“Forty-seven percent means ... you can’t reform the party while keeping the party together”

“Some people in the room were thinking more traditionally: We need to reform the Republican Party. Others were thinking we’ve got to build something new,” McMullin said. “And then there were some people … who argued that it was too hard to build something new, and we just need to reform the Republican Party, and they were making the argument that it could happen.”

A PowerPoint presentation by the latter faction included a slide that read, simply, “47 percent,” a figure well known to those in the room as the share of Republican primary votes won by Trump.

“They thought that was evidence of, it’s not a majority who are supporting Trump, therefore we can reform this thing,” McMullin said. “But the reality is, having been on the inside of this, I know that even if the support for Donald Trump was 30 percent or 25 percent, that’s enough to control who’s the speaker of the House, it’s enough to create major havoc in policymaking. It’s a big deal.”

“Forty-seven percent means you can’t make change,” McMullin added. “It means you can’t reform the party while keeping the party together.”