CBC News. Reports Republicans are meeting tonight.

[applegrove]

[oioioi]

1. They cannot have him on TV tomorrow night representing the party. It's unthinkable.

[RBInMaine]

2. That is tough shit. They can not force Donnie Groper to withdraw from the debate. It is up to him.

[oioioi]

3. He will take a deal. It's over.

[Foggyhill]

5. What deal? If he drops out he will be ruined completely

If he gets to the election
He gets sort of vindicated by 35% who vote for him

[Scruffy1]

8. He is the party.

They built it. They own it.Built by dozens of shock jocks, paid media hacks and craven politicians. Don'y let the bastards weasel out. He's just not as smooth about his misogony and racism as they are. They've fed the loyal base such bullshit for years they turned into mushrooms.

[RBInMaine]

13. Wrong. He has declared he is IN and he will not go down with the ship. He won't go there. Period.

[woolldog]

20. Stop acting like you know what's going to happen. eom

[sheshe2]

25. He is the party.

He just says everything they believe more crudely that they do.

They own him. Let him speak, sadly he speaks for them.

[SusanCalvin]

28. Ain't that the simple truth. nt

[tblue37]

37. He just replaced their dogwhistle with a Trumpet. nt

[Gabi Hayes]

48. very well put!

very!

[Demsrule86]

41. They can't stop him. nt

[helpisontheway]

4. Ugh please don't let him quit. :( nt

[Little Star]

11. His ego will never allow him to drop out.

[jodymarie aimee]

6. you are buying the corporate $$$media hype

He will be there.

[vadermike]

7. Trump

Has said he won't quit. I guess it makes sense at this point fir his sorry ads to follow thru and lose. Gop can beg all they want. Up to him

[helpisontheway]

9. His family will probably encourage Donald

to quit. They are worried about the family business. I hope he does not listen. Please let him stay in. People have not heard all the negative stuff about Pence and the other Republicans. Too late to define them... If they did that what in the world would happen to the early votes?

[RBInMaine]

22. No because it would mean the ever loving end of their brand. If he keeps "apologizing" and sticks it

out, then he can say he didn't cave, kept his word, and won't go down in history as the first presidential nominee of a major party to resign in disgrace.

[meadowlark5]

10. Weren't they out on recess till after the election?

Damn that Trump for making them work

[Iliyah]

12. Yeah, I know about those meetings. GOPers had one during the 2008

Inauguration Ball wherein they decided to oppose and work against the President of the United States of America. Fuck them.

[tgards79]

14. CBC?

Canadian Broadcasting?

[TexasProgresive]

21. More likely to report the news than our fake journalists.

[applegrove]

23. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Our news is not so much entertainment - at least at the CBC.

[sofa king]

15. They CAN remove him.

Do any of you really think that a party of criminals would let mere rules hold them back? This is how long Republican rules would hold up in an RNC meeting:

(gavel) The Emergency Meeting of the Republican is convened.

Mr. Chairman, I move to suspend the rules for this meeting.

The motion to suspend the rules is put before the committee by voice vote. All in favor signify by saying, "aye."

AYE.

The motion to suspend the rules is carried.

Mr. Chairman, I move to remove Donald J. Trump as Republican nominee for President of the United States....

Republicans are criminals. Their rules exist to facilitate their criminal ways. They can and will do whatever they want to do. The only question is whether they want to do this or not. My guess is that they're depending on the knuckledraggers to carry the House and the Senate for them, so we're unlikely to see the above. But if it gets bad enough, we just might see it as late as Halloween.

[oberliner]

16. No they can't

The ballots are printed. The voting has already started.

[sofa king]

24. Doesn't matter.

State election laws don't mean shit if they force people to vote for someone who isn't a candidate any more in a federal election. The RNC has the final word on who the nominee is going to be and the RNC has provisions to change out a candidate if that candidate dies, declines, "or otherwise," up to five days before the election. And they can suspend and change their rules to replace a candidate out even later than that.

This was proven in at least three Senate elections in the early 00s (replacing Wellstone, Carnahan, and Torricelli), all of which were contested by Republicans, all of which they lost (the court case--Norm Coleman won his election).

[LisaL]

26. Five days before the election would mean numerous people already voted.

And the ballots are printed. His name would still be on the ballot.

[sofa king]

29. But fortunately, the people only voted for an elector, not a President.

Faithless elector laws aren't going to hold up against the Supremacy Clause, either. Hear me when I tell you that the only thing preventing Republicans from doing this is their own self interest. Votes don't matter, ballots don't matter, and public opinion doesn't matter. It only comes down to the Republican Party itself, which can be expected to act in its own self interest.

That may--or may not--take votes, ballots, and public opinion into account, but only when they match Republican self interest. There are plenty of us around who perfectly recall exactly this happening in 1972, 1980, 2000 and 2004.

[stevenleser]

33. State election laws actually mean everything according to the Constitution re: electors

Article 2 section 1

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/provisions.html

THE CONSTITUTION
Article II

Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

[Cosmocat]

42. His name WILL be on the ballot

Win or lose.

[LisaL]

18. How well do you think it would go with his voter base?

If they could, they would have done it during the convention.

[RBInMaine]

19. Sorry, but your post is hyperbolic. If they did that, it would be civil war & the end of the party.

[sofa king]

27. You may be right.

But I'm telling all of you, you are dead wrong if you think they cannot do it. They can, and they will, if it suits their self-serving purposes.

And, I will remind all of you before Monday, it only takes one guy, Mike Pence, to make it happen. All he has to do is decline the nomination as Vice President. That forces the RNC to meet to name a replacement, and I guarantee you that when they do, somebody will notice what else they can do while they're meeting.

[ColemanMaskell]

32. Good point. and Pence does seem to want to be Prez.

[The Genealogist]

36. I think you are right

There's a shit storm going on now, but what we're seeing is only the early stages of it. Its going to be an ugly October.

[Cognitive_Resonance]

46. I think they'll force him to withdraw. No choice at this point.

Everyone knows it's only going to get worse if they don't act.

[bluestateguy]

34. The GOP can remove him right up to the day before the election, BUT

It's too late to formally change the name of the nominee on the ballots. All the state deadlines are passed.

[Cognitive_Resonance]

49. That's right, the Electoral College can sort it out. Names on ballots and cast votes

are not the issue. Trump is about to lose the GOP their House majority. That's what at stake, and that's what will force them to act. I think we'll see something similar to how Nixon exited, but probably involving Trump's family to convince him to step aside.

[KewlKat]

17. The Con will sue.....and contest the election that moves forward without him......if we thought

the Gore/Bush election was stressful I fear we ain't seen nothin yet. And no majority in the Supremes.

[redstateblues]

30. Republican lawyer Ben Ginsberg said it would be litigated in each state because

Of the electoral system. He was very dubious about it

[longship]

51. Civics 101, and Ginsberg is right.

The US presidential election is 50 separate state elections with each state making their own laws governing their election. This is the system that the founders set up.

That is what makes the removal of a candidate so damned difficult at this time.

If the GOP were smart, they'd avoid the globe crushing clusterfuck and go with the more ordinary clusterfuck of just letting Drumpf lose.

Either way, they're clusterfucked.

Myself, I want Drumpf to take it all the way. Yup! It will be a clusterfuck for the GOP. But I would just prefer to avoid the global clusterfuck that throws us into a huge constitutional crisis. That would be bad for everybody.

BTW, Ginsberg is smart, but he's still a douche.

[regnaD kciN]

31. They were meeting last night, too…

Face it, I think they know the White House is lost -- right now, they're trying to figure out how to distance themselves while not losing the Trumpistas' votes in their own races. I'm sure their major concern right now is how to avoid losing the Senate, and maybe even the House…not to mention lots of State Houses and Governors' Mansions.

[Rex]

35. That group of Brain Trusts will surely figure something out

[bettyellen]

38. They're going to cut him out of their fundraising to the extent they can ....

Won't print him another bumper sticker !!

[LisaL]

39. I am pretty sure they wanted to dump him from the start.

Haven't figured out how to do it yet.

[Trenzalore]

40. They can meet all they want

The beauty of the entire Donald thing is they have nothing to appeal to him with.

If this was Ted Cruz or some other bozo in the party at the core there is some belief in the conservative movement. Donald Trump gives two shits about conservatism, the republican party, or the country in general. This was always about him from the get go.

He feels they plan to railroad him he'll blow himself up to spite them.

[workinclasszero]

43. You are so right

The idiot republicans let an narcissistic ideologue get the nomination. Trumps loyalty is to Trump. He will burn the damned republican party to the ground and laugh!

Let Trump be Trump I always say!

[applegrove]

44. And the GOP cannot complain they are being exploited because when a businessman does what he does to

further their own interests... GOP dogma states that this is never wrong.

[cheyanne]

45. Follow the money ....

If the big backers, the Mercers, decide he has to go . . .they can buy him off . . .and let him declare the election was fixed so he refuses to take part (face saving)

[fierywoman]

47. the kochs plus adelson

could offer him $100million to quit -- given his non-liquidity, he'd probably take it. (Sigh. But wouldn't it be funny if he agreed to the price, quit, and they only paid him 10 cents on the dollar? Karma's a b----.)

[Princess Turandot]

50. The Mercers are wholeheartedly supporting him...

We are completely indifferent to Mr. Trump's locker room braggadocio.

In their response, they also hurl the rw boilerplate bs accusations against the Clintons.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/08/gop-mega-donors-robert-and-rebekah-mercer-stand-by-trump/