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Glenn's Show Prep

Brokered Convention: Everything You Need to Know

March 16, 2016
Jon Boldt

Writer

Sean Trende joined The Glenn Beck Program on Wednesday to explain just how a brokered or contested convention might work and broke down how he sees the rest of the GOP primary playing out.

Trende is the senior elections analyst at Real Clear Politics and knows his stuff better than just about anybody.

Listen to the segment from radio or read the transcript below.

The Math is the Math

GLENN: Okay. And, Sean, you're not a political guy. You're just here to tell us how this system works, right?

SEAN: Yeah, that's right. I can't lie and say I don't have strong feelings about some of these candidates. But at the end of the day, I try to be a data guy. The math is the math. And the way we think this thing is going to pan out, you know, it's just driven by the rules and the math.

GLENN: Can anybody actually get to the convention with enough delegates to actually win it outright? Can they?

SEAN: They can. And the fact that John Kasich is going to stay in the Republican race going forward does help Donald Trump do that. But it's by no means a guaranteed thing that this is going to happen. I'd say there's probably a 50/50 shot that no one gets the delegates they need to avoid a contested convention.

GLENN: If Kasich was out, would Cruz have an equal shot at getting the delegates, do you think?

SEAN: Yeah. I think if Kasich had said, you know what, I did what I needed to do in Ohio, but there's no path to the nomination, you know, I'm going to use my 66 delegates to try to be the vice presidential nominee.

If you look at the exit polls, they ask head-to-head questions. In Michigan, Cruz came out ahead of Trump in a two-person race. He almost certainly would have won North Carolina and Missouri. So, yeah, without Kasich, Cruz's path looks much better.

Understanding the Rules

GLENN: Okay. So tell me, what are the rules, can they actually bring somebody in from the outside like this and expect us not to rebel?

SEAN: Yes, they can bring someone in from the outside after the first ballot. But, no, I think especially someone like Jeb Bush who was soundly rejected by the Republican electorate, it would be suicide to have him come in and, surprise! I'm the nominee.

GLENN: Kasich actually thinks he's going to be the president of the United States. He's not not even close. He's not even close. How are they thinking that they're going to manipulate these numbers to be able to get a winner that we could all coalesce around?

SEAN: Yeah. I don't know what Kasich is thinking. I live in Ohio. And it's not surprising to me. But he's -- he's wrong, if he thinks he's going to be the nominee.

Look, I think the idea of Ryan or somebody like that -- look, if we can get to Cleveland and this thing goes five or six ballots and nobody can pull together a majority, in the past, that's where dark horse candidates have emerged. But there's not going to be a scenario where we have the first ballot and then Paul Ryan pops out on the second ballot. Something like that only happens if there's just no way to come to terms with -- between the two candidates who have a reasonable number of delegates.

The Power of Delegating: Explaining the Voting Process

STU: Sean, can you explain the process here? Like, Rubio has 180 delegates, let's say. So they get to the convention. Does he still control those delegates? What happens to those? How does the bargaining process go when it comes to that -- when we get to the actual contested convention?

SEAN: So all this stuff is determined by the states. You know, some states don't have bound delegates at all. From the very first day, they can vote for whoever they want. And some states -- so the primary is just kind of what we call a beauty contest so that people can get a sense of where their state stands up.

Some states bind their delegates for more than one ballot, so on the second and third ballot, they still have to vote for the person. So Rubio can endorse someone. There are some states where he can instruct his delegates to vote for someone else.

STU: So after that first ballot, essentially these delegates in most cases get to do what they want to do. But the thought is that they probably would follow the lead of a Rubio or a Kasich?

SEAN: That's right. And, again, we get into the real nitty-gritty, some states these delegates have been hand-selected by the candidates. So in Ohio, the delegates are Kasich regulars. So they're more likely to listen to him.

In some states, they're just kind of like party officials. You know, the state committee chairman and the large counties. They don't have any loyalty to any candidate outside of what the rules say they have to do on the first ballot. So there it's free agents.

A Close Second Can Come in First

GLENN: So can I ask -- this is a really stupid question. Let's say it's -- I don't know, 1100 for Trump and, you know, 950 for Cruz. And we get to the second ballot or whatever.

How does Cruz not win that when it comes to, we've got a guy who is really close to Donald Trump? How does he not get those extra delegates, just 200 delegates just to push him over the top, especially if Marco Rubio is saying, I strongly urge you, you know? Or, I'm the vice president on that ticket, vote for Cruz.

SEAN: Right.

GLENN: How does he not win that?

SEAN: There are no stupid questions. And that's actually a very smart question.

GLENN: Oh, that's usually what people say when there's a stupid question.

SEAN: No, that is a very smart question. It is the question. Like, there is a point -- like, Donald Trump, if he walks in with 1236 delegates, is still going to be the nominee. But there is a point where, you're right. Like, especially since these delegates are by and large party regulars who have not been favorably inclined towards Donald Trump. You know, I think if Trump is at 1100 delegates, I think you sketched it out exactly right. There will be the first ballot. And then on the second ballot, they will break towards Cruz. But he has to be a substantial amount behind 1237 for that to occur.

GLENN: And what is that number, do you think? 1100?

GLENN: Because we got him unfortunately at 1139 in just doing a back of the paper. Today, we got him at 1139. So you think that's close enough that they'll just say, "He gets it?"

SEAN: You know, so 1139 would be almost exactly 100. You know, now my personal feelings come into it, and I'll say no.

But, you know, like there isn't a bright line, right? But I think 100 is where you start to say, you know, it's probably not going to be Trump being -- but conventions are just funny things. And they have been historically, whenever -- that's why we have these binding rules to keep them from being funny things. It's going to be weird, and it's going to be great for page views and listenership.

Who Runs the Show in a Brokered Convention?

GLENN: Okay. So tell me this: Who puts the convention together? Going into it, usually the nominee is helping pick the speakers and help build the platform and everything else. What happens here?

SEAN: That's another very good question. As you say, historically, you have a presumptive nominee, and the RNC just kind of turns the keys over and gives a bank account to the winning candidacy. But this time, the RNC is going to have to run it. They're going to have to plan it out. And they're going to have to try to plan it out the way it's at least perceived as fair. And that's a really tall task.

GLENN: We look at John Kasich and say, "He just doesn't get it. What delusional world is he living in?" But can I ask the same question -- and I'd love to hear your opinion, if you have one. What delusional world does the G.O.P. come from right now, where Mitch McConnell came out and said, "Hey, you know, maybe we'll throw our support behind Ted Cruz if he apologizes to me?" It was -- it was so clear last night that between Cruz and Trump, the establishment is rejected by the vast majority of people.

Where are they? Where are their heads? What's it going to take for them to start saying, "Hey, maybe I should start listening to the people?"

SEAN: You know, that's a very good question. I mean, this is to a certain degree the G.O.P. establishment's fault. Both in some of the ways they've behaved over the past six years, some major -- ten years really. Some major miscalculations on their part with legislation they've signed on to. I don't know what it's going to take for them to get it. Because it's pretty obvious that, like, your choice is Ted Cruz or Donald Trump. You don't demand that Ted Cruz apologize right now.

The Rubio Effect

STU: We were using this sort of this back-of-the-envelope math, where it's about four to one; they go to Cruz over Trump. Is that what you've seen in exit polls? And you think that that's something that goes forward in the same sort of way?

SEAN: Yeah, it's like I said, these exit polls have asked follow-up questions. So if it were just Cruz and Trump, who would you vote for? And we find that Trump gets almost no increase. No improvement in his showings in those questions.

So, yeah, if Rubio had dropped out two weeks ago or even a week ago, you know, he still would have lost Florida because of all the early voting. But last night would have looked very different.

GLENN: What about Kasich? If he would get out, who do his people break for?

SEAN: Again, his voters are disproportionately post graduate education, live in suburbs, you know, make over $200,000 a year. I don't know that -- I think a lot of them just stay home, quite frankly. But to the extent that they break, I think they break disproportionately for Cruz. They're the antithesis of Trump voters.

Featured Image: Caption:The West side of the US Capitol Building is seen in this May 1, 2012 photo in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIER (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

The great switch: Gates trades climate control for digital dominion

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.