Ryan's future

Ryan's future on the line as he huddles with Trump

The House speaker is the personification of the split inside the Republican Party caused by Trump's stunning rise.

By Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

Paul Ryan has a decision to make.

Will he become a loyal member of Donald Trump’s Republican Party? Or will Ryan — the House speaker — keep his distance from the bombastic GOP nominee, bucking much of the political establishment in an attempt to keep his brand intact.

Although much is being made of the Trump-Ryan meeting — which will be held Thursday morning at the Republican National Committee’s headquarters on Capitol Hill — little movement is expected by the speaker’s inner circle. Ryan (R-Wis.) will never fully embrace the Republican Party’s nominee, and is instead focused on his own policy agenda. Ryan will spend much of 2016 campaigning to keep the House majority and seek to avoid the daily combat of the presidential race.

But Ryan is finding himself increasingly boxed in. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) have all endorsed Trump. And on Wednesday evening, House Rules Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas), House Budget Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.), House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-Texas) and House Science Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) backed Trump. Price is a longtime political ally of Ryan’s.

Ryan, though, is the personification of the split inside the Republican Party caused by Trump's stunning rise during the last year. Ryan, the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee, is a serious policy wonk who has made a career out of building an image as a Ronald Reagan-Jack Kemp hybrid — ideologically strident but with a sunny disposition. Trump, on the other hand, is an uber-rich political showman who has rejected much of the conservative agenda for his own cult of personality built on his assertion that he will make America and Americans winners again somehow.

Ryan has bashed Trump publicly on several occasions, and Trump has fired right back. Ryan has refused to outright endorse Trump, while Trump has countered that he doesn't care what Ryan does.

Whatever rules of political gamesmanship Ryan has learned in two decades on Capitol Hill, Trump completely ignores.

So today's session is coming under hyper scrutiny by the Republicans, Democrats and the media. And head of the meeting, several protests broke out at the RNC's headquarters. Immigration protesters marched in front of the committees steps, and a fake Trump walked around with bags of money.

Ryan's colleagues, even those who back Trump, know he is going to proceed carefully in his dealings with Trump.

"Paul Ryan is not the kind of individual that after a single meeting is going to say, 'Okay, now I understand everything I need to do, give me the flag, I'm going to go start running forward,'" Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) told CNN on Thursday morning.

As with any Trump appearance - but especially one with the stakes today's event - there were hordes of media present, as well as pro and anti-Trump protestors.

Before Trump's arrival at the RNC building - he and Ryan went in the back door - a group of young Hispanic protesters stood in front of the GOP headquarters bashing Trumps stand on undocumented immigreants, who he wants to deport. They chanted over a white and red banner that read "United We Dream" and "End Deportation." Others held signs that read "The GOP: The Party of Rrump." Or "Rabbis Against Trump."

"Make way for Donald Trump!" claimed another protester holding a pink sign that read "Trump is a Racist." Following her was a man in an oversized paper mâché mask of Trump, carrying money bags and with cash taped to his blazer.

Security was tight around GOP headquarters. A wall of Secret Service agents and U.S. Capitol Police officers kept reporters and and protesters well away from the entrance used by Trump and Ryan.

The Ryan-Trump tete-a-tete began promptly at 9 a.m. By 9:30, McCarthy and the rest of the House GOP leadership team had slipped into RNC headquarters as well.

The spectacle — hundreds of reporters and TV cameras, as well as the protesters only a couple blocks from the Capitol — was too much to resist, even for lawmakers.

Former Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), now a lobbyist, stood on the sidewalk gawking like everyone else. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) stopped to snap a photo of the scene with his phone.