Priebus: Too Late for Third-Party Candidate to Launch Campaign

The chances of a contested convention this summer have "plateaued," but talk of anyone making a third-party run for the White House is "something media likes to spin," Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday.

"It's never going to work [and] it's never going to happen," Priebus told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on the "This Week" program.  "They're already behind the eight-ball, and in some states, they may not be able to get on the ballot."

Further he said that by the time the Republican National Convention comes to Cleveland in July, it will "definitely be too late" for a third-party candidate to launch a campaign.

"I don't know anyone truly serious who has any money behind them and the organization to make it happen," Priebus told Stephanopoulos. "I'm really thinking that it's not going to happen. It's a nothing burger...I don't buy it."

Meanwhile, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton's campaign has come out with a pointed ad against Donald Trump, but Priebus said the RNC has already started the general election campaign as well.

"We had two soldiers from Benghazi at the RNC meeting who were lied to by Hillary Clinton, who did an awful job as Secretary of State," he said. "There will be plenty of return fire, I can assure you. Right now, we're in the middle of trying to see who our nominee is going to be."

Priebus also commented on billionaire Charles Koch's statements that he believes Clinton would be "possibly" a better president than the three left on the GOP slate, telling Stephanopoulos that even though Koch and his brother David have spent millions toward getting Republicans elected, his aims are different than those of the RNC.

"They have their own activities that the they work on; we have ours," said Priebus. "There isn't that much intersection between the two."

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