Politics

Reince Priebus Whispers Opposition To Amnesty

Neil Munro White House Correspondent
Font Size:

The chairman of the Republican National Committee told tea party activists Monday night that the GOP will unite against President Barack Obama’s still-secret plans to enact an unpopular post-election unilateral amnesty.

But there’s little evidence that Priebus’ promise is sincere.

“We will do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen,” Priebus told hundreds of participants in TheTeaParty.net call Oct. 27, according to a Breitbart article.

“Defunding, going to court, injunction. You name it. It’s wrong. It’s illegal,” Priebus continued.

“And for so many reasons, and just the basic fabric of this country, we can’t allow it to happen and we won’t let it happen. I don’t know how to be any stronger than that. I’m telling you, everything we can do to stop it we will,” he said.

If Priebus’ commitment is sincere, it would be a dramatic reversal of the GOP leadership’s hands-off policy toward the president’s unpopular immigration plans, just one week before a close midterm election.

So far, top GOP leadership — including Priebus — has downplayed the issue in the 2014 election, despite polls showing opposition from GOP voters, and splits among Democratic, Latino and swing voters(RELATED: GOP Chairman Touts Immigration For Economy, Sidelines Obama’s Amnesty)

The leader of the GOP in the Senate, Sen. Mitch McConnell, briefly told Fox News Tuesday that a unilateral amnesty by Obama would be “a big mistake.” But he repeatedly shifted the topic away from immigration toward Obama’s other efforts to bypass congressional authority.

Some GOP candidates — chiefly, Rep. Tom Cotton in Arkansas, and Scott Brown in New Hampshire — have used the issue to win swing voters. (RELATED: Cotton Hits Sen. Pryor On Amnesty To Win Swing Voters)

But Priebus did not broadcast his new-found anti-amnesty views to any additional audiences.

He made the commitment to only one tea party group, and via one interview with Breitbart News shortly before the tea party conference call.

He said nothing about it on his Twitter feed Tuesday, or anything during a TV appearance Tuesday morning. The RNC’s Twitter account ignored the statement, but did urge followers to an an official GOP camouflage hat.

Even the RNC’s own “morning reads” of daily media coverage ignored Priebus’ statement, and instead summarized a Washington Post article that showed “immigration reform was not a top priority for Obama.”

That’s consistent with RNC policy. The RNC’s website last mentioned immigration Sept. 9. The most recent mention of “unilateral” and “amnesty” was July 25, 2014, and May 8, 2013, respectively.

The Daily Caller ask for a five-minute interview with Priebus, so he could repeat the promise to TheDC’s audience of 17 million general-interest readers. But press aide Raffi Williams declined, saying “I checked with his scheduler and his schedule is jam packed this week ahead of the elections, sorry.”

Priebus did find time to appear on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where he did not mention his opposition to Obama amnesty. “Morning Joe” averaged 342,000 viewers a day in October, according to ratings released by CNN.

The pattern of behavior shows that Priebus “is trying to placate the base without alerting the liberal media or the donor class,” which favor additional immigration, said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors reduced immigration.

“I wouldn’t take it that way,” said Niger Innis, the executive director of TeaParty.net, who championed Priebus in an interview with TheDC.

Priebus’ statement was strong and positive, Innis said. “The Republican Party first and foremost should be a conservative party, and he understands the base of the party — the people who do the volunteer work — are conservative and many consider themselves tea party members, and the last thing he wants to is alienate those supporters.”

The RNC’s employees may not have touted the speech, Innis said, but Priebus “doesn’t control every decision that is made in that apparatus,” and the RNC’s silence “could be [because] one those bureaucrats decided not to make that a big posting.”

The RNC did send out copies of the Breitbart article to some supporters, via its “war-room” mailing list, and the Breitbart article was posted on Drudge, maximizing its visibility.

But Priebus’ refusal to broadcast his message via additional media “reinforces the impression that this [anti-amnesty message] is being said only to placate conservatives,” said Krikorian. The message was passed through Innis’ group, even though a larger tea party group, the Tea Party Patriots, has been much more active in the immigration debate, he added.

“The conclusion I would draw, if I were in the White House, is that Republican [leaders] really aren’t serious” about stopping the unilateral amnesty, Krikorian said.

Follow Neil on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel