Chaos on the floor! Republican Party jams through rules package in bid to avoid contentious floor fight and shut down anti-Trump delegates – floor erupts into loud mix of boos and chants of 'USA!'

The Republican National Convention descended into chaos on Monday hours after it opened as an ugly rift over Donald Trump erupted in public. 

Republican Party leaders and forces trying to secure a smooth nomination for Trump jammed through a package of rules for the convention Monday, dodging a contentious roll call vote on the floor with arm-twisting and heavy use of the gavel - but prompting fury from anti-Trump activists.

The so-called ‘#NeverTrump’ forces sought to insert a measure in the rules allowing individual delegates to vote ‘their conscience’ instead of supporting the candidate their states’ voters preferred. But a last-gasp maneuver failed, leaving his intra-party enemies with no other procedural options to oppose him.

Outside open-carry activists paraded assault rifles and handguns while one wore a t-shirt comparing the Muslim God to Satan, a provocation which came as 5,000 police officers flooded Cleveland in the hope of keeping order. 

The scenes did little to reassure party managers that the convention will promote a unified party ready for victory in the November elections, and came amid mounting recriminations over the decision by many senior party figures – including both its living former presidents – to snub Trump’s coronation.

In the brightest flash of discontent on the convention floor so far, party leaders called for approval of a rules package – a normally routine procedure, which this year became a flashpoint as anti-Trump forces worked to force a ‘roll call’ that would allow them to show their disapproval on the floor.

When the package came up for a vote, Rep. Steve Womack, who was in the chair, asked the convention whether the package was approved – a question that resulted in a mix of cheers and boos.

‘In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the resolution is agreed to,’ Womack declared with a swift boom of his gavel that reverberated throughout the Quicken Loans Arena where the convention opened Monday.

His prompt ruling – a judgement call that was hard to discern from the crowd noise – led to a loud chorus of boos from the floor.

Then pro-Trump delegates started drowning out the boos with chants of ‘USA! USA!’

Amid the chaos on the floor, forces running the convention cued up generic blues music and piped it into the arena, and left the podium completely vacant for several minutes.

Anti-Trump forces had believed they had secured enough support to force a roll call vote – a move that would have allowed states to register disapproval through a no vote before party leaders shut it down.

After a few minutes of pause, Womack returned to the podium to conduct a new vote.

‘Without objection he chair will put the question of adoption of the report from the committee on rules de novo,’ he said.

This time, he took a separate poll of the convention giving ample town for yells of support or opposition. Those in favor of the package yelled out a sustained chorus of ‘Ayes!’ Then, opponents yelled out a sustained chorus of ‘No!’ 

But Womack, an Arkansas representative, once again declared the ayes the winner. 

‘In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it,’ he said – killing the roll call vote and declaring the winner himself. He then explained that while 9 states had turned in petitions seeking the roll call vote, 3 had subsequently lost the majority of delegates needed, meaning the number was now insufficient.

It prompted delegates from Colorado to walk off the floor in protest. 

Even if the anti-Trump forces had gotten the roll call vote, it was unlikely to change the outcome. ‘So you have a roll call. What’s the difference,’ one Trump campaign insider told AngleNews.com before the floor chaos erupted.

Nevertheless, such a vote could have served as a forum for airing grievances against the presumed nominee, while also putting on a display of some of the deep divides within the Republican Party at a time when the candidate and the Republican National Committee are trying to put on a display of unity.

Under rule 39, a roll call vote can be called if a majority of 7 delegations demand the vote.

Delegates Unbound co-founder M. Dane Waters vowed in a statement Monday, ‘Now we take this fight to the floor.’

Just moments before the chaos on the floor, Dr. Ben Carson, a leading Trump supporter, declared himself unfazed about the effort.

‘It’ll work out just fine,’ he told AngleNews.com.

The show of raw emotion on the floor galvanized a convention that got off to an otherwise ordinary start, recitation of the pledge of allegiance, and invocation by a rabbi, speeches by Republican officials.

 ‘Call the roll! Call the roll,’ the silenced anti-Trumpers shouted as the rules package was being rammed through.

‘I have never in all my life, certainly in six years in the United States Senate, prior to that as a lifelong Republican, never seen anything like this,’ said Utah Senator Mike Lee moments after it happened.

‘There is no precedent for this in parliamentary procedure. There is no precedent for this in the rules of the Republican National Convention. We are now in uncharted territory. Somebody owes us an explanation,’ added Lee, who supported Texas Senator Ted Cruz in the primaries.

‘I have never seen the chair abandoned like that. They vacated the stage entirely,’ Lee said.

Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, who is a delegate, tore off his credentials in protest.

The states that submitted signatures in the doomed effort to try to force a roll call were Colorado, Utah, Washington, Minnesota, Iowa, Virginia, Maine, and DC.

After it became clear that there would be no roll call vote, anti-Trump forces on the convention floor fumed.

‘Everybody involved with the RNC that was involved in that travesty should be ashamed of themselves. Absolutely shameful!’ yelled Eric Minor, a Ted Cruz delegate from the state of Washington who had helped organize anti-Trump plotting.

‘We wanted to have a roll call vote! You prevented that from happening!’ he blared at a fellow delegate wearing a Trump button – who quickly made his exit.

‘That’s not how it works in America!’ Minor continued. ‘What you just did is what happens in Venezuela, or in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. It doesn’t happen in America – except under Donald Trump!’

Saul Anuzis, a Michigan delegate, told AngleNews.com that ‘there are a lot of grassroots conservatives around the country who were denied the opportunity to have a debate. I think that upsets a lot of people.’

Anuzis said the procedural maneuvering was ‘unnecessary.’

‘We should have had a debate, and had a roll call vote. They probably would have won anyway. But at least that way delegates would have felt they had a say in something.’

Asked it he believed the committee chair’s announcement that three delegations had withdrawn their petitions, he laughed loudly.

‘Right.’ he smirked.

‘Nine states wanted to have a roll call vote and they pulled them out,’ he said, referring to pro-Trump factions and Republican National Committee fixers.

‘This is the establishment trying to have a calm, quiet convention. And it doesn’t always work that way.’

Minor, too, doubted the official story.

‘They could say anything they want,’ he told AngleNews.com.

‘I have no doubt that after we turned in petitions from nine states, that the Donald Trump campaign and the RNC went around to every single delegation and strong-armed them and tried to get people to take their names off of the petition.’

‘Why would you be afraid of taking an actual, accurate vote to see if we want the rules up or down?’ he asked.

‘We got enough signatures to get a roll call vote and they delayed and delayed and delayed, and they probably went around and got people to take their names off the petitions.’

As Minor held court loudly with two dozen journalists, Trump loyalists grew impatient.

‘WE WANT TRUMP!’ they chanted.

‘My faith in democracy is severely tarnished,’ Minor said, adding that the Cleveland convention was his first.

Men wearing earpieces who said they represented the Committee on Arrangements, the convention’s organizers, tried to clear Minor and the growing media scrum away from the main entryway to the convention floor.

They wouldn’t identify themselves, sending Minor into conniptions.

‘These are the Trump people trying to prevent the media from reporting on this!’ he boomed. ‘Because we’re protesting against Trump, essentially.’

‘Based on character, based on his policy proposals, he is not fit to be the nominee of the Republican Party,’ Minor added.

AngleNews.com was speaking with Muriel Toucey, an alternate delegate from Massachusetts, when the decision – and the resulting catcalls – rang out.

‘Are they trying to pull the Ted Cruz thing? I don’t like that!’ Toucey said.

‘They’re trying to steal the nomination from Donald Trump, and he got over 1,500 delegates.’

‘I talk to these people online and they constantly – they think they’re saving the country or something, she said. ‘But if Ted Cruz can’t win against Republicans, he can’t win against Hillary. I’d tell them to put their big boy panties on.’