For all the work that Reince Priebus has put in thus far in attempting to clean up the GOP primary process and maximize the party’s chances for success in 2016, much remains to be done. But his schedule seems to have been at least momentarily derailed this week when he decided to return a call from Donald Trump. What could possibly go wrong? (From CNN)

In a private telephone conversation Wednesday afternoon, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus discussed his concerns with Donald Trump about the billionaire’s tone when talking about illegal immigrants, according to a Republican source familiar with the call.

They discussed a range of topics, according to the source.

“Look, I’ve gotta tell you, I spent four years trying to make inroads with the Hispanic community … how we address illegal immigration is very important,” to winning back Hispanics politically, Priebus said at the end of the call, according to the GOP source.

Scroll back a bit and look at the first few words of that CNN article. “In a private telephone conversation…”

I’ll refer you to the title of this post. Whether Reince knew it or not, there are no private conversations with Donald Trump. The man is a non-stop media machine and the press will eat up each and every morsel that he tosses out. The only thing missing from limited report of the conversation was a reference to one of Trump’s golf courses. But assuming this was at least supposed to be “private” in nature, how did CNN get hold of it so fast? The origin is only listed as a Republican source familiar with the call. Let’s be honest here… that limits it to a fairly short list. There was one person on each end of the call and, in all likelihood, one other person at each location who set it up, discussed what would probably be covered and put it through.

I’m pretty sure I could tell you who that second person was on Reince’s end since I’ve had to deal with them myself, and I doubt they’d be on the line to CNN right afterward. So who was the other person in the room with Trump? Further down in the article we may be getting one hint.

Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, confirmed the call to CNN.

He said Trump and Priebus spoke, but he could not confirm how long it was or what was discussed.

“It is not unusual for Mr. Trump to have a conversation with Priebus on a fairly regular basis as the leading candidate for the GOP nomination,” Lewandowski said.

He added that while he didn’t know the contents of the conversation, “There’s no question in my mind that Mr. Trump’s fortitude on [immigration] will be unshaken, whether it’s a phone call from Reince Priebus or whether it’s [a business cutting its ties.]”

An article like this is written in such a way that the reader is left with the impression that “some source” let the reporter know about the call, including the contents, and they then dutifully called up the campaign manager for a comment. That’s still technically possible, but I’ve had to deal with the press during state level campaigns myself and reporters who follow the On Record vs On Background rules use tricks like this all the time. There’s absolutely nothing stopping Corey from being “the Republican source familiar with the call” speaking off the record while still being the on record staffer who provides comment. Trust me… I’ve watched it happen first hand in other races. If Lewandowski and his boss didn’t feed this directly to the press I would be astounded.

Of course a headline like this does nothing for the RNC chair, so what would be the motivation for them leaking it? Conversely, this does all sorts of good for The Donald. He’s being described as somebody who routinely gets calls from the head of the party to discuss weighty policy issues and he gets yet another 24 hours of free media face time as everyone rushes to ask him about it. And in the follow-up with reporters he gets to sound like the tough guy who is just telling it like it is and won’t be pushed around by the party bosses.

There’s no excuse for Reince to not talk to Trump. He is, after all, a declared candidate and one who is well up in the polls. But if the chairman or anyone else thinks they’re going to be getting any “private” communications with Donald Trump any time soon, that’s probably a pipe dream.

Update (AP): Inevitable.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/619135211121561600