The Rules Committee at this summer's GOP convention would be able to make recommendations for rules, but they won't be able to enact rules that will suddenly benefit Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or any other candidate by changing them drastically, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Thursday.
"The majority of delegates on the Rules Committee are going to review the rules and the majority will make recommendations to the delegates on the floor," Priebus told
Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program Thursday. "The delegates on the floor by majority will adopt or reject recommendations of the rules committee."
And, he said, the committee won't be able to enact a rule changing the number of states a candidate must take to clinch the nomination, he said.
"It's not like the Rules Committee is going to come together and say, now it's no states," said Priebus. "They take all of the recommendations to the convention and the majority of delegates accept it."
Meanwhile, under the current rules, Cruz would need to win four more states to enter his name as a nominee.
"He might have to have more than that, but he has to have a majority of eight states, delegates, on the nomination," said Priebus.
But it all depends on what happens between now and the convention, said Priebus, and there are many hypothetical questions at play.
"If candidate X doesn't have eight states majority in the nomination form and they are not able to get the nomination," then the battle moves to the floor, said Priebus, but when a delegate is bound to a candidate, they are bound to vote for that candidate, and those votes are counted.
"In Tampa [during the 2012 convention] Michele Bachmann got a vote, Ron Paul got a vote," said Priebus, pointing out that even bound delegates get a vote and "they vote for the person they are bound to. It is not like they don't get to vote."
Meanwhile, Priebus said he is not against allowing the Rules Committee meeting being televised, and he didn't know that the meeting wasn't open to the press, as it always seemed like there was "press everywhere."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.