In House GOP, Ryan endorsement of Trump seen as inevitable

For Paul Ryan, it’s not a matter of if he’ll endorse Donald Trump. It’s a matter of when.

GOP lawmakers, strategists and aides are convinced the House Speaker will endorse Trump before he’s officially nominated at the GOP convention in Cleveland in mid-July.

{mosads}But they say it will be on his own timeline, and his own terms.

By holding out, Ryan is buying time for House Republicans to roll out their election-year agenda in hopes it will help shape the GOP presidential nominee’s own general-election platform.

He’s also signaling he will not bow to pressure from the candidate, his surrogates or the media.

GOP colleagues say the Speaker wants concessions from Trump. He wants the presumptive GOP nominee to tone down the rhetoric, moderate some controversial positions and commit himself to core conservative values.

“The Speaker is going to be under a lot of pressure to support the nominee, notwithstanding his reservations about some of Trump’s policy positions,” said one senior House Republican who is close to Ryan. “But Paul is committed to his agenda. He wants to make sure Donald Trump gives it fair consideration and that Donald Trump embraces some of this stuff.”

Ryan and Trump have had a cool, somewhat distrustful relationship throughout the primary.

Ryan has condemned some of Trump’s more radical comments and policies, most notably deriding Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from the U.S. as “unconstitutional.” But things turned downright frosty at the start of May when Ryan declared on CNN that he wasn’t ready to back Trump, even though the political outsider had vanquished his 16 GOP rivals.

In recent weeks, however, there’s been a noticeable thaw. Ryan and Trump huddled at Republican National Committee headquarters earlier this month — their first formal sit-down — and they spoke again by phone this week in what Ryan called a “productive” conversation.

The fact that no details have leaked out from the call suggests things are much improved. Aides to both Trump and Ryan are speaking virtually every day about the GOP policy agenda. And several members of Trump’s inner circle, including campaign chairman Paul Manafort and congressional liaison Scott Mason, have begun holding a weekly briefing with GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Donald Trump Jr., the nominee’s son and a big-game hunter, paid a visit to skeptical Republicans this week to discuss Second Amendment issues.

It wasn’t surprising when news reports surfaced this week suggesting a Ryan endorsement was imminent. But the Speaker quickly tamped down those rumors and warned he wouldn’t be rushed into a decision.

“I hear input and suggestions from all sides,” Ryan told reporters in his Capitol suite this week when asked why he doesn’t just quickly rip the Band-Aid off and endorse. “I want this to be a sincere, deliberate process. I’ve got no timeline in mind right now.”

Ryan’s approach to a Trump endorsement is not unlike how he approached the top leadership job he now occupies.

Last fall, after Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) resigned and his top deputy, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), abruptly dropped out of the race to succeed him, all eyes turned to Ryan, the popular Ways and Means chairman who served as the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee.

He spent more than a week hunkered down in his home in Janesville, Wis., fielding calls and texts from friends and House colleagues imploring him to run for Speaker. Ryan finally acquiesced but with a list of conditions.

He didn’t get everything he wanted, but he got most of it, including preserving family time on weekends and public backing from the centrist Tuesday Group, conservative Republican Study Committee and far-right Freedom Caucus.

Similarly, Ryan will be looking for certain concessions from Trump, the real estate mogul, reality TV star and “The Art of the Deal” author.

“Trump is a dealmaker, and if you’re going to deal with a dealmaker, then you don’t want to give all your cards,” said conservative Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), a Trump backer who’s running for the Senate this year.  “You want to say, ‘These are my positions. These are your positions, let’s see if we can come up with an agreement where we can all be on board and be on the same page.’

“It might be a very smart strategy on his part. I think it’s a healthy process,” added Fleming, a co-founder of the Freedom Caucus that negotiated with Ryan last fall. “If he didn’t do that, there may be lingering differences that might never get resolved. And so now while he has the most leverage, he’s saying, ‘We have to resolve this.’”

Fleming was one of a dozen GOP lawmakers, strategists and aides interviewed by The Hill who believe a Ryan enforsement of Trump is a sure thing.

After all, it would be unprecedented for the 46-year-old Ryan, the nation’s highest-ranking elected Republican and the ceremonial chairman of the Republican National Convention, not to get behind the party’s presidential nominee.

Sure, Trump’s surrogates on Capitol Hill would like to see Ryan rally behind their guy now, but no one is harshly criticizing the Speaker for dragging his feet.

“Paul has a good sense of this stuff. He’s going to do it with his own personal integrity and tact. Maybe it will involve another meeting or two,” said Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a Trump surrogate who appeared alongside the presumptive GOP nominee at an energy event in Bismarck, N.D., earlier this week.

Another part of Ryan’s calculation: He wants to ensure that the GOP preserves its core conservative principles that have guided the party for decades — especially if Trump fails in November. Trump may have clinched the nomination this week, but conservatives on and off Capitol Hill are still questioning where exactly Trump stands on key issues like abortion, gay marriage, taxes and executive power.

“Paul is concerned that we maintain a set of governing principles that help us win this fall’s election. And just as importantly, that help us survive beyond this election, regardless of the result,” said one GOP source close to Ryan.

For now, Ryan is the sole GOP leader who hasn’t jumped on the Trump Train. His Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), has signed on, as have Ryan’s top lieutenants in the House: Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.) and Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.).

But the Speaker is not entirely alone. Rep. Bill Flores (Texas), the chairman of the 170-member Republican Study Committee, also has not pledged his support to Trump, saying he still wants to hear more policy specifics from the nominee as he pivots to the general.

“I’m in same position Speaker Ryan is: What does he stand for? What are his real positions,” Flores said of Trump. “Usually when you run in a primary, you talk sound bites and he’s good at it. We want to know where’s the beef?”

Flores recently spoke with a top Trump aide, passed along the RSC’s policy agenda and invited the candidate to join the conservative group for lunch. The RSC chairman also furnished the Trump team with a copy of the energy plan authored by Flores and Bobby Jindal, the former Louisiana governor and one-time Trump presidential rival.

“I’m not trying to be critical of Donald Trump,” Flores continued, “but if we elect him president, will he lead the country in the manner of Ronald Reagan where you know there is a deeply inherent conservative policy position? What is his inner core?”