Speaking at Republican National Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill, the Wisconsin representative said speculation that he could emerge from a potential contested convention as the nominee even followed him on his recent tour of the Middle East. He said it was time to put the rumors to rest.
Advertisement
After a month of speculation and pleas ranging from the comic to the mildly desperate, House Speaker Paul Ryan held an unusually formal news conference Tuesday afternoon to rule out once and for all, he said, his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.
“I simply believe that if you want to be the nominee for our party, to be the president, you should actually run for it”, Ryan said during the short press conference.
House Speaker Paul Ryan is going to make a statement – again – about his potentially emerging as a consensus presidential candidate for Republicans. “I was asked about it everywhere I went”, he said.
“We have too much work in the House to let this speculation swirl, or, to have my motivations questioned”, Ryan explained.
House Speaker Paul Ryan’s coy cat-and-mouse game – trying to look as presidential as possible, then publicly bristling at any notion that he’s aspiring to the office – seemed to come to an abrupt halt yesterday. “I believe we can once again be an optimistic party, that is defined by the limitless possibility of our people”.
Boehner said in March that he would back Ryan as the GOP nominee if the first convention ballot doesn’t elect a party candidate.
This is good news for Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, but bad news for the GOP-the party may just have to try their luck with John Kasich. Yet it may not be enough to quiet the talk about Ryan, given the unpredictable twists of the GOP presidential primary. “I don’t know how I can be clearer than that”.
Ryan dismissed the notion that he might end up on the Republican ballot if the party faced a brokered convention in Cleveland. Kondrake also mention that supporters of a Ryan candidacy formed a superPAC to support a bid for the presidency previous year, but that Ryan himself told them to shut it down.
The New York Times reports that the presser “took on a somewhat chaotic feel” as scores reporters filled the room and dozens of protesters demonstrated outside, possibly anticipating Speaker Ryan would announce he would accept the nomination.
Advertisement
Ryan reiterated Tuesday he’s focused on his role as speaker, which incidentally is another job he said he wasn’t running for but was eventually politically strong-armed into taking. “It should be someone who actually wants to be president or is running for president”.
