Asked by Newsmax morning host Rob Schmitt if he’s making any backup plans in case his party’s nominee is in behind bars or otherwise indisposed during the Republican National Convention next month, RNC chair Mike Whatley on Tuesday said he’s “actually going up to Milwaukee this week, and we’re going to have a series of conversations, but look, we expect that Donald Trump is going to be in Milwaukee, and he’s going to be able to accept that nomination, and if not, we will make whatever contingency planning we need to make for it,” which is… Yeah Schmitt was a little shocked.
Whatley at first wouldn’t elaborate further, saying only “We’ll cross that bridge but you sort of have to go into this stuff, as we certainly will be planning on it. We’ll be thinking about it, and we’re working on that right now. But what we want to do is we want to have a show that is going to roll out Donald Trump and his vision for America, which is going to set up this election cycle.”
Prodded again, Whatley told Schmitt they’ll “have to wait and see what the courts present us with the opportunity to do, but look, Donald Trump will communicate directly with the American voters the way that he always does.” Patching his acceptance speech in through a collect call from a jailhouse payphone isn’t the way Trump “always communicates directly” with Americans though.