NBC’s Chuck Todd Presses Trump Convention Manager On Roger Stone’s Threat To Disclose GOP Delegates’ Hotel Rooms

When Asked If Threatening Delegates Is “A Fair Game,” Paul Manafort Retorts That Ted Cruz Is Already Using “Gestapo Tactics”

From the April 10 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press:

Video file

CHUCK TODD (HOST): I want to talk about some of the methods you're going to use to try to cajole these delegates. Let me play something your former business partner Roger Stone said, get you to react to it:

[BEGIN VIDEO]

ROGER STONE: We're going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels, and the room numbers, of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal.

[END VIDEO]

TODD: Appropriate rhetoric?

PAUL MANAFORT: I'm not giving him my hotel room.

TODD: OK. So, do you sort of -- is that -- do you --

MANAFORT: Roger is not an official part of the campaign.

TODD: Did he bring you in?

MANAFORT: No.

TODD: OK.

MANAFORT: In fact not at all. I came in a totally different way. I've known Trump for 30 years. And when somebody started talking about the need to bring in additional people to deal with this process, friends of his who were not at all from the political realm even, he listened and then he reached out.

TODD: What is fair game to win a delegate? Is threatening a fair game? Is threats a fair game, is --

MANAFORT: It's not my style. It's not Donald Trump's style.

TODD: What is -- what can you do --

MANAFORT: But it is Ted Cruz's style. And that's going to wear thin very fast.

TODD: You think he's threatening delegates?

MANAFORT: Well, he's threatening -- you go to these county conventions and you see the Gestapo tactics, the scorched earth tactics --

TODD: Gestapo tactics? That's a strong word.

MANAFORT: Well, you look at -- we're going to be filing several protests because the reality is they are not playing by the rules. But frankly, that's the side game, because the only game I'm focusing on right now is getting delegates. And the games that have happened -- even this past weekend, you know, are not important to the long-term game of how do we get to 1,237.

TODD: But is he -- I guess what is fair game in getting a delegate? Is paying for their convention costs? Is it golf club memberships? What's fair and unfair in this? What's ethical, what’s unethical?

MANAFORT: Well, there's the law, and then there’s ethics, and then there’s getting the votes. I'm not going to get into what tactics to use. I happen to think the best way we're going to get delegates is have Donald Trump exposed to delegates, let the delegates hear what he says. He's done very well so far by putting himself in position by virtue of communicating.

Previously:

Trump Ally Roger Stone: “We Will Disclose The Hotels And The Room Numbers” Of Anti-Trump Delegates At GOP Convention

On CNN Newsroom, Trump Campaign Official Defends Roger Stone's Plan To Target Delegates At Their Hotel Rooms

Trump Adviser To MSNBC's Chris Hayes: “I Admire The Passion” In Stone's Threat To Disclose Delegate's Hotel Rooms