--- title: Republican Secret Meet to Stop Revolt Against Donald Trump description: The broken printer was just an excuse canonical: https://time.com/4406140/republican-convention-rules-chairman/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-14T14:35:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T06:12:49.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Republican Secret Meet to Stop Revolt Against Donald Trump og:description: The broken printer was just an excuse og:url: https://time.com/4406140/republican-convention-rules-chairman/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ea4b46aa81bfd85/69889ba7a988caf9456b8983/reince-priebus.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 594 og:image:height: 334 og:image:alt: DNC Chairman Reince Priebus participates in a Politico Playbook breakfast forum, May 6, 2016 in Washington, DC. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Republican Secret Meet to Stop Revolt Against Donald Trump twitter:description: The broken printer was just an excuse twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ea4b46aa81bfd85/69889ba7a988caf9456b8983/reince-priebus.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Republican Chairman Uses Secret Meeting to Head Off Rules Revolt > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=1295188a-c04e-4575-befb-618aa5e374b7&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Updated: Dec 13, 2023 6:12 AM UTCPublished: Jul 14, 2016 2:35 PM UTC  DNC Chairman Reince Priebus participates in a Politico Playbook breakfast forum, May 6, 2016 in Washington, DC. DNC Chairman Reince Priebus participates in a Politico Playbook breakfast forum, May 6, 2016 in Washington, DC. Mark Wilson—Getty Images by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Updated: Dec 13, 2023 6:12 AM UTCPublished: Jul 14, 2016 2:35 PM UTC The Republican National Convention rules committee abruptly recessed for more than four hours Thursday morning, as senior party officials huddled with anti-Trump delegates to hash out an agreement to speed up the consideration of the party rules. Facing dozens of amendments, Rules Committee Chair Enid Mickelsen claimed there was a problem with the committee’s printers preventing the consideration of the committee’s business all morning. But the true reason for the delay, according to GOP officials, was a secret meeting convened by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, with Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Colorado delegate Kendal Unruh, and other influential delegates opposed to Trump to try to drop extraneous amendments avoid drama in the televised meeting room. Anti-Trump delegates are hoping to use the rules process to unbind all of the delegates to the Republican National Convention, in hopes of unseating the party’s presumptive nominee next week. Priebus, who has been openly critical of the unbinding effort and has predicted its failure, is looking to broker a compromise to minimize the acrimony, as he seeks to keep the focus of the week on party unity. The volume of amendments offered was viewed as potentially disruptive, and the potential for the debate on the binding to become an embarrassment for the party brought Priebus to call the meeting. According to a source familiar with the substance of the meeting, the gathering focused more on reforms to the RNC and 2020 nominating calendar pushed by former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli than the effort by Trump opponents to unbind delegates to vote their conscience. Cuccinelli’s support is seen as a crucial pillar of support for the free-the-delegate movement. If he cuts a side deal with the RNC, Republican leaders hope the chances of floor drama Monday would decrease significantly. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4406140/republican-convention-rules-chairman/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4406140/republican-convention-rules-chairman/"},"headline":"Republican Chairman Uses Secret Meeting to Head Off Rules Revolt","datePublished":"2016-07-14T14:35:24.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-13T06:12:49.000Z","description":"The broken printer was just an excuse","url":"https://time.com/4406140/republican-convention-rules-chairman/","keywords":["Donald Trump","Reince Priebus","Republican","republican convention"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ea4b46aa81bfd85/69889ba7a988caf9456b8983/reince-priebus.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Zeke Miller","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ea4b46aa81bfd85/69889ba7a988caf9456b8983/reince-priebus.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"DNC Chairman Reince Priebus participates in a Politico Playbook breakfast forum, May 6, 2016 in Washington, DC.","caption":"DNC Chairman Reince Priebus participates in a Politico Playbook breakfast forum, May 6, 2016 in Washington, DC.","creditText":"Mark Wilson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4406140/republican-convention-rules-chairman/","name":"Republican Chairman Uses Secret Meeting to Head Off Rules Revolt"}}]}] ```