Reince Priebus reportedly advised Donald Trump to drop out of the race after leaked audio tape

Reince Priebus.
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman picked by President-elect Donald Trump to be White House chief of staff, once reportedly tried to talk Trump out of seeing his campaign through to Election Day. Citing "a person briefed on the conversation," New York's Gabriel Sherman reported Thursday that Priebus told Trump he should drop out of the race after the Access Hollywood tape of Trump making lewd comments about women was leaked in early October.

Priebus reportedly said that if Trump did not cut his losses then, he would "go down with a worse election loss than Barry Goldwater's." In the 1964 presidential election, the Republican presidential candidate lost to then-Democratic candidate Lyndon B. Johnson, winning just 52 electoral votes while Johnson won 486.

As we all know now, Priebus ended up being dead wrong about Trump's prospects. Trump, unlike Goldwater, won 306 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton's 232. While Priebus' nomination as chief of staff would indicate both he and Trump have moved past the incident, Sherman reported that not everyone on Trump's team has. Some, Sherman wrote, are "dismayed by Priebus' influence because they question the Washington insider's loyalty to the president-elect."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Read more about the power struggle that has allegedly created over at New York.

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.