Ryan’s Balancing Act With Trump Risks Damaging Speaker’s Brand
House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday that his approach to Donald Trump -- repeatedly blasting his controversial remarks while still backing the Republican presidential nominee -- is aimed at defending his party.
But Ryan is finding himself caught between two forces at odds within the party: the millions of Republican voters drawn by Trump’s style and message who resent Ryan’s criticisms, and the old-guard that wants even greater distance from the candidate. That tension puts at risk Ryan’s brand as a serious policy wonk who can lead the party in Trump’s wake, whether the real-estate mogul loses or wins the election.
“I don’t like doing this; I don’t want to do this,” Ryan told a Wisconsin radio station. “But I will do this because I feel I have to in order to defend Republicans and our principles so that people don’t make the mistake of thinking we think like that.”
When Ryan says "we think," he does appear to reflect a growing portion of a Republican establishment alarmed at Trump’s volatility on the campaign trail and worried that his outbursts could hurt the party in congressional races and elsewhere. This week, Richard Hanna of New York became the first Republican member of Congress to endorse Hillary Clinton, although Hanna is retiring at the end of the year. Other prominent Republican lawmakers have said they won’t support Trump while stopping short of endorsing the Democratic nominee. But Ryan’s "we" may not include a majority of Republican voters at this point.
-snip-
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-08-04/ryan-s-balancing-act-with-trump-risks-damaging-speaker-s-brand