https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrjvf0ar8Es&feature=youtu.be
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was able to avoid tough questions about his endorsement of Donald Trump by canceling a press conference (though he wasn’t able to escape Nancy Pelosi’s trolling), but he’s unable to avoid the subject on Meet the Press. That show’s moderator, Chuck Todd, got Ryan to talk about why he still supports Trump, given how much Ryan disagrees with some of the presidential candidate’s statements and policy proposals.
You can watch the entire interview above, where Ryan’s answer as to why he supports Trump basically boils down to “anybody but Hillary,” when Todd brings the Muslim ban up, bluntly asking, “Why do you trust him? Because you’ve asked him to tone things down, you’ve asked him to reconsider some things, and then you hear so-and-so did reassure you in private that he would possibly back off the Muslim ban, and then he goes right on with it, and then some.”
Ryan warns:
One thing I know for certain, Hillary Clinton is gonna continue taking the country in the wrong direction. She’s gonna make a once-in-generational choice of the Supreme Court that’s gonna be a bad one, where we lose sight of the Constitution. And I do believe from speaking and from his public pronouncements that we have more common ground than not. And yes there are things that he has said that I don’t agree with. There are policies he’s pursuing that I don’t agree with, and in the legislative branch, a separate but equal branch of government, we litigate those things in the future.
But Ryan says that he won’t pressure members of his party to support Trump if it goes against their principles. “The last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that’s contrary to their conscience.” So there you have it. Paul Ryan wants to keep his party together by making whatever endorsement is necessary to get a Republican into the White House. We’ll see if his fellow party members follow his lead.