Seth Meyers previews the chaos and spectacle of a brokered GOP convention

Seth Meyers looked at a GOP brokered convention

(Image credit: Late Night)

A brokered convention — where no candidate comes in with a winning majority of delegates — is like a football that voters and party leaders hold in front of Charlie Brown political junkies every four years. But this year, Republicans may actually have a contested convention, Seth Meyers said on Wednesday's Late Night. And "Republican elites are seriously considering a plan to topple [Donald] Trump that could cause mass chaos at the convention," he said. "On the other hand, they're facing a prospect of a backlash from voters opposed to Trump."

GOP leaders face two big problems, Meyers said. The first is that if they try to block Trump from winning, whom would they pick instead? They hate Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio just quit the race, and John Kasich is not just an underdog, but also, apparently "Gil from The Simpsons," Meyers said — playing a clip in case you are unfamiliar with the character. The other issue is that everyone from pundits to newscasters to Trump himself are predicting violence if the GOP passes Trump over for another candidate. Not that Trump is threatening violence, mind you — he's just "participating in the New Jersey tradition of couching a threat as a prediction," Meyers said, giving an example: "If you don't pay your protection money, there may be a fire — I don't know, it wouldn't be me, but there could be a fire." Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.