"Enter the battles"... Sound like a Bruce Lee movie...

Ryan faces diciest stretch of his speakership

He’s about to enter the kind of battles that led to Boehner’s ouster — made even tougher with Trump and Bannon in the mix.

By RACHAEL BADE

For all its power and prestige, the speaker of the House is one of the most thankless jobs in Washington — just ask John Boehner. Now, with Congress barreling toward major fiscal fights this fall, Paul Ryan is about to get a taste of the Boehner treatment — and then some.

Consider what's on the immediate horizon for the GOP wunderkind: President Donald Trump is ready to shut down the government over his border wall with Mexico. Breitbart has all but declared a renewed, Steve Bannon-led war on GOP leaders, with Ryan in its cross hairs. And conservative lawmakers are exhorting the speaker to play hardball on raising the debt ceiling — even as the White House demands a no-strings-attached increase to calm nervous creditors.

"Conservatives aren’t going to roll over when it comes to the debt ceiling,” said Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker (R-N.C.) in a Tuesday interview. “I can tell you: It’s going to be a battle.”

Asked about Ryan’s leadership on such matters, Walker added: “I would like to see his genius in policy manifest itself… Behind closed doors, there are strong conversations when it comes to holding the line for the will of the bulk of the conference. And I would like to see some strength in that area.”

When Ryan reluctantly took the reins of the House Republican Conference in late 2015, he went out of his way to say he was only heeding the call of duty and didn't really want it. Two years later, he faces the most treacherous stretch of his speakership as September showdowns over the budget and debt ceiling approach.

Like Boehner, Ryan will be forced to mediate the long-running hostilities in his conference — between the always-potent Freedom Caucus and a newly-empowered faction of centrists. Only this time, Ryan also has a demanding and unpredictable president thrown into the mix, too.

Trump isn't making it easy. On Thursday he attacked Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for rejecting his proposed strategy of pairing a debt ceiling increase, a toxic vote for Republicans, with a popular veterans bill to garner more support.

GOP leaders rejected the approach because they ran out of time before recess and worried some Republicans would fume that they got arm-twisted into voting for the debt bill they'd otherwise oppose but for the vets provision.

Trump didn't care about those sensitivities, tweeting Thursday: “I requested that Mitch M & Paul R tie the Debt Ceiling legislation into the popular V.A. Bill (which just passed) for easy approval.... They didn't do it so now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up (as usual) on Debt Ceiling approval. Could have been so easy-now a mess!”

That slight came just days after Trump said he'd be willing to shut down the government in order to secure funding for his border wall — a strategy that could backfire on the Republican congressional majority in next year's midterms. And as if that's wasn't enough stress, Ryan will almost certainly be forced to rely on Democrats for the fall’s big fiscal votes — a move that was eventually Boehner’s undoing.

No one is saying Ryan's job is in jeopardy. But the way he handles all these situations could well determine his standing and popularity within the GOP.

Meanwhile, frustration is mounting among Republican voters that Congress failed to deliver on campaign promises like repealing Obamacare. While Ryan points out that the House passed legislation and it was the Senate that came up short, the public isn't necessarily interested in that distinction.

Neither, it seems, are Trump and his allies. In fact, the president has shown he has no compunction about blaming Republicans in Congress for not enacting his agenda. And while Bannon engaged politely with Ryan and GOP leaders in the White House, he’s made clear that he plans to pound them relentlessly from his new perch atop Breitbart.

"You can see the emerging theme from Trump world is that Trump doesn’t fail; Trump has been betrayed," said longtime Ryan acquaintance Charlie Sykes, a prominent conservative commentator based in Wisconsin. "They’re going to line up the scapegoats... No matter how much [Ryan] appeases Trump, it won’t take long for Trump for turn on him."

Most of Trump's ire has lately centered on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in retribution for failing to pass a bill to repeal Obamacare. But the Trump-Ryan marriage has always been one more of convenience than true love, so many are wondering how much longer it will last.

Here in Ryan’s southeast Wisconsin district, longtime Ryan supporters worry their congressman will be crippled from all the impossible demands and pressures. Marlene Lamberton, a Ryan constituent and retired manufacturing employee from Caledonia, Wis., said this week that Ryan is being “forced to do many unpopular things” and “make a lot of compromises" because his conference is so divided.

“Being speaker of the House has become a setback… It’s basically ruined his career for a while,” she said. “I think Paul Ryan is a good person. I think he’s one of the most honest politicians I’ve ever known and heard. But I think he is compromising his values a little.”

To be sure, Ryan still enjoys the support of most of his conference. Rep. Tom Rooney, a deputy whip on the leadership team, said the conference is “lucky to have Paul Ryan as our speaker.”

Asked whether his feelings would change if Ryan pushed a “clean” debt ceiling through the House, an idea he abhors, the Florida Republican said it would not: “I thank God every day that he’s agreed to do this job… If anybody ever said: ‘Oh, we’d be in a better place if only Paul Ryan wasn’t our speaker,’ they’d be completely 100 percent wrong.”

Those feelings are about to be put to the test, however. Conservative lawmakers in the Freedom Caucus and Republican Study Committee have vowed to oppose a debt ceiling increase that doesn’t include spending cuts. In an email to Republicans last week, the RSC reiterated that stance and solicited ideas for mandatory savings that could get the group to “yes.”

But Democrats would block such a bill in the Senate, and the White House has asked for borrowing-authority legislation without policy strings. So Ryan — a conservative at heart who would support cuts in theory — will be forced to put his convictions aside and bring the vote to the floor.

Further escalating tensions with his conservative conference, Congress is expected to raise strict spending caps this fall. If those are not offset by cuts, Ryan could again find himself in hot water with his right flank.

“We should not lift spending caps, and any increase in the debt ceiling must be coupled with major reforms to reduce spending,” said Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a Freedom Caucus member. “If Republicans push a clean debt ceiling increase and higher spending levels, then our party should not pretend it cares about fiscal responsibility.”

Ryan, as he often does, is trying to tune out the drama and focus on his extensive to-do list. The speaker spent Wednesday and Thursday selling tax reform — Hill Republicans’ greatest shot at redemption — to Pacific Northwest businesses. Trump, by contrast, barely mentioned it during a nationally televised Arizona rally Tuesday.

Ryan allies are also hoping the White House takes note of what the speaker has done to advance Trump's agenda. Besides passing the health care repeal bill, Ryan agreed to shelve a central pillar of his tax reform blueprint, opposed by Trump, for the sake of advancing a plan.

For now, Trump's attention is on his wall.

During the Tuesday night rally, Trump vowed: “If we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall.” Congressional Republicans worry, however, that the public will make them pay in the next election if the government closes. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his Republican took a beating when the government shuttered in 1995, even though a Democrat, Bill Clinton, was president.

In the House, Ryan has already ushered through a bill that would make a down payment on Trump’s signature campaign promise. The problem, as with the debt ceiling, is that it will never pass muster in the 60-vote-threshold Senate.

Should wall funding fall through, it will have less to do with Ryan’s actions than those of the upper chamber. But that doesn’t mean Ryan won’t be blamed.

“The American people are holding the House — specifically Speaker Ryan — even more accountable than Mitch McConnell,” said Walker, who — despite his differences with the speaker — believes Ryan is the best man for the job. “The House can say, ‘We did our job,’ but in the eyes of the American people, the speaker is the primary figure that makes Congress either efficient or inefficient."

"Is it fair?" He added. "No.”