CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Republican National Convention rules committee recessed for more than three hours for an apparent “printer jam” problem, but members used the time to “work out their differences,” committee chair Enid Mickelson said.
Trump campaign staffers, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s former delegate operations manager Ken Cuccinelli, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Colorado delegate Kendal Unruh and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus met during the committee’s lunch recess.
The rules committee is under the spotlight as anti-Trump forces look at rule changes that would allow certain delegates to ignore the will of their state’s voters on the first ballot.
Time magazine reported that Cuccinelli pushed for reforms that would benefit Cruz in the 2020 election cycle calendar.
“I feel kind of good. I think things are coming together for Republicans—pleasant, calm, relaxed. I there’s a real kind of interesting feeling settling in. We are where we are,” rules committee member Curly Haugland, a longtime proponent of unbinding all delegates at the convention, told The Daily Caller during the recess.
Members are trying to hash out a deal behind the scenes and later presented to the committee at large to avoid an all-out public conflict.
“We’re going to have a convention. We’re going to have a nominee at the end of the convention, and I suspect we’re going to come away with a highly charged Republican Party,” Haugland said.