Don't tell Gov. Pete Ricketts that the Nebraska Republican Party's weekend meeting in Kearney was cloaked in chaos, he calls it all part of the "process."

[View our interview above]

In his first public comments on the takeover of the party—his party—by some staunch pro-Trump conservatives, Ricketts acknowledges to News Channel Nebraska that many of the upstarts were likely unhappy with his attacks on two GOP candidates for governor, Charles Herbster and State Sen. Brett Lindstrom.

Ricketts put hundreds of thousands of dollars behind TV ads blasting Herbster—who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump— as someone who would be a "horrible governor" and labeling Lindstrom as a "liberal," all to swing the GOP primary to Ricketts favorite, NU Regent Jim Pillen.

Pillen won and Ricketts disputes any suggestion that Pillen won't win in November.

Ricketts also dismisses a write in campaign for governor by Robert Borer, a little known candidate who hauled in a surprising number of votes in his bid for Secretary of State against incumbent Republican Bob Evnen.

Evnen won with 72,236 votes but Borer—insisting vote fraud exists in Nebraska— finished second with 57,792 votes. Rex Schroeder came in third with 40,091 votes, so together Borer and Schroeder out polled Evnen.

During the weekend event at least 10 pro-Ricketts members of the party resigned their posts, following the ouster of Party Chairman Dan Welch, another member of team Ricketts.