The Republican Party Chairman Said "People Just Don't Care" About Trump's Views on Women

Impact

During a tour of the Sunday morning talk shows, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus confessed to concern about presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump's treatment of women, but said that he thinks that ultimately voters "just don't care" about it.

As the New York Times reported, when repeatedly asked about a recent Times investigation revealing that Trump has regularly treated women inappropriately in both his professional and personal lives, Priebus acknowledged public concern about it as "legitimate" but unlikely to affect the electorate's view of the real estate magnate:

Asked by Chris Wallace, the host, if he was bothered by the accusations in the article, Mr. Priebus at first said that "Well, you know, a lot of things bother me, Chris, and obviously I'm the wrong person to be asking that particular question," but when asked again, Mr. Priebus said that voters were focused on other things.

On ABC's This Week, Priebus sounded similarly confident that Trump could be immune to criticism over his refusal to release his tax returns, saying that the former reality TV star has "rewritten the playbook" on presidential campaigns.

Trump's extraordinary success as a candidate while departing from GOP orthodoxy has been a source of enormous frustration for Priebus, but the party chairman made it clear that Trump was the Republicans' best chance. On CBS News' Face the Nation, he deemed a potential third party bid by a Republican a "suicide mission."