Trump Doesn't Expect Violence if He Fails to Win Republican Presidential Nomination
He continued his complaints after the RNC's "rigged system" to pick a nominee.
— -- Donald Trump doesn't believe the Republican National Committee will see violence if he fails to win the nomination when the convention is held this summer.
Speaking Sunday in Staten Island ahead of New York's primary this week, Trump again criticized the Republican Party's process for choosing a nominee, saying the "rigged system" makes it about party bosses instead of voters.
"I hope it doesn’t involve violence," he said, claiming his rallies are "the safest places to be in the country."
"But I will say this -- it's a rigged system, it's a crooked system. It's 100 percent crooked."
RNC chair Reince Preibus responded to some of Trump's frequent complaints last week, saying it was the responsibility of the campaigns to understand the rules as the nomination process had been known for more than a year.
Trump expressed confidence he would win the nomination on the first ballot in Cleveland by securing the needed 1,237 delegates.
"A lot of people say, 'don’t complain, you’re winning,' and I think we’ll get there on the first ballot, actually," he said.
Trump's path to the nomination became less certain Saturday after Texas Sen. Ted Cruz swept 14 available delegates in Wyoming, a week after doing the same in Colorado. Trump said his campaign didn't put much effort into either state because both were for "the bosses" and not the voters.
"We didn’t play in Colorado because I heard that it was going to be for the bosses, for the RNC," he said. "I don’t wanna play that game. I’m winning with the voters and we’re winning big."
Trump contended Cruz's recent wins were because of the money his campaign spent wining and dining delegates.
"Nobody has better toys than I do," he said. "I can put them in the best planes and bring them to the best resorts anywhere in the world. Doral, Mar-a-Lago. I can put them in the best places in the world -- California. I have something that blows everything away."
Trump’s campaign has accused the Cruz campaign of breaking the rules when it comes to the hunt for the delegates needed to secure the nomination. His convention manager, Paul Manafort, threatened the campaign would be challenging some results while speaking to ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.
“We’ll be filing protests. Missouri, we're going to be filing protests. Colorado, we're going to be filing protests,” Manafort said.
Cruz’s delegate operations director, Ken Cuccinelli, countered in a later interview, saying Trump's campaign was whining about the results and had used unsavory tactics to win delegates.
“How about calling for riots in the street? How about threats -- 'We’re going to go to the hotel rooms of delegates' -- death threats to the Colorado Republican chairman?” Cuccinelli said. “They keep using the rhetoric. This is a banana republic approach from the Trump team because they’re getting beat on the ground.”