Donald Trump said he could stop raising money for the Republican Party after it was reported that over 70 Republican senior officials and operatives sent a letter to the Republican National Committee's Chairman Reince Priebus, urging him to cut off funding to aid Trump's campaign, in order to focus their funds on down-ballot Senate and House races instead.
"I mean, if it is true, that's OK too, because all I have to do is stop funding the Republican Party. I'm the one raising the money," Trump said on the Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor."
"I'm the one raising money for them," Trump said. "In fact, right now I'm in Orlando. I'm going to do a fundraiser for the Republican Party. If they want to do that, they can save me a lot of time and a lot of energy."
Trump was asked whether the GOP could damage his campaign by possibly withholding data such as email lists and mailing lists. "I'll let you know on November 9.
"The ninth is when we find out if that's all good. I think we're going to have tremendous voter turnout."
RNC's chief strategist, Sean Spicer, took to Twitter and said the report is not true:
According to Time magazine, Priebus did not "explicitly" tell Trump that the party could possibly redirect money away from him.
A senior Trump adviser told CNN the idea that Priebus threatened Trump was "malarkey," and that their discussion was an overview of how the race is going, not a confrontation about Trump's actions.
A high-level RNC source told CNN, "There was no threat, no ultimatum. None of that was ever a topic in any conversation over the last three weeks. It has never been a topic."