House Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest elected Republican official, expressed doubts about leadership of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump Friday, when de declined to back the billionaire businessman and sought efforts to unify the fractured party.
“I’m just not ready to do that, at this point, I’m not there right now, and I hope to, though, and I want to, but I think what is required is that we unify this party,” Ryan told CNN, when asked if he would support Trump.
Trump , who has won the biggest number of Republican delegates and votes, is now the only candidate left in the nomination race as all of his primary rivals have quit the competition after one of the most contentious political season that has fractured the conservative party.
Illustrating his position, Ryan asked Trump to unify “all wings of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.” He said Americans ought to have a campaign where they “have something that they’re proud to support and proud to be a part of.”
“And we’ve got a ways to go from here to there,” Ryan said, according to the news channel.
Trump has been successfully selling his idea of making America great again to millions of disaffected and angry conservative voters and has vowed to practice, if elected, what he says. Trump’s opposition to free trade deals has also earned him support form a lot of concerned voters, who say they are frustrated at the offshoring of American jobs.
But Ryan’s words carry a lot of weight, as he will co-chair the July GOP Republican Convention in Cleveland. During the course of the campaign, Ryan also criticized Trump for not openly refusing to accept support of a Ku Klux Klan leader but recently Speaker of the House of Representatives has shown some flexibility in dealing with Trump.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had expressed his support for Trump Wednesday. Some other Republican leaders have also endorsed Trump’s quest for presidential bid.
Yet Ryan’s stance reflects a widespread reluctance within the GOP party – which some analysts says is going through a kind of civil war with disparate voices trying to pull it into different directions – to line up behind the presumptive nominee, whose views are often at odds with what traditional conservative politicians stand for. Former presidents George H Bush and George W Bush have indicated they would stay away from the nomination process. John McCain, a former Republican presidential candidate , will also skip.
A number of GOP politicians contesting in the 2016 election are also treading carefully in aligning or rejecting some of Trump’s proposals that fall far out of the traditional conservative thinking and values.
Questioned in the CNN interview if Trump’s controversial plan to ban Muslim immigration and the real estate tycoon’s position to deport 12 million undocumented immigrants would stop him from rallying behind Trump, Ryan said: “We got work to do.”
Meanwhile, continuing his tit-for-tat electioneering approach, Trump retorted to Ryan’s remarks through a statement.
“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!”
The CNN also interviewed Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer, who told Wolf Blitzer that RNC chair Reince Priebus “connected” Ryan and Trump for a potential meeting and that his understanding is that “it’s going to happen.”
