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Ryan: I have to support Trump

By Louis Nelson

House Speaker Paul Ryan says it’s his responsibility to support Donald Trump, even if the presumptive Republican nominee’s bombast occasionally makes him uncomfortable.

Ryan told Chuck Todd of NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he feels an obligation as leader of the House Republicans to back Trump, warts and all. To do otherwise, he said, would divide the party and ultimately lead to a third consecutive Democratic victory in November’s presidential election.

“I feel like I have certain responsibilities, as not just Congressman Paul Ryan from the 1st District of Wisconsin, but as speaker of the House,” Ryan said in an interview that aired Sunday. “And imagine the speaker of the House not supporting the duly elected nominee of our party, therefore creating a chasm in our party to split us in half, which basically helps deny us the White House and strong majorities in Congress.”

“The last thing I want to see happen is another Democrat in the White House,” he continued. “I don’t want to see Hillary Clinton as president. I want to see a strong majority in the House and the Senate. And I think the way to achieve those goals is to have a more unified party, than a disunified party.”

As he has often done when pressed to respond to Trump’s controversial rhetoric, Ryan framed his support for the presumptive nominee as the best way to ensure that his newly rolled-out slate of conservative policy proposals finds an ally in the White House. Ryan had hoped that those proposals, focusing on issues like poverty, national security and tax reform, would bring substance to the 2016 race. Thus far, Trump’s bluster has kept Ryan’s package of proposals from gaining much traction on the campaign trail.

Ryan refused to engage in hypotheticals when Todd asked whether he would feel the same responsibility to support Trump if he were not speaker of the House. Ryan, who will serve as chairman of the Republican National Convention next month in Cleveland, also declined to weigh in on the possibility of rules changes that could deny Trump the nomination by freeing delegates of their obligation to vote for him.

On gun control, the speaker warned against a rush to legislation that might infringe Americans’ constitutional rights in the wake of the recent massacre in Orlando, Florida. Ryan said the House is paying attention to the ongoing debate over gun control in the Senate and also to warnings from the FBI to be careful that any new law banning suspected terrorists from purchasing a weapon does not end up interfering with terror investigations.

“Let’s also not, in the haste of the moment, compromise a person’s legitimate Second Amendment rights. And let’s make sure that law enforcement has the tools they need to stop a person from getting a gun that they’re not supposed to get a gun,” Ryan said. “There are a lot of issues that needed attending to that deal with these violent actions. But taking away a legitimate, law-abiding citizen’s Second Amendment rights, I don’t think is the right move to make.”