House Speaker Paul D. Ryan says Republican House members can follow their ’conscience’ on whether or not to support presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, but said as speaker he doesn’t want to lead a ’chasm’ in the middle of the party.
“The last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that’s contrary to their conscience. Of course I wouldn’t do that,” Mr. Ryan said in an interview taped for NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I get that this is a very strange situation. [He’s] a very unique nominee,” said the Wisconsin Republican.
“But I feel as a responsibility institutionally as the speaker of the House that I should not be leading some chasm in the middle of our party… you know what I know that’ll do? That’ll definitely knock us out of the White House,” Mr. Ryan said.
Mr. Ryan announced earlier this month that he is supporting Mr. Trump for president after saying in early May that he wasn’t yet ready to do so.
But the speaker has continued to publicly disagree with Mr. Trump on certain issues, such as the presumptive GOP nominee’s proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.
“Look, we’re going to agree to disagree on some things. That’s just the way things work. Mitt Romney and I didn’t agree on everything,” the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee told reporters Thursday. “What we do agree on is we don’t want another Democrat in the White House, I can tell you that.”
“And we do have a lot of common ground on a lot of things that we think will move us in a better way in this country,” Mr. Ryan said.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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