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Paul Ryan says he's not ready to back Trump

 

 

BURLINGTON, Wis. — House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday he is not ready yet to endorse his party's presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, saying Trump first needs to unify the GOP and show he will carry the standard for conservative principles.

"I hope to support our nominee. ... I'm just not there right now," Ryan said in another remarkable moment in a breathtaking 2016 campaign.

Underscoring his own differences with Trump over the tone and direction of their party, Ryan said now was “time to set aside bullying” and “belittlement” and offer a more hopeful, inclusive and aspirational message.

"We will need a standard-bearer that can unify all Republicans, all conservatives, all wings of our party" and go to the country with an agenda that can appeal to independents as well, Ryan said. "We have work to do. Our nominee has work to do."

These were Ryan's first public remarks about the front-runner since Trump's last two Republican rivals withdrew, making him the presumptive GOP nominee. Ryan is now the highest ranking member of his party to explicitly withhold his support from Trump.

In response, Trump issued a statement that was pointed but not as personal or combative as many he has made in the campaign:

“I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda. Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people. They have been treated so badly for so long that it is about time for politicians to put them first!”

Ryan has walked a very delicate line during the campaign. As co-chairman of the party's upcoming convention, he has held fast to a stance of neutrality in the race while criticizing Trump when candidate's rhetoric — in his words — was "unacceptable" or "disfigured" conservative principles.

But Ryan also has said that he would support his party's nominee.

Ryan admitted Thursday that the race resolved itself more quickly than he expected. With Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich dropping out after Tuesday's Indiana primary, GOP leaders and strategists suddenly are being forced to choose between endorsing Trump as the nominee, breaking with their party's apparent new standard-bearer, or very publicly reserving judgment.

Ryan took that latter course in a lengthy and extraordinary interview he taped from Wisconsin with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

"I desperately want to see us unify on principles and ideas and policies and on an agenda, and win the hearts and minds of a majority of Americans, and speak to everybody. And I am hoping that that's where this goes. But I don't know that that's where this is going to go," said Ryan, expressing the hope that he will be gaveling in a unified convention with a unified party this summer.

“I think a lot of the burden is on the presumptive nominee to do that, and so we’ll see,” Ryan said.

Ryan said he did not expect to agree with Trump on all issues.

And “no Republican should ever think about supporting Hillary Clinton. Let me make that clear,” he said.

But the Republican from Janesville, Wis., wants to make sure that he and Trump have common ground on conservative principles.

Ryan credited Trump with an immense political achievement in locking up the GOP nomination, adding that Trump tapped into something very powerful that “we need to listen to.”

"There is a bit of humility that each of us needs” in taking stock of Trump’s success, Ryan said. But the speaker openly questioned whether Trump will live up to the ideals that Republicans expect from their nominee and whether he will run a campaign that “Republicans are proud of.”

“We don’t always nominate a Lincoln or a Reagan every four years,” said Ryan, but Republicans hope their nominee aspires to be “Lincoln- or Reagan-esque.”

“Conservatives want to know, ‘Does he share our values and our principles on limited government, the proper role of the executive, adherence to Constitution?’ There are a lot of questions that conservatives I think are going to want answers to, myself included.”

Ryan has criticized Trump in the past for suggesting that his supporters might riot if he is denied the nomination and for proposing to deny Muslims entry into the USA, among other things.

“I was outspoken on a number of occasions where I think he did the wrong thing or said the wrong things, and I will do that in the future if need be," Ryan said Thursday. "I hope it’s not necessary."

Throughout the campaign, Ryan has presented a sharp contrast to Trump in tone and ideology. The two appear to have conflicting ideas about immigration, trade and entitlement reform, to cite a few policy areas. And while Trump has attacked his political opponents without inhibition, Ryan has called for more civility in public life and a politics of ideas, “not insults.”

Ryan’s latest comments underscore that some congressional Republicans are prepared to distance themselves from Trump as they battle this fall to preserve their own majorities with Trump at the top of the ticket.

Unlike Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he will support Trump. But the 2012 GOP presidential nominee and Ryan’s running mate, Mitt Romney, has attacked Trump and indicated he doesn’t plan on attending the 2016 convention.

The past two GOP presidents, George W. Bush and George Herbert Walker Bush, have signaled they plan to sit the race out with Trump as the nominee.

The discord among Republicans over their future nominee is a hugely troubling sign for the party, coming at a moment when Trump is trying to mend fences in the GOP and needs to raise huge sums to compete in the fall.

Ryan was on the campaign trail Thursday here to give a boost to Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican who is in a tough re-election fight against Democrat Russ Feingold. Feingold, who had served three terms in the U.S. Senate, lost his seat in 2010 to Johnson.

“We’ve got a big project because this man Ron Johnson has earned our support,” Ryan told more than 100 supporters gathered at Veterans Terrace, a banquet hall in this city about 35 miles southwest of Milwaukee.

Ryan discussed running on conservative principles, “which is what we're in the middle of doing, so that we can win a mandate from the country ... so that we can get this country back on track.”

“We have to see Ron Johnson re-elected because the stakes couldn’t be higher, not just one Supreme Court justice but maybe three," Ryan said. “That will determine whether or not this is a Constitution kept for a generation or not.”

Ryan added that it was also important to “think about the person you want in government representing you” in Congress.

“You want somebody who believes what you believe, who acts on those beliefs but who is an effective conservative. ... It's one thing to say conservative things, it's one thing to yell at the TV or the radio, but to actually be a conservative and then do the hard work of negotiating, of cajoling, of getting people to agree with your point of view and to get it done and see it happen, that takes a special kind of person, of perseverance,” he said.

Neither Ryan nor Johnson mentioned Trump.

But in his remarks, Johnson spoke of the importance of the fall election.

“This is going to be a challenge in 2016 here in the state of Wisconsin,” he said. “But I really do look at Wisconsin as the firewall. Our 10 electoral votes and this Senate seat are crucial.”

Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Craig Gilbert, who reported from Washington, and Bill Glauber, who reported from Burlington, Wis., on Twitter: @WisVoter and @BillGlauber

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