House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday said he’s hoping Republicans can find a way to unify ahead of the presidential election, a signal that he is looking to bridge the differences he has with Donald Trump, the de facto nominee.
“What I want to see is all conservatives rally together and win this election and defeat Hillary Clinton and make sure we put conservatives on the Supreme Court and make sure we keep Congress,” said Ryan, R-Wis., during a Facebook event hosted by the Wall Street Journal.
Ryan is scheduled to meet Thursday morning with Trump, who he has not yet endorsed. And when asked specifically who Republicans should vote for, Ryan dodged.
“Well, look, we’re going to get into this whole thing. That’s what this whole conversation is,” he said.
Ryan called the White House race “one more mountain to climb,” in the bid to move a Republican agenda. Both the House and Senate are controlled by the GOP, although the Senate is at risk of flipping back to the Democrats in November.
“We’ll climb this if we all rally around conservative principles and advance a common agenda and win this election going forward,” Ryan said. “We can do it. But we can’t fake it. We can’t pretend. We actually have to unify and do it.”
Ryan reiterated GOP goals such as tax reform and reducing the budget deficit, and warned again that it’s “not possible” to cut the deficit without somehow addressing entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
