CLEVELAND — House Speaker Paul Ryan moved to reassure an influential grassroots foreign policy group that the Republican Party has a unified defense and foreign policy agenda even though the GOP appears politically divided over its presidential nominee.
“Just know that that’s solid,” Ryan, R-Wis., said in a keynote foreign policy address that took place at the City Club of Cleveland, located just blocks from the arena hosting the Republican National Convention. “And we are going to do everything we can this year to offer this agenda to the country, to have this kind of conversation.”
Ryan did not make one mention of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump in his brief presentation Tuesday to the Republican International Club, which promotes global democracy.
Trump has called for taking a tough stance on defeating global terrorism but most of his national security proposals lack detail and include limiting Muslims from entering the country, which many in the GOP oppose.
Ryan steered clear of Trump’s ideas and outlined the House GOP’s 67-point national security plank unveiled last month.
“Please know you see in front of you a Republican Party in Congress very soundly and very squarely in great knowledge of who we are and what we believe in,” Ryan said. “We know what kind of country we want, what kind of foreign policy we want, what kind of defense policy we want. We know what we need to do to improve our security posture.”
Ryan said the United States must rebuild its military to take on new global and national threats.
He called the upcoming election, “a big fork in the road,” and warned a Clinton presidency would continue the “failed policies” of the Obama administration, which Republicans have accused of weakening America on the world stage.
“We do see 2016 as one of those punctuating years, which is going to make the determination for which direction we are going to go,” Ryan said.
