WASHINGTON — House Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest ranking Republican elected official in the country, continues to hold out on endorsing presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, and Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) says it is time for the speaker to board the Trump Train as it steamrolls toward a general election showdown with Hillary Clinton.
“He needs to do that,” Sessions told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo when asked about Ryan’s endorsement. “We don’t need to continue having the speaker hanging out there, in my opinion.”
Ryan and Trump have endured moments of significant tension over the last several months, perhaps most notably when Ryan slammed Trump’s proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country as “unconstitutional.” But since Trump locked up the nomination, there have been signs that his relationship with Ryan is improving. The two men had their first official meeting earlier this month and spoke again last week by phone in what Ryan called a “productive” conversation.
Ryan’s endorsement is now widely expected to come ahead of the Republican National Convention in July, but Trump’s allies, including Sessions, who has been one of the billionaire businessman’s most outspoken advocates, would like for it to happen sooner rather than later.
“I hear input and suggestions from all sides,” Ryan told reporters on Capitol Hill last week asked about withholding his endorsement. “I want this to be a sincere, deliberate process. I’ve got no timeline in mind right now.”
Unnamed sources close to the speaker have frequently been quoted in inside-the-Beltway publications saying Ryan wants Trump to tone down his rhetoric and express support for at least some of his legislative agenda.
One policy issue on which the two may have difficulty bridging their divide is trade. Ryan has been a proponent of numerous multinational trade agreements — the kind that Trump and Sessions believe have come at significant cost to American workers.
“I know the speaker believes in trade agreements, any of them,” Sessions said over the weekend. “I don’t think he feels he has to read them; they’ve just got to be good. But I don’t agree with that and the American people have voted on that — they’ve spoken. Donald Trump has won and he is crystal clear on this issue. We are not going to have any trade agreements unless it protects the American interest.”
One “senior House Republican close to Ryan” told The Hill that Ryan is beginning to feel the heat to support Trump.
“The Speaker is going to be under a lot of pressure to support the nominee, notwithstanding his reservations about some of Trump’s policy positions,” the congressman said. “But Paul is committed to his agenda. He wants to make sure Donald Trump gives it fair consideration and that Donald Trump embraces some of this stuff.”
