Speaker Ryan: ‘I’ll be voting for’ Trump
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who has publicly wrestled for the past month over whether to support presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, said in a column posted online Thursday he will be voting for Mr. Trump.
Mr. Ryan said in the column published Thursday on gazettextra.com he feels confident through the conversations he’s had with Mr. Trump that the billionaire businessman would help turn ideas in the House policy agenda into “laws to help improve people’s lives.”
“That’s why I’ll be voting for him this fall,” Mr. Ryan wrote.
“It’s no secret that he and I have our differences. I won’t pretend otherwise,” the speaker went on to write. “And when I feel the need to, I’ll continue to speak my mind. But the reality is, on the issues that make up our agenda, we have more common ground than disagreement.”
Mr. Ryan, who had been the highest-ranking GOP official to withhold his support for the party’s presumptive nominee, has criticized Mr. Trump in the past over issues like his proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.
“For me, it’s a question of how to move ahead on the ideas that I - and my House colleagues - have invested so much in through the years,” Mr. Ryan wrote. “It’s not just a choice of two people, but of two visions for America. And House Republicans are helping shape that Republican vision by offering a bold policy agenda, by offering a better way ahead.”
Donald Trump can help us make it a reality,” he wrote.
Ed Brookover, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump’s campaign, said on CNN Thursday that they are “pleased” to have Mr. Ryan’s support.
“We know that he and Mr. Trump have been communicating,” Mr. Brookover said. “And Speaker Ryan’s a hundred percent right when he says he and Mr. Trump have a lot more in common than they do, than anybody on our side does, with Mrs. Clinton.”
Mr. Ryan said it’s clear that likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton will not support the agenda, which he said will address the country’s tax code, repealing and replacing Obamacare, restoring the Constitution and separation of powers, national security, regulation reform, and lifting people out of poverty.
“To enact these ideas, we need a Republican president willing to sign them into law,” Mr. Ryan wrote. “That’s why, when he sealed the nomination, I could not offer my support for Donald Trump before discussing policies and basic principles.”
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Shock! Horror!