Paul Ryan Folds Like A Cheap Suit, Endorses Donald Trump
After initially expressing doubts about his candidacy, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has lined up behind Donald Trump.
After a month or so of dancing around the issue, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has endorsed Donald Trump’s Presidential bid, a move that is likely to lead to others in Congress falling in line as well:
Speaker Paul D. Ryan endorsed Donald J. Trump for president on Thursday, finally giving his backing after weeks of reluctance about supporting the man who ran against the party’s establishment, of which Mr. Ryan is the titular leader.
In a column posted on GazetteXtra.com, Mr. Ryan made clear he believed that Mr. Trump was the best candidate to help establish the agenda that he himself wants to get through Congress. A spokesman for Mr. Ryan, Brendan Buck, wrote on Twitter that the column constitutes an endorsement.
The two have spoken numerous times, Mr. Ryan wrote in the column. They also met in a widely publicized sit-down in Washington a few weeks ago.
“Through these conversations, I feel confident he would help us turn the ideas in this agenda into laws to help improve people’s lives,” he wrote. “That’s why I’ll be voting for him this fall.”
“It’s no secret that he and I have our differences.,” he continued. “I won’t pretend otherwise. And when I feel the need to, I’ll continue to speak my mind. But the reality is, on the issues that make up our agenda, we have more common ground than disagreement.”
Word of the endorsement came just as Mr. Trump’s likely rival in November, Hillary Clinton, was delivering a blistering attack on his foreign policy positions, warning against giving the country’s nuclear codes to the Manhattan businessman.
Mr. Ryan’s words of support for Mr. Trump, however lukewarm, will be welcomed by the Trump campaign. Mr. Trump’s advisers are trying to pry open doors that have been closed against him over his caustic rhetoric, including with donors who like Mr. Ryan.
Mr. Ryan had at times criticized Mr. Trump during the nominating contest, calling him out for divisive language. Like much of the party’s establishment, Mr. Ryan was said to be surprised when Mr. Trump became the presumptive nominee on May 3, hours after winning the Indiana primary and forcing Senator Ted Cruz of Texas from the race.
Ryan’s endorsement was posted as an Op-Ed in one of the local newspapers in Ryan’s Congressional District.
Initially, of course, Ryan was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of Donald Trump as his party’s nominee. Early in May, in the wake of Trump’s victory in the Indiana Primary which led to both Ted Cruz and John Kasich dropping out of the race as it became apparent that Trump securing the delegate majority he needs to win the nomination on the first ballot in Cleveland in July, Ryan said that he was not prepared to get behind Trump’s campaign, and in the past Ryan has been critical of Trump on such issues as his advocacy of a ban on all immigration to the United States by Muslims. Instead of endorsing him immediately, Ryan set about meeting with Trump and his representatives on several occasions, and said that he would need to get some reassurances from Trump regarding both the agenda Trump would pursue as President and Trump’s own support for the domestic policy agenda that Ryan would like to see Congress pursue should a Republican win the Presidency. Ryan became the subject of criticism for this position, most notably from Trump supporters like Sarah Palin and others who vowed to support the campaign of the relatively unknown conservative activist who is challenging him in what is seen as a largely quixotic primary challenge.
While it’s unlikely that the threat of a primary challenge really concerned Ryan all that much, the fact that he has come around and endorsed Trump is not all that surprising. For one thing, as Speaker of the House Ryan will be charged with presiding over the convention in Cleveland in July and it would have been awkward to say the least for him to stay in that position when he hasn’t endorsed the party nominee. Additionally, the longer Ryan held out the more speculation grew that he was involved in some way in the efforts to get an independent candidate into the race for the principle purpose of ensuring that Trump wouldn’t win the election, or that he was in some way seeking to engineer some last minute scheme that would have made Ryan himself the Republican nominee. At the same time, though, I tend to agree with Allahpundit that Ryan’s decision to wait a month to endorse Trump doesn’t really make sense:
What was the point of all this? Why didn’t he go the McConnell route and back Trump early, without fanfare, as a matter of partisan course? His op-ed isn’t an effusive endorsement — it amounts to Ryan saying that Trump, unlike Hillary, at least might sign some Republican bills — but because of Ryan’s initial resistance there’s a sense that Trump has passed some meaningful ideological litmus test now, which, I would think, is pretty much the opposite of what a dogmatic conservatarian like Ryan would want people to believe. How’d Trump pass that test? What has he said over the past month that’s meaningfully different from what he said over the first 10 months of the campaign that gave Ryan qualms about his nomination? The whole point of Ryan holding out, I thought, was to create some political daylight between House incumbents and Trump in case Trump faltered in the polls or went full loose cannon. He hasn’t faltered — on the contrary — but we’re still five months out from the election. He might falter eventually — yet here’s Ryan bear-hugging him in early June. How does the House inch away from Trump now if things go sideways later? All things considered, Ryan lost respect today from people who respected him for initially refusing to back Trump and gained little from people who didn’t. What on earth was his strategy with all of this nonsense?
The answer, I think, is that there was no strategy. Most likely, Ryan’s reluctance to get behind Trump even after it was apparent that he was going to be the nominee was based upon Ryan’s recognition of the dangers that Trump poses to the future of the Republican Party and to Republican control of the House and the Senate in the short term. At the same time, as a member of the leadership he was likely under pressure to fall in line for the sake of party unity headed into the convention and the General Election. In retrospect, it would have looked better had Ryan given Trump the kind of low-key ‘endorsement’ that Mitch McConnell did, which basically just amounted to a recognition of the fact that the voters had spoken and that Trump would be the nominee. Instead, by withholding his endorsement Trump made it seem as though he had serious issues with Trump that would need to be resolved before he could fall in line with everyone else. Now, despite the fact that very little has changed in the campaign except for the fact that we are learning more about the fraud that was ‘Trump University’ while Trump himself has taken to attacking the integrity of a Federal District Court Judge, Ryan has made it seem as though Trump has passed some test even though it’s clear that Ryan gained nothing over the past month.
Nobody releases something that they’re enthusiastic about via the Janesville Gazette …
Imagine my surprise. Party before country, as always with Republicans.
I have areas of disagreement with Sauron, but hey, we must unify the party.
Of course you must, Mr. Ryan, no one ever really thought you cared about anything but your own position and power.
A few GOP staff of the hispanic persuasion have shown themselves the door lately.
Hillary’s going to spend the next 158 days saying “Donald Trump and the Republicans…”
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Of course Ryan was going to endorse Trump. He has no choice unless he wants the party to completely fracture. I’ve been saying for weeks that the following was going to happen:
1) Once he sewed up the nomination, Trump would surge in the polls.
2) Republicans would start saying, “he’s not that bad” and endorse him, however tepidly.
3) Come November, win or lose, they’ll be saying, “My God, what have we done!”
@Hal_10000:
When a supposedly principled conservative puts his political party ahead of his own professed beliefs and the supposedly core beliefs of his party (not to mention the country) you begin to see that there never was principle, there never was a core set of beliefs, it was all window-dressing.
I never again want to hear a Republican talk about principle. It’s like Denny Hastert, Mr. Ryan’s child-raping predecessor talking about child welfare. They believe in nothing. They stand for nothing. And they will never get the stink of Trump off their party.
I’ve been able to locate the video of Paul Ryan endorsing Trump!
It prevents being hounded by the press through the rest of this process for explanations on why he isn’t endorsing his party’s nominee, and should Trump become President, prevents being constantly button-holed on it for at least four years. He is also much better positioned for an impeachment, should that become necessary.
@michael reynolds: I never again want to hear a Republican talk about principle.
And you finally, at long last, know exactly how Republicans felt looking at people like you during the Clinton impeachment saga.
Mike
Ryan said that he wasn’t ready to endorse Trump. He had a few meetings with Trump, and now is ready. The notion that Ryan had taken some resolute, absolute stance against Trump is total bullcrap. He signaled that he was willing to talk, talked, and then made his announcement.
The GOP has to reconcile itself to a few truths.
1) Trump played by their rules, and won the nomination.
2) Come November, it will be either Trump, Hillary, or whoever might get Torricelli’ed onto the ballot should Hillary somehow run into… complications.
3) Trump has a lengthy and substantial history of rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies.
They can either go all in and oppose Trump, or they can play along and back him, as they said they would to whomever won their game by their rules. Pulling half-assed games like “finding they have other commitments” and whatnot will be treated exactly like full-throated opposition. Half-assed support might buy them favor, but any opposition will not do them any good.
What about the danger he poses to our beloved country?
@MBunge:
I almost believe you. If that’s true, it’s the saddest thing I’ve yet heard at OTB — that Republicans can only muster real moral outrage over petty personal sleaziness, but never about the things that affect millions or billions of people. A man who rescues stray puppies and fights to concentrate wealth among the few is a paragon; a man who shags the help and fights to eradicate measles is a monster.
I suppose it goes along with the way Republican moral positions evaporate as soon as a family member is affected. Homosexuality is mental illness, until you discover your daughter is a lesbian. Abortion is murder, until your (other) daughter needs one. Welfare is theft, until your elderly mother can’t get health insurance. It looks a lot like a complete failure of empathy in any but the most personal cases. Is that the “Conservative principle” in play here?
@MBunge:
You know Mike, one my lasting memories of that Republican-engineered debacle, which ultimately birthed us the toxic political environment we live in today, is Representative Henry Hyde, solemnly intoning on “sacred oaths” when in reality a few years earlier he (Henry Hyde) as an Illinois legislator was carrying on an extramarital affair with a married woman, a “youthful indiscretion” he was 41. So of course he had to lead the charge to impeach Bill Clinton over Bill’s lying about his indiscretion with Lewinsky.
Yes, I remember how Democrats looked at Republicans (perhaps like you ?) who supported hypocritical Republican leadership grease balls such as Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich, and Bob Livingston during the Clinton impeachment saga.
Not even close…I don’t recall anyone who supported Clinton during that time going around moralizing about other people’s personal lives, so there was no hypocrisy there…in this situation, we have a hardcore Randian conservative supporting someone who is nothing more than a sleazy conman, whose “principles” change on a daily basis…
Keep hoping, sweetie, keep hoping…maybe if you click your heels together a few times, it might happen…
@MBunge:
I don’t even want to pile on here, because I don’t think you usually say things that dumb. But if you can’t see a difference between a blowjob and a racist, misogynist, pig like Trump, you need a new prescription.
Let’s get a few things straight. The GOP was attempting – for purely political reasons, to oust a president who voters clearly and unmistakably did not want to be ousted over a BJ. The prosecution was formed by three adulterers and a child rapist.
And in the end, it was the Senate – including, IIRC eight Republicans – that killed it because they knew perfectly well they were setting a precedent they could not possibly justify.
Your comparison is absurd.
@HarvardLaw92: In his case, maybe it makes sense–he grew up and still lives there. Or, it might have simply been convenient.
In fairness to MBunge, its not about the blowjob, its about the perjury. The investigation that revealed it may have been bullshit, and it may have been over something trivial, but he still committed perjury. No small potatoes.
I’ll surely support Clinton in November but lets be real here.
@Jenos Idanian:
If you wish in one hand and spit in the other…
But hold on tight to your dreams (apologies to E.L.O.); remember the wise words of Thoreau, “always let your reach exceed your grasp, else, what’s a life for?”
Intelligent people know all that shit was paid for by big GOP bucks. Dummies think that Monica Lewinski paid for her Watergate apartment with babysitting money or something.
So, Paulie, you are now admitting that your agenda is racist, sexist, xenophobic, plutocratic, and for sale to the highest bidder?
I’d always suspected that, but it’s nice of you to be explicit.
@steve s:
…ok, I guess?
@An Interested Party: @Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker: At this point, I am absolutely on the fence if I want Hillary on the ballot come November. I see positives and negatives for each, and I don’t know which would be better.
I’m eagerly awaiting the denunciations of the violence by the anti-Trump protestors.
This is what Democrats look like.
Paul Ryan thinks he’s a something special when all he is is another empty suit that actually believes the hype he gets from his own party! There was no strategy. He set out to make himself look different by appearing to be independent minded when it comes to Trump in some effort to preserve his political career in the future in case Trump bombs, which is very likely. Yet, he knew all along that he would jump on the crazy train regardless. He thought he could have it both ways and wound up failing miserably because Trump is can not stop being Trump. All that being said, Republican voters tend to have a severe case of selective memory so I still expect Ryan to be held as the Republican savior when he actually runs for President.
@Jenos Idanian: The violence is inexcusable.
And no, those violent folks are not representative of all Democrats – or the majority – or anything more than a small sliver.
Unless you want to be personally labeled an anti-Semitic white nationalist because the alt-right crowd supports Trump?
I bet Ryan wishes he had chosen another day to do it…instead of right in the midst of the comb-over saying a Judge born in Indiana can’t be fair because of his ethnicity.
I do think Reynolds is wrong…Republicans have principles. Bigotry, misogyny, hate and fear, power and money. Nothing else matters to them.
@MBunge:
You cannot possibly see an equivalency between Trump and a witch hunt that managed to find an extra-marital affair.
Josh Marshall has a good take on the violence at Trump rallies:
“All groups have people looking for trouble. Trump events are the best place to find it. Are the folks who got violent more angry, more anti-racist or more righteous in their grievance than the folks who didn’t? Highly doubtful. They’re just more violent.
Local police authorities, perhaps with some federal coordination or encouragement, need to make clear that violence at political events will lead to prosecution and punishment. That’s the only way to keep this genie, this bacillus in the bottle.
Public violence is almost always wrong and criminal. But it’s substantially worse when it crosses wires with the political process because then it creates not simply a danger of individual physical injuries but the dismemberment and breakdown of the political process itself. When norms buckle they need to be reinforced and backstopped by law enforcement. That is no more that the state and civil order defending itself.”
The WaPo takes the principled Mr. Ryan to task.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-ryan-capitulates-to-ugliness/2016/06/02/a497fe4c-2903-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html
So at least we can end talk about Republicans being the party of limited government, belief in free trade and free markets, and low taxes. Nope, it’s the White Supremacy and Xenophobia Party. Glad that’s now clear.
Heck, we can see even social and religious conservatism isn’t important for Republicans anymore, given that Trump is a serial adulterer who clearly doesn’t give a d@mn about gay marriage, school prayer, etc
We used to think of the Republican party as a party mainly espousing economic conservatism, with an unfortunate fringe of racists and religious bigots.
It’s clear now it’s a party of racial and religious bigots, with a fringe of economic and social conservatives. Wonder how black conservatives like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams feel about it all.
@Jenos Idanian:
This is what Republicans look like.
@CB:
Then let’s be real and point out that 1) perjury is almost never prosecuted, 2) ask enough stupid questions and you’ll eventually get anyone to commit perjury, 3) the people charging the crime were all serial liars, adulterers and in once case a child rapist, and most importantly, 4) he was in fact found not guilty.
So, under the rules Bill Clinton was not a perjurer. That’s the deal when we find someone not guilty. Bill Clinton did not commit perjury, according to the only body that tried the facts.
@Jenos Idanian: i had no idea that it was your decision to make–my apologies.
Do be sure to share your thoughts on on January 20, 2017 when John Roberts congratulates her as “Madam President”…
@michael reynolds: 5) How exactly did he wind up in that courtroom to begin with?
Take a look at the story behind that.
@C. Clavin: “Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism…”
@steve s: Bill Clinton wound up in that courtroom because the pack of hyenas called The Republican Party and their head witch-hunter Ken Starr were determined to find something, ANYTHING that they could pin against him.
It’s “Moralism is for thee, not for me.” Look at Starr’s subsequent behavior at Baylor University, where he and his cronies were turning a blind eye to rapes committed by members of the football team. RAPES.
So much for Starr’s morality.
@grumpy realist: @grumpy realist: Thus proving MBunge’s point. The standard Democratic answer for any malfeasance has become “…but Republicans! Blah blah blah”. The bottom line is that BILL CLINTON EXPOSED HIMSELF to them though poor decision making. Its irrelevant how small the issue was. And always with partisan poopy heads right/wrong/moral/immoral all depend on who did it…not what was done. I can guarantee had Reagan got a blow job in the Oval office…this comments section would have the opposite trend in opinion.
There are 3 levels of Management at most top level school sports programs BEFORE the President. Had Ken Starr not been involved in the Lewinsky investigation….partisan poopy heads wouldn’t be attempting to associate him with Rape. The guy, to his credit, at least had the decency to accept responsibility for an institutional failure below his level of direct involvement and step down. Something that politicians in general rarely do because (but [insert party])
Pharoah, you’ve got a bright future ahead of you. First step is find out how to apply to guest host Levin or Hannity….
@steve s: Yes because anyone that says something against one…..must automatically be FOR the other. You’d make a good light switch.
Under the Donald Trump/David Duke standard, since Hillary and Bernie haven’t condemned the anti-Trump riots, they approve of them.
@Jenos Idanian:
Please show me the video of Hillary or Bernie being asked on television to condemn the violence, and them declining.
Because that is what happened with Trump.
I’ll wait.
(Question: Do you just enjoy being wrong in public? Is that why you keep returning?)
@Pharoah Narim:
Really. Really. All mistakes and errors are equivalent, no matter what.
And the Clinton defenders are the ones being irrational?
@Jenos Idanian:
So wrong again, Bob. That took a one second Google search. You are pathetic.
@Pharoah Narim:
Bill Clinton did a bad thing. He was punished for it (lost his law license and such. Lots of liberals condemned him at the time, including the editorial boards at the NYT and the WaPo. Senator Lieberman condemned him. Other liberals condemned him. But the US public , while agreeing he did a Bad Thing, did not think he should be removed from office. Obviously, you think they were wrong. But there it is.
I would add that, frankly, it’s childish to equate Bill Clinton’s malfeasance with, say, Bush lying us into the wrong war or Dick Cheney enabling torture. Seriously , read some books-any books-on ethics, then get back to us
@Pharoah Narim: No, my statement does not prove the point you think it does.
What I’m saying is that when you have an out-of-control prosecutor determined to convict you, he will find evidence to support it, especially if he has an unlimited budget to draw upon and all the time he wants.
I would hate to file a warranty claim that was backed by you.
My response to a Reagan stained dress would be the same: WGAF?
Of course, nobody needed to bother with that sort of trivia because we had actual malfeasance to worry about, such as Iran Contra.
Looks like Ryan is now trying to take some of the stink off
Good luck …
Charles Pierce, as usual, hits it out of the park.
@stonetools: Once again, your approach to analyzing what I said is binary. Did I say I thought Bill Clinton should be removed? I did not say that. What I said was (restated) that Bill Clinton opened himself up to these attacks. Period dot. Democrats should be able to hold that position and simultaneous hold the position that impeachment was a ridiculous remedy– instead of hemming and hawing about what some other party does, doesn’t do, or has gotten away with. Bill Clintons lack of discretion is the primary cause of the situation….not republicans. He could have been serviced by any number of women that were not white house interns somewhere other than the white house.
@Pharoah Narim:
And that’s where your Republican failure of empathy shows itself, because you couldn’t be more wrong. There are many good reasons to castigate Reagan as a President, but that would not be one. Just as there are many things to regret about JFK’s Presidency, but his rutting like a stoat is not one.
This inability to distinguish personal from public qualities is a new thing for Republicans; they used to have different blind spots. I wonder when that happened…
@Neil Hudelson: Nice straw man you built but I’ll pass–the point– which you obviously missed was that Bill Clinton opened himself up to that–through HIS ACTIONS. That is a separate issue from what Republicans sought to do to capitalize-both were Busch League.
Compare that to a President like Obama–who by and large is above board and, if he does have any dirt, he keeps it in the closet where it belongs. He gave the Republicans nothing to latch on to.
@DrDaveT: I’m not a Republican….gosh. This is almost the same as disagreeing with the group think on the Red State blog. smh
@Pharoah Narim:
These two statements’ ideology contradict each other. Accepting responsibly was the bare minimum because it doesn’t matter how many levels there are – he’s at fault (failure to act). If poor decision making is irrelevant to the size of the crime, then the poor decision to let institutional failure happen in the first place makes him just as guilty. He exposed himself to it by allowing heavy-handed bureaucracy to get involved – something he should have be vastly familiar considering his past experiences. As President, he could have changed the way things were done, streamline the process, brought years of experience with evidence and prosecution to the table so innocents get justice and the guilty get what they deserve. Seriously, they have (in)famous expert on hand but the party line is red tape stopped it from getting to him? He should have been the first door they knocked on!
The fact is he didn’t give a crap. I promise you the subject rarely crossed him mind (if it ever did). This was not on his radar because he didn’t make it a point to have it on his radar. As you so kindly pointed out, he had the system to do that for him… and when the system fails, a handy scapegoat to shove responsibility off on. Wanna bet there was no policy (official or otherwise) to get the guy who did this for a living involved even though that would have been a great asset to students in need? Why are you giving him a pass on exposing himself and others with his poor decisions?
Pfft. If any of you think this will stick on the media’s blue eyed golden boy, dream on. Paul Ryan will be noted for being “bold” and “smart” for his proposals to cut Social Security and Medicare with replace them with Fairy Magical Accounting 401(k)s for decades to come.
Even being associated with Trump won’t change that.
C’mon, you think Trump’s stink will stick to the Republican Party? Sarah Palin has already been edited out of existence, and James Joyner and likely Doug happily pulled the lever for her and McCain.
Abject stupidity and greed isn’t disqualifying. Explicit white nationalism and racism won’t be disqualifying either. Instead, it will become one of those things in the Village, like Newt Gingrich’s daily affairs and Dennis Hastert’s fondness Congressional pages, that Everybody Knows.
@DrDaveT:
I believe that you’re seeing BernieBroism in action. Populism run amuck.
@Pharoah Narim:
If what you are saying is that Bill Clinton was eight different kinds of stupid for virtually laying his d!ck out in front of a buzz-saw, then, dude, you are very late to the party. Every liberal who has ever liberalled has thought or said that. I personally wanted to kick his a$$.
But that was 18 years ago , and I’ve gotten over that.I guess you haven’t, and you want liberals to once again ritually condemn and denounce Bill for his actions. OK, I condemn and denounce him once again. Hope you’re happy.
@Lit3Bolt:
The media has to have their Moderate Republican Policy Wonk (look, he uses charts and knows arithmetic). Nothing he says or does will ever convince media that Ryan is a fraud.
You forgot George W. Bush, but then so has every Republican.
@KM: The perfect Monday morning quarterback. No President can have every problem on their radar….some will fall through the cracks. Highly paid and qualified people will let you down. Shit happens…and afterwards some talking head on a tv show or joe blow on a blog will say how they shoulda this or coulda that. I think it’s fair to say that despite the vileness of ones politics….almost NO man thinks its okay for a rape victim to not get justice. At least its pretty clear to people without partisan blinders on. Frankly, hes probably getting his comeuppance anyway. moving on…..
@winfieldscott: -Just when I had a little respect for Ryan thinking that he had principles and a sense of dignity for his country, he crumbled up like a wet wool suit. He must have gotten a lot of money from the Trump team to buy his vote…..every one has a price…….Ryan and his GOP slugs are like $2.00 prostitutes….
@Pharoah Narim:
So the Republicans made up scandals so they could dump all over Obama anyway.
I remember thinking when Obama was about to take office how great it would be for a man of such obvious integrity and decency to be in the White House, so the battle could finally be about the policy and not the person. How foolish I feel now.