The defeat of the Republican healthcare plan to repeal Obamacare Friday has all of Washington discussing House Speaker Paul Ryan’s fate, but many lawmakers are standing by their speaker.
“Speaker Ryan has all the support he’s ever had — and then some — in that room,” Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., told the Washington Examiner about the meeting in which Ryan told his conference they would not be voting on the legislation Friday.
“Remember, we asked him to take this job,” he added. “We begged him to take this job. I’m so proud he’s our leader and I think that’s the view of the vast majority of people in that room.
“Bills have failed before and we move forward,” he said. “It’s not the end of the world.”
Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus that was instrumental in defeating the American Health Care Act, said no one should be talking about replacing Ryan.
“There weren’t any questions, nor should there be,” Griffith said.
Rep. Kevin Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Ryan’s willingness to take it on the chin demonstrates that he’s a man of his word.
“It shows me that they are all-in on our priorities and, for our speaker especially, he’s followed through with his pledge that this will be a bottom-up conference — that members are going to have their say and an equal say in this and it’s going to be messy,” Brady said. “We’re going to have to work it out. In this case, the numbers didn’t come together. But it’s clear in tax reform as well, we want every Republican member of this conference engaged.”
