Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is warning the party establishment against fighting him as the nominee, saying he has more power than it does.
It started Sunday morning with a tweet and was followed up on the Sunday morning news shows.
When CNN
"State of the Union" host Jake Tapper noted that the party is telling Republican senators that they don't have to go to the convention if Trump is the nominee and that even Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has joined the Twitter hashtag #nevertrump, the real estate mogul said the GOP is "totally" violating the pledge signed by all candidates earlier in the election cycle.
"If they want to play that game, I can play it much better than they can, and I have a lot more people than they do," he said. "If they're doing that, that's a total violation of the pledge, yes."
The pledge, which had its roots in keeping Trump from running third party, has been touted by him as "a two-way street," in which the party also pledged to support him if he garners the most primary votes.
If the party doesn't back him, "they're going to have a big problem with me," Trump said. "I'm representing people, I'm not representing myself. I'm representing a lot of anger out there, and we're not angry people, but we're angry at the way this country's being run. And a lot of them are angry at the way the Republican party is being run."