CLEVELAND — House and Senate Republican leaders this week engaged in an awkward dance with Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention, where, despite well-publicized misgivings, the party’s top lawmakers threw their support behind a candidate who just days ago House Speaker Paul Ryan acknowledged is “not my kind of conservative.”
The speeches Tuesday night by Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy capped a months-long struggle by congressional party leaders to find a way speak publicly in favor of Trump, a man who some of them have bashed in private because his style and politics often clash with the GOP establishment.
The solution GOP leaders settled on at the Republican National Convention was to mostly talk around Trump, not about him.
Ryan, McConnell and McCarthy all spoke in favor of Trump, but dedicated the bulk of their speeches to touting the House-driven Republican agenda and warning against a Hillary Clinton presidency.
McCarthy mentioned Trump just once, at the end of a speech that focused on the House GOP proposals and the need to defeat Democrats.
Ryan used a similar formula. He mentioned Trump twice in his speech.
“We offer a better way for America, with ideas that actually work,” Ryan told the RNC during his address. “And you know what? None of this will happen under Hillary Clinton. Only with Donald Trump and Mike Pence do we have a chance at a better way.”
GOP leaders have firmly distanced themselves from many of Trump’s comments and some of his proposals, including one that would ban new Muslim entrants into the United States.
Privately, they’ve gone even further to denounce Trump.
McConnell, R-Ky., just a few months ago promised vulnerable GOP Senators up for re-election they would drop Trump “like a hot rock” if he won the nomination.
On Tuesday night, Trump secured his spot at the top of the ticket and McConnell, while not embracing Trump, walked out moments later to speak in his favor. He made just five quick references to Trump in a speech that mostly focused on the need to end Democratic control of the White House and defeat Hillary Clinton.
“Why in the world would Democrats put forward such a candidate?” McConnell said.
But GOP leaders, in the not too distant past, were wondering the same thing about their own party as Trump barreled toward the nomination this year.
Many in the GOP establishment favored former Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, or Sen. Marco Rubio, of Fla., who were all defeated by Trump and his bombastic campaign style.
Ryan’s former running mate, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, strenuously opposes Trump and said he cannot vote for him. Kasich was a convention no-show.
Ryan has come to a different conclusion than others in the GOP establishment, arguing a Trump presidency will allow the GOP agenda written by House Republican lawmakers to be signed into law. But Ryan still engages in political acrobats to justify his support for Trump.
He told the Wall Street Journal this week that while Trump was not his “kind of conservative,” he added, “I come from a different part and wing of the party,” and “there are different kinds of conservatives, that’s for darn sure.”
Sen. Jeff Session, R-Ala., and early and staunch supporter of Trump, mulled over Trump’s strained relationship with GOP leaders in an interview on the convention floor Tuesday, where the crowed of pro-Trump delegates cheered loudly for their candidate.
Trump’s unconventional style and his lack of political experience made unpopular with the GOP establishment, Sessions said, but his ability to lure new voters is undeniable.
“They’ve been a little slow to warm up,” Sessions acknowledged. “But I think they are coming around. The Republican Party is not the House leadership or the Senate leadership. The Republican Party is here, and the voters, out there.”
