Trump accuses Jeb Bush of plotting convention coup
Donald Trump accused Jeb Bush of plotting a "coup" at the Republican National Convention in July as reports surface that about 30 delegates are looking to get the rules changed in order to free delegates to vote for anyone they wish.
By the way, Jeb is working on the movement, just so you understand," Trump said to supporters at a rally in Las Vegas.
"Jeb is one of the people that's working — and the other one should be obvious," he said, though he didn't elaborate further.
Earlier at the rally, however, Trump echoed the Republican National Committee and said the reports were a media hoax.
"It's all made up by the press, folks. It's a hoax," Trump said. "This is a story — who are they going to pick? I beat everybody. I beat the hell out of them."
Several reports this week indicated that at least 30 delegates hope to change party rules next month to take away delegates who are pledged to the presumptive nominee, but who may not personally support him.
"First of all, it's illegal. Second of all, you can't do it. Third of all, we, not me, we got 13, almost 14 million votes since the primary system," Trump said Saturday.
By party rules, the majority of delegates are bound to vote for Trump on the convention floor, so any successful coup would require freeing those delegates from their commitments in direct violation of current party rules.
The RNC denied those efforts Friday night, calling it a "media creation."
"All of the discussion about the RNC Rules Committee acting to undermine the presumptive nominee is silly," RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer wrote in a statement.
It doesn't matter if Jeb Bush is behind the effort to flip the convention or if it's a media creation. Thirty delegates out of 2500 is not enough to change the rules, but just enough to get headlines. As mentioned before, Trump controls the convention and it is extremely unlikely, if not impossible, for the rules committee to try and deny him the nomination.
From now until the end of the convention, any rumor that would suggest an attempt to dethrone Trump is going to get reported and blown out of proportion by the media. And what's truly remarkable about it is the motive. The media believes they are doing America a favor by trying to destroy Trump. They've convinced themselves he's a "fascist" and they've got to pull out all the stops to deny him the presidency.
Trump.s an idiot, not a fascist. And if the press persists in this sort of media jihad against him, it will only build sympathy for him, thus bringing about exactly the opposite result of what they seek.