House Speaker Paul Ryan signaled Thursday that he believes establishment Republicans can get behind Donald Trump’s “remarkable” presidential campaign, but stopped short of an official endorsement.
“I was very encouraged with what I heard from Donald Trump today,” Ryan said after the meeting. “I do believe we are now planting the seeds to get ourselves unified and bridge the gaps and differences.”
The two men talked for about 45 minutes Thursday morning at Republican headquarters before bringing in other members of the House Republican leadership. Trump then met with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate GOP leaders on the other side of the Capitol.
Ryan said the brief meeting was essentially just a start in the effort to bridge the gap between Trump’s candidacy and many in the GOP establishment who fear his views on the minimum wage, abortion, defense and immigration, among other issues, deviate too far from conservative principles. Ryan said he believes some of the differences can be mended.
“The question is, can we unify on common core principles that make our party, principles that build our country,” Ryan said. “I’m very encouraged that the answer is yes.”
More meetings are coming, Ryan said. These will provide an opportunity, Ryan said, “to go a little deeper into the policy weeds so we have a better understanding of each other.”
Ryan’s tone was in contrast to past veiled criticisms of Trump, whose plan to build a wall on the Mexican border and ban Muslims has drawn sharp criticism from GOP leaders.
Instead, Ryan praised Trump’s momentum. Trump has won more voters than any Republican primary candidate in history.
“He’s bringing in a whole new wing,” Ryan said. “He’s bringing in voters we haven’t had for decades.”
Ryan called Trump’s campaign success “really kind of unparallelled, it’s really kind of a remarkable achievement.”
But Ryan echoed GOP fears that those who have so far gravitated to Trump are not the conservative base, who instead favored Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. They fear Trump won’t be able to rally conservatives in the general election.
“So the question is, how do we unify it all?” Ryan asked. “And so this is really a big and growing movement. How do we keep adding voters without subtracting voters?”
Like Ryan, House Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said she also saw Trump’s first meeting with GOP leaders as a first step.
“Today was a very important first step forward to unify as Republicans and build an inclusive coalition of voters to defeat Hillary Clinton which would only be another term of Barack Obama’s top-down, government-knows-best policies,” she said.
