House Speaker Paul Ryan’s endorsement on Thursday of presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump was met with everything from shrugs to cheers among Republicans and a hint of schadenfreude among Democrats.
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Last Thursday, May 26, at a live recording of a debate for KPCC’s “AirTalk”, host Larry Mantle asked all five Republican candidates for Los Angeles County’s 5th Supervisorial District if they were opposed to Donald Trump serving as their party’s Presidential nominee.
Ryan’s comments came shortly after Hillary Clinton’s campaign slammed Trump in a statement for targeting the U.S.-born judge’s Hispanic descent. He added that the two spoke about the Muslim ban proposal.
A spokesman for Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev) said in an email that Republicans are now “the party of Trump …” “We need toughness in tone”.
They include tax reform, replacing Obamacare, reforming regulations and providing a better way to lift Americans out of poverty, along with policy recommendations on national security and foreign policy. Not only is he far more visible and popular than Ryan, he is also the top of the heap when it comes for party message.
On March 1, 2016, Ryan gained yet more acclaim by obliquely chastising Trump for failing to disavow his white supremacist supporters. “He created an environment in which it seemed to be acceptable for someone running for president to be inciting violence”, Clinton said. The editorial board felt “there are so many ways Trump is unfit to lead the free world”. Aides to both said their positions had not changed.
The Senate Majority Leader has previously stated that while he will support Trump, he does not plan to go along with the GOP nominee’s agenda.
As Trump works to unify the fractured GOP behind him, these Republicans, Ryan among them, are struggling to show the same enthusiasm Trump has generated among rank-and-file conservatives across the nation. “I won’t pretend otherwise”, Ryan wrote in a column in the Janesville Gazette.
Ryan said in the piece it was “not secret” the two have their differences and that he’ll “continue to speak my mind”, a point he reiterated in Friday’s interview. We’ve talked about the common ground this agenda can represent. Though McConnell said he was unfamiliar with Trump’s comments about the judge, he called the real estate mogul’s attacks on New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez “completely unfortunate and unnecessary”.
“I want to have a sit-down conversation with him”, she told KOB.
While explaining his endorsement of the businessman, Ryan called Trump out for a recent comment to The Wall Street Journal. A similar incident took place several weeks earlier in New Orleans when a protester interrupted Trump’s rally by holding up a KKK sign. I’m trying to keep business out of Mexico.
“Based on his ethnicity, suggesting he has an inherent conflict of interest because of his heritage”. The answer is, he is giving us very unfair rulings, rulings that people can’t even believe.
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None of which is new for Ryan, who’s criticized Trump regularly for similar outbursts and tantrums.
