Ben Carson Threatens to Leave GOP Amid Reports of Brokered Convention

(Photo: Reuters/Chris Keane)

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks during the 20/20 Club Presidential Justice Forum at Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, November 21, 2015.

Presidential hopeful Ben Carson on Friday threatened to leave the Republican Party if he finds any manipulation in the nomination process, reacting to reports that GOP leaders were considering a brokered convention.

“If the leaders of the Republican Party want to destroy the party, they should continue to hold meetings like the one described in the Washington Post …,” Carson said in a statement Friday, the day after the Post reported that a group of GOP leaders, including National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, held a private dinner meeting Monday to discuss what they need to do if no candidate wins a majority of delegates heading into the party convention mid-July in Cleveland as well as to deal with Donald Trump’s rise to the top of most GOP polls.

“If this was the beginning of a plan to subvert the will of the voters and replace it with the will of the political elite, I assure you Donald Trump will not be the only one leaving the party,” the retired neurosurgeon said. “I pray that the report in the Post … was incorrect. If it is correct, every voter who is standing for change must know they are being betrayed. I won’t stand for it.”

Five unnamed sources told The Post that “several longtime Republican power brokers argued that if the controversial billionaire storms through the primaries, the party’s establishment must lay the groundwork for a floor fight in which the GOP’s mainstream wing could coalesce around an alternative.”

Priebus and McConnell were reportedly silent as the issue was discussed, apparently to avoid being seen as anti-Trump.

“This process is the one played out by our party. If the powerful try to manipulate it, the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next summer may be the last convention,” Carson went on to say. “I am prepared to lose fair and square, as I am sure is Donald. But I will not sit by and watch a theft. I intend on being the nominee. If I am not, the winner will have my support. If the winner isn’t our nominee then we have a massive problem. My campaign is about ‘We the People’ not ‘They the Powerful.'”

Chief GOP strategist Sean Spicer spoke to CNN about Carson’s statement. “I feel very confident he will stay in the party, as will Donald Trump, as will everyone else,” he said. “We will have a great nominating process. Everybody will stay in, we will select the best nominee for this party, and we will take back the White House… It’ll all work out, I promise.”

Trump has also said he is working on a strategy if there’s a brokered convention