House Speaker Paul Ryan, who will chair the GOP convention in Cleveland in July, tried on Thursday to definitively put to rest speculation that he could swoop in and become the party’s 2016 nominee in July.
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Ryan denounced Trump’s “riots” comment, saying it was unacceptable to even hint at violence.
But he did add that he has a responsibility to speak out if anybody – “not just Donald Trump” – is misrepresenting the Republican party or “disfiguring conservatism”, and said he would continue to do that.
“It should be someone running for president”, Ryan said during a press conference.
If no candidate hit the required number of electoral votes to secure the nomination outright but came close, yet the convention was contested, Trump told CNN on Wednesday, “I think you’d have riots”. Ted Cruz, said he would support the Texan because he considers him to be the better alternative in the three-man field to stop Mr. Trump. I, as a party leader, and others I assume as well have an obligation to defend our principles from being distorted.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has been backed by his predecessor John Boehner as a last-minute candidate to replace Trump.
The nominee, he said, is “not going to be me”.
Ryan declined to comment on efforts by those Republicans in the “Never Trump” camp to form a third party to challenge Trump in the November general presidential election. On Saturday, when Boehner endorsed Kasich, he avoided all mention of businessman Donald Trump, now the party’s front-runner for the presidential nomination. But Kasich predicts that “nobody is going to have enough delegates” by the time of the Republican National Convention this summer to win the nomination outright. The Republican primary voter is going to make this decision on who our nominee is going to be.
Mr. Trump’s biggest win was in Florida, where he took all of the state’s 99 delegates.
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For his part Ryan has been clear that he wants no part of running for president but he clearly is not going to allow Trump to be in charge.
