, with many warning party leadership not to withdraw support from Trump. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus appeared to be looped in to the chain at one point.

Members made clear, in the chain obtained by POLITICO, that they do not want the RNC to reallocate resources to other races, despite the surfacing of a 2005 video in which the Republican nominee can be heard bragging about sexual assault and his subsequent drop in the polls.

“I'm disappointed to hear post-debate pundits saying Republicans will meet Monday to discuss pulling funds from Trump,” wrote Tamara Scott, the RNC committeewoman from Iowa, in an email sent to a group of RNC members on Sunday night. “How do we encourage those with the purse strings to stay the course?”

People who spoke up on the email chain urged each other to ensure that their public comments about Trump are positive.

“We all know that we were never collectively behind any one candidate during the primary season, yet I am convinced that the entire membership of the RNC has rallied behind our candidate,” wrote Peter Goldberg, the RNC committeeman from Alaska, in an email chain sent to other RNC members Sunday night. “Given that, I would ask that you be very careful to express any misgivings among ourselves and never bash DJT publicly. Our words carry a great deal of respect in our respective states/territories. One negative word can take a vote away from our candidate.”

Added Miriam Hellreich, the national committeewoman from Hawaii, “The rumors of the death of this campaign have proven to be premature! I will do all that I can to promote the entire Republican ticket from the Presidential to the City Council. I think the RNC's ground game will be critical to Trump's success. I also agree with Peter, it is critical that we, as leaders of the Party, stay positive and encouraging when we talk with our volunteers and our voters!”

There are plenty of people involved with the RNC who, privately, are furious with Trump and believe that the RNC should focus on other, potentially more winnable races. But the level of vocal support within the committee for Trump is likely to prevent a wholesale abandonment of the nominee, at least officially, said one GOP state chair.

“I don’t think Reince has the courage to redirect resources publicly,” the chairman said.

But another RNC source said House Speaker Paul Ryan’s decision to state publicly that he could not defend Trump might open the path for other Republicans to turn away from the nominee.

“Paul Ryan has just given every Republican permission to do the right thing — publicly or quietly,” the source said. “I suspect that the RNC will be making their decisions on a day-to-day basis for the next month, and, if they start redirecting resources, they won’t announce it publicly.”

Outside of the RNC, Hispanic Republican leaders are seething at Trump and at the Republican committee under Priebus’s leadership. A group of those leaders, including at least one former member of Trump’s National Hispanic Advisory Council, will meet next week in Las Vegas to plot a future for Latinos in the GOP at a time when many feel alienated by Trump’s hardline rhetoric and positions on immigration. On the agenda? A discussion about Priebus, someone many attendees want to see gone after the pro-immigration promises of the “Growth and Opportunity Project,” the RNC autopsy report, were in their view undermined this year by Trump, and not enforced by Priebus’s RNC. News of the gathering was first reported by BuzzFeed and confirmed by POLITICO.

“After six years, especially after Trump, we need to start from scratch,” said Alfonso Aguilar, the president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, though he said the RNC wouldn’t be the primary focus of the gathering. Of Priebus, he said, “There’s not a consensus, it’s something we’re going to discuss.”

Back on the email chain, RNC members were discussing—and condemning-- the remarks contained in the Trump video but were eager to move past them.

“Even though Trump’s remarks were deplorable, it happened so long ago and Clinton’s action in the White House as our President was much more deplorable,” wrote Ginny Haines, New Jersey’s national committeewoman. “I felt he did a great job last night and as always Reince is right on target.”