The uncomfortable truce meant to keep the Republican Party united through Election Day is now hanging by the slimmest of threads. And all that is keeping the GOP from outright civil war is a raw political calculation from the party's self-styled guardian of conservative principles.
For months, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan agonized as Donald Trump trampled on long-held GOP doctrine with his populist rage as he edged closer to the party's presidential nomination. But once Trump had the nomination in hand -- and after Ryan withheld his endorsement for weeks -- an informal deal seemed to emerge.
Ryan (Wis.) would campaign on his "Better Way" policy platform and make the case that Trump would be the candidate most likely to enact it into law, and Trump would "pivot" into a more conventional general-election presidential campaign.
That deal evaporated Tuesday, when Trump refused to endorse Ryan's re-election in an interview with Phil Rucker and gave precious oxygen to his populist Republican opponent just a week before the primary. (Read the whole Trump interview here in which he also rejected backing Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) -- saying he "should have done a much better job for vets" -- and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) -- who he called "weak." McCain and Ayotte are both supporting Trump.)
“We need very, very strong leadership. And I’m just not quite there yet. I’m not quite there yet,” Trump said in a conscious echo of Ryan's own refusal to endorse Trump in the days after he cleared the GOP presidential field.
It was a stunning assertion of dominance by Trump after days of self-inflicted controversy -- sparked by his criticism of the parents of a Muslim-American Army captain who died in Iraq -- that left Ryan and other GOP officeholders struggling to mount a reaction.
Ryan on Monday put out a carefully worded statement that defended the family of Capt. Humayun Khan but did not mention Trump by name. It stopped well short of the full-throated denunciation that Democrats, Trump's Republican critics, and the Khans themselves had called for.
But Trump hit back anyway, in a manner calibrated to underscore the gaping divide between Ryan conservatives and Trump populists.
In Wisconsin, the populist right is clearly hoping for a repeat of the 2014 dethroning of then-Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) in Ryan's primary.His unabashedly pro-Trump opponent, Paul Nehlen, has taken a hatchet to the Ryan mythos of a young conservative warrior steeped in Friedman and Von Mises and raised at the foot of Jack Kemp to reshape the federal government in Reaganesque fashion.
In a Tuesday interview with the publisher of Breitbart.com, for instance, Nehlen called Ryan a "soulless globalist" and an "open borders guy" who was "grown in a petri dish in D.C."
But don't expect Ryan to abandon Trump -- at least, not yet.
The institutional stakes are simply too high for Ryan or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to spark a GOP crackup. Both the Trump and Ryan wings need to show up on Nov. 8 and vote Republican if the party is going to keep its congressional majorities -- and it's Trump, not Ryan, who has the party in his thrall.
That being said, there were reports late last night and into the early morning that more Republicans would abandon Trump in the coming days as infighting in his campaign increases. In one prominent defection, Mitt Romney backer Meg Whitman of eBay fame announced that she will support Hillary Clinton and raise funds for her, calling Trump a " dishonest demagogue." The story revealed that Clinton is actively seeking the support of Republican donors (Whitman said she had a "lovely chat" with the Democratic nominee in a phone call last month).
There were some signs of a campaign shake up yesterday as two senior staffers who'd previously worked for Ben Carson were let go, reports Politico's Alex Isenstadt and Ken Vogel -- longtime GOP operative Ed Brookover, who was advising Trump politically; and Jimmy Stracner, who was Western political director for the Western region.
John Harwood reports that things are bad inside the Trump campaign, with even campaign chairman Paul Manafort refusing to challenge the candidate and calling the staff "suicidal:"
NBC's Katy Tur says the chaos extends to the RNC, where Reince Priebus, who has worked to unify the party around Trump, is not happy with Trump's Ryan comments:
Per ABC's Rick Klein and Jon Karl:
Trump himself tweeted this morning that there is "great unity" in his campaign:
Trump consigliere Roger Stone pushed back hard on campaign in disarray narrative:
The idea that @PaulManafort is not doing everything humanly possible to help @realDonaldTrump win is patently false
But Liam Donovan, a former National Republican Senatorial Committee staffer who has been one of the sharpest observers of the contemporary GOP, signaled that Ryan -- and McConnell -- might not let go, just yet anyways. He tweeted the below on Monday, before the latest controversy.
If this were 2008 (or '08 division of power), it would be much easier for R leaders and electeds to reject or run away from Trump/Trumpism.
And with all eyes on 2020, the decisions not based on congressional fortifications are mindful of the inevitable dolchstoss recriminations.
#NeverTrump conservatives are begging Ryan to renounce Trump and redeem their party. They include former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, who aimed his Tuesday Post column squarely at Ryan, who frequently speaks reverently of the "American idea."
"Those who support Trump are setting the Republican Party at odds with the American story told by Lincoln and King: a nationalism defined by striving toward unifying ideals of freedom and human dignity," Gerson writes. "... It is not too late to repudiate."
But Donovan said in an interview that the moment for party leaders taking moral stands against Trump -- after the Khan controversy, after his attacks on a judge, after his questioning of John McCain's war record -- has long since past.
For Ryan, he said, what will matter are House seats.
"He's looking at it as protecting the [House Republican] Conference and keeping his job in the immediate term," he said. "I wish he'd do it. He'd make me feel better. But it wouldn't be a good idea from a strategic standpoint. ... Until [Trump] is dragging them down, I don't think anyone is hitting the panic button."
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