Steve Wynn has resigned as finance chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) amid harassment allegations.
A Wall Street Journal report on January 26 alleged that the 76-year-old casino mogul harassed massage therapists and abused one staff member.
Steve Wynn, the son of an East Coast bingo parlour operator, who is now worth an estimated $3.5 billion, according to Forbes magazine, has denied wrongdoing, calling the stories “preposterous”.
RNC chair Ronna McDaniel told media she had accepted his resignation.
Steve Wynn has blamed his ex-wife, whom he is fighting in court, for the “slander”. He has been locked in legal battles with his ex-wife, Elaine Wynn, for more than seven years. The pair co-founded Wynn Resorts.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which said it had interviewed dozens of people who worked with Steve Wynn, he is accused of engaging in a pattern of abuse in which he often harassed massage therapists while alone in his private office.
The gambling industry giant paid $7.5 million to one manicurist who alleged she had been abused by Steve Wynn, the paper claims citing court documents.
Female employees would fake appointments in order to avoid seeing him, or enlist others to pretend to be their assistants in order to avoid being alone with him.
Some would even hide in bathrooms or closets if they heard Steve Wynn was coming to their salon, the paper claimed.
Steve Wynn is also a Republican Party donor and fundraiser.
After harassment allegations were made against Hollywood executive producer Harvey Weinstein in 2017, Ronna McDaniel and other leading Republicans called for the Democratic Party to return his donations.
Now some Democrats are asking if the same rules should apply regarding allegations against Steve Wynn.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has attacked the RNC for remaining silent.
Last year, Ronna McDaniel said in a statement: “If Democrats and the DNC truly stand up for women like they say they do, then returning this dirty money should be a no brainer.”
In a letter signed by more than 70 Republicans, the GOP’s National Committee head is being urged to stop funding Donald Trump’s campaign.
The signatories said Donald Trump’s “divisiveness” and “incompetence” risked drowning the party in November’s election.
The letter said that the GOP should instead focus on protecting vulnerable candidates in elections to the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Former members of Congress are among the signatories of the letter.
“We believe that Donald Trump’s divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide,” said a draft of the letter published by Politico.
“Only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck.”
The letter added: “This should not be a difficult decision, as Donald Trump’s chances of being elected president are evaporating by the day.”
Reacting to the move, Donald Trump said he was not concerned that the party could cut him off.
“All I have to do is stop funding the Republican Party,” he said.
According to a Time Magazine report on August 11, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus had threatened to withdraw funding from the Trump campaign, and instead direct it to Congressional campaigns.
Donald Trump denies that this conversation ever took place.
The Republican presidential nominee has endured 10 days of negative headlines after a string of controversial comments.
In recent weeks, several leading Republicans have deserted Donald Trump over his outspoken attacks.
Polls suggest support for Donald Trump has been falling in key battleground states in recent weeks.
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has promised to change his image, in a closed-door meeting with GOP leaders.
Donald Trump, who leads the Republican race to be presidential nominee, delivered his message via aides, the Associated Press news agency reports.
The New York businessman’s success in primary elections so far has set off alarm bells among those in the party anxious that his tone and policies will turn off voters.
Five states go to the polls on April 26 to pick their presidential candidates.
Donald Trump has a clear lead in the number of delegates but may fall short of the 1,237 threshold required to win the nomination without a contested convention – where the nominee is chosen through negotiations among party figures.
In a recording of April 21 meeting obtained by Associated Press, Donald Trump’s senior aides told Republican leaders that he has been “projecting an image” so far and “the part that he’s been playing is now evolving”.
In it, Donald Trump’s newly hired senior aide, Paul Manafort, told the Republican National Committee (RNC) members that the presidential hopeful has a campaigning personality and a private one.
“When he’s out on the stage, when he’s talking about the kinds of things he’s talking about on the stump, he’s projecting an image that’s for that purpose,” Paul Manafort said.
Donald Trump knows he needs to moderate his personality, Paul Manafort told the meeting. “The negatives [unfavorable ratings in polls] will come down. The image is going to change.”
His standing among female voters is particularly low, after a series of controversial remarks about women, abortion and rival Ted Cruz’s wife.
According to analysts, Donald Trump’s decisive win in the New York primary this week seemed to signal a new, softer side in his victory speech.
Meanwhile, he told a rally in Pennsylvania on April 21: “At some point, I’m going to be so presidential that you people will be so bored.”
On one of the key social issues currently engulfing the GOP, transgender rights, Donald Trump took a stance out of step with his key rival Ted Cruz on April 21, when he said transgender people should be allowed to use a toilet assigned to a gender of their choosing.
Ted Cruz criticized this as politically correct but former candidate Ben Carson praised Donald Trump for “trying to moderate”.
Donald Trump has accused the RNC of conspiring against him and of rigging the way delegates are awarded in a way that is unfavorable to him.
Donald Trump has accused GOP’s leaders of conspiracy, saying they do not want him to win the presidential nomination.
The system was “stacked” against him, the Republican frontrunner said in New York, accusing the Republican National Committee (RNC) of conspiring against him.
Donald Trump’s comments come after his rival Ted Cruz was awarded all the delegates in Colorado without a state-wide vote.
He leads the race but may fall short of getting enough delegates to get the nomination outright.
That would lead to a contested convention in July, where delegates are free after the first ballot to back whom they want, opening the door for Texas Senator Ted Cruz or even the third candidate in the race, John Kasich.
The Washington Post reported on April 13 that Ted Cruz is likely to win on a second vote, because he has persuaded so many delegates to vote for him when they are “unbound” to vote as pledged.
However, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus rejected Donald Trump’s charge that the rules in states like Colorado had been changed in response to his rise in the polls.
Reince Priebus tweeted that the nomination process had been well known for more than a year.
“It’s the responsibility of the campaigns to understand it. Complaints now? Give us all a break.”
Asked at a town hall event in New York whether the RNC wanted him to win, Donald Trump said: “No, I don’t think so. I really don’t.”
He has been criticized for not campaigning hard enough on the ground in states like Colorado.
However, Donald Trump said delegates who wanted to support him were being pushed out by the RNC.
“They don’t like when I put up my own money because it means they don’t have any control of me because I’m working for the people,” he said.
Most states have opted to hold state-wide primaries or caucuses to determine the number of delegates pledged to a particular candidate.
However, Colorado decided last summer to select its delegates in a different way, at its own state convention.
The state-by-state primary contests come to New York next week where a high number of delegates will be up for grabs.
Several senior Republicans have expressed opposition to Donald Trump winning, doubting his ability to win a general election and disagreeing with his hard line on immigration.
The property tycoon has broken an earlier pledge he made to support whoever the Republicans nominate, therefore refusing to rule out a third-party run.
Donald Trump has said there will be “riots” if he is not chosen as the party’s nominee, having headed to the convention with the most delegates.
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