Donald Trump is denying reports that Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus called him to ask him to back off from saying that immigrants are rapists and criminals.
According to sources, Priebus asked Trump to "tone it down." That's not how Trump is reporting it:
Speaking on the record, the RNC is playing it safe and not publicly going after its second-place candidate in national polling:
“The chairman had a private conversation with Mr. Trump, as he does with all of our candidates pursuing the nomination,” said Sean Spicer, a senior aide at the Republican National Committee, who said Mr. Priebus was returning Mr. Trump’s call from last week. “It spanned several areas, including his recent comments about illegal immigration. The call lasted no longer than 20 minutes.”
It's really not hard to imagine a scenario in which Priebus was kinda sorta trying to convey "tone it down" without offending Trump and ego-king Trump was hearing nothing but praise. Which is the GOP's big dilemma when dealing with a figure like Trump who has a big megaphone and a big following among Republicans, yet says things right out loud that establishment Republicans would rather were only expressed to the public in dog whistle form. Priebus can't, at this point, risk pissing off Trump and his supporters by bluntly saying "shut up." He definitely can't put distance between himself and any actual policies Trump might advocate, because Trump's not actually outside of the Republican mainstream on immigration. But it sure is inconvenient to have people outside the Republican base hearing this ugliness and associating it with the Republican Party.