Ryan: I won’t run in 2016 if Romney does

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Tuesday that he would not run for president in 2016 if Mitt Romney runs, but declined to make the same pledge for other Republicans.

{mosads}”I would support Mitt,” Ryan said in an interview with The Huffington Post. “If he were to run, I would not. But I don’t even know if I’m going to either myself. That’s something I’m going to decide in 2015.”

Ryan was 2012 GOP nominee Romney’s running mate and has repeatedly expressed his belief that Romney would make a great president.

Asked if he would make the same statement about any other potential Republican presidential contenders, Ryan said “I’m just not going to get into that.”

“I’m going to assess it at the time and see,” he added. “I just don’t know. But Mitt Romney, I’ll definitely answer that one, because I think he would be a great president, and I would defer for sure to Mitt.”

Speculation about a Romney run increased on Tuesday with the publication of an interview in The New York Times Magazine.

“We’ve got a lot of people looking at the race,” Romney said. “We’ll see what happens.” 

Ryan is also a potential contender himself, though it is unclear if he will choose to remain in Congress because of his desire to chair the Ways and Means Committee.