Speaker Ryan & House Republicans Had a Disastrous Day
From the Huffington Post:
Paul Ryan Tries To Escape Trump With Anti-Poverty Plan, Can't
Speaker Paul Ryan and a group of House Republicans came to a drug and alcohol rehab center in a low-income area of Washington on Tuesday to escape the shadow of Donald Trump…and to release an anti-poverty plan. Instead, Trump became the news.
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The first question Ryan was asked was about Trump's comments on Judge Gonzalo Curiel — whether he thought it was racist for Trump to say Curiel should recuse himself from a Trump University case because of his Mexican heritage.
Ryan was quick to disavow those sentiments…
"Claiming a person can't do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment," Ryan said…
And suddenly that was the news.
Trump surrogate Jeffrey Lord began accusing Ryan of being the real racist. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another Trump surrogate of sorts, said Trump was "not a racist"…
Even as he called the comments "unacceptable," Ryan said he was still voting for Trump…
…
For a policy agenda that was partly meant to separate Republicans from Trump, Ryan had just evidenced his support for the GOP nominee by noting that Trump was more likely to sign GOP legislation than Clinton.
The Speaker's office wasn't too content at the fact that reporters were doing their job and asking Mr. Ryan questions. But Washington Post was not having any of it:
…reporters wanted to hear Ryan's reaction to Trump's continued insistence that a federal judge of Mexican descent is incapable — because of his ethnicity — of presiding fairly over a case involving Trump University.
Ryan's press secretary… was dismayed by the line of questioning.
…
…Trump's attacks on U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel are the news of the moment, whether Ryan and his staff like it or not…A House speaker accusing his party's presidential nominee of spouting racist things is, needless to say, a very newsworthy event with huge implications.
…Ryan himself said last week, in an op-ed endorsing Trump, that "to enact these ideas" — meaning the anti-poverty ideas he laid out Tuesday… "we need a Republican president willing to sign them into law." If the speaker's belief is that his plan to help the poor will be wasted without the right president, then his office can't really complain when journalists ask whether and why he still believes Trump is that right president. Reporters were essentially following Ryan's own logic when they questioned him about Trump.
…his office seems particularly keen on shaming the press into focusing on these subjects when the speaker might prefer to avoid uncomfortable — and valid — inquiries about his party's standard-bearer.
As POLITICO noted: "It was that kind of day for Republicans on the Hill." It's also perhaps no surprise House Republicans cancelled the weekly GOP press conference Wednesday morning in order to save themselves from further embarrassment.
But no matter what they do and no matter how sugary the GOP rhetoric may sound, as Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi mentioned,
…"Donald Trump has exposed the true heart of House Republicans' agenda of recklessness, obstruction and discrimination. Republicans' half-hearted rebrand of their special interest priorities will do nothing to distract from the radicalism of Republicans' standard-bearer or House Republicans' longstanding disdain for people in poverty."