Late last night and all morning, reports have been run on social media and in the news that the RNC told their staff to either get on board with Donald Trump or get gone. The RNC has denied that claim. But former RNC staff members who spoke with RedState say they believe it.

It started with the New York Times:

For some in the party, the question of whether to embrace Mr. Trump is not merely an intellectual exercise. Some staff members at the Republican National Committee were told Wednesday that if they were unable to get behind the nominee, they should leave by the end of the week.

That tidbit went around quickly and the word was out. Then this morning, The Hill reported that the RNC has denied this claim, citing a Tweet from Communications Director Sean Spicer:

Spicer also denied the story to Katie Pavlich at Townhall.

“100% untrue and the New York Times knows,” RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer tells Townhall.

But we spoke with former staff members today who find the original story plausible and who were, frankly, mystified as to why the RNC would deny it.

One former RNC staff member tells RedState that they “can totally imagine a meeting where they say, Trump is the nominee, we work for him now, if anyone has a problem with that, they shouldn’t be here anymore.” The forer staffer explains that when you work for the RNC, you have a job to do promoting GOP candidates, and that people have to be prepared to do that. “It sounds like a juicy story,” they add, “but it just makes sense.”

Another former member RNC employee agrees. “The reason it exists is to fund and elect republican nominees. It’s their sole purpose.” But this person added a caveat.

“It was never really an issue before, but in this case it makes sense. The problem comes when your republican nominee is actually a democrat. You might have to have a conversation. It’s one thing if someone has a problem with, like, Romneycare. But it’s another thing when the nominee disagrees with every single major Republican platform. You’re asking people who went to work to elect Republicans to start working every day to elect a man who is, on paper, a Democrat.”

It’s a good point. Anyone who is on a mailing list from either political party knows that the communications staff in particular has to put their name on Trump. Literally. Emails come through in their name. Now they have to be prepared to send an email that might say “tax the rich” or “raise the minimum wage” or “hooray for Planned Parenthood.” Of course there are people who don’t want to do that.

We did not reach out to Sean Spicer for comment on this article. This is just the perspective given by people who used to work at the RNC. We do not have any confirmation on whether or not such a meeting actually took place.

Either way, Trump has been the presumptive nominee for a day and already the internal struggles, or at least reports of them, have begun. Buckle up, folks. Just wait until he starts responding to the media after they take the gloves off. Hoooooo boy.