Trump camp suggests Ryan unfit to be speaker
Trump camp suggests Ryan unfit to be speaker
By Nolan D. McCaskill
05/06/16 09:19 AM EDT
If Paul Ryan can’t support Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, he isn’t fit to be House speaker, Trump campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said Friday.
The House leader who will chair the Republican National Convention this summer told CNN on Thursday he isn’t ready to support Trump “at this point” but added that he wants to and hope to be able to.
Trump, however, fired back with a statement Thursday remarking that he isn’t ready to support Ryan’s agenda.
“If the Republican speaker of the House does not come around to supporting the Republican nominee, do you think that Paul Ryan is still fit to be speaker?” CNN’s John Berman asked Friday.
“No,” Pierson responded, “because this is about the party.”
Ryan suggested the onus was on the real estate mogul to show he can unite the party, but Pierson argued otherwise, noting that since Trump has yet to clinch 1,237 delegates, he’s only the presumptive nominee.
“We are a party. Paul Ryan needs to be a — he’s the leader right now,” Pierson said. “We’re told Donald Trump is only the presumptive nominee. He’s not the nominee until 1,237. So really it’s incumbent on Paul Ryan to help bring unity to the party.”
Trump is scheduled to meet with Ryan next week, where the businessman is likely to tell Ryan that by refusing to support him, he’s also going against the will of the people.
“Well, I think he’s gonna talk to Paul Ryan and just say look, you are not just against me. You are against a lot of your voters, and this is something that has been indicative,” Pierson said. “For the last couple of cycles you have had the leadership rejecting its own voters, silencing them, ignoring them, campaigning on one issue and not following through, and that’s why we have a nomination of Donald Trump.”
Pierson said the last two Republican presidential nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney, weren’t true conservatives, but conservatives “were told to hold our noses and vote for the sake of the party.”
“These same people are now telling us that because their guy didn’t win, they want to hurt the party,” she said. “The issue here isn’t about Donald Trump. If you can’t hold yourself to the standard that you hold everyone else, the problem is with you.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-g...speaker-222890