When Donald Trump announced Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus and campaign executive Steve Bannon would serve as his chief of staff and chief strategist, many asked the same question: Who would run the show? Most assumed (or feared) that Bannon — the former head of Breitbart News — would take the wheel once Trump’s administration settled in January, and according to Gabriel Sherman’s latest report for New York magazine, this may be the case. Especially since Priebus apparently told Trump to drop out of the race following his Access Hollywood interview scandal involving Billy Bush.
According to Sherman, several Trump advisors are “dismayed by Priebus’s influence and “question the Washington insider’s loyalty to the president-elect.” Several major and minor instances are listed throughout the New York article, but a story involving the Wisconsin Republican’s response to Trump’s infamous “grab them by the p*ssy” line stands out:
Three sources told me that shortly after the Access Hollywood tape leaked in early October, Priebus went to Trump’s penthouse and advised the candidate to get out of the race. Priebus told Trump that if he didn’t, he “will go down with a worse election loss than Barry Goldwater’s,” a person briefed on the conversation said.
Aside from the three anonymous sources’ Access Hollywood story, however, Sherman offers no one willing to go on record about the apparent conversation between Priebus and Trump. (Probably because nobody was willing to go on record about the exchange.) Considering the amount of material the New York writer amasses regarding the Trump team’s Game of Thrones-esque squabbles behind the scenes, however, it remains highly probable that Priebus really did warn Trump about becoming the next Goldwater.
(Via New York magazine)