House Speaker Paul Ryan of Janesville says he’d step down as co-chairman of the Republican National Convention if presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump asks him to.
Ryan’s comments come after he said last week that he was not yet ready to endorse Trump, but he hoped to be able to later. The two are scheduled to meet later this week.
Ryan also brushed off news Monday that one of Trump’s most prominent supporters has endorsed Ryan’s primary opponent.
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Former GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin told CNN that she would support Delevan businessman Paul Nehlen in his bid to defeat Ryan this August. In the process, Palin compared Ryan to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who lost his 2014 GOP primary.
“I think Paul Ryan is soon to be ‘Cantored,’ as in Eric Cantor,” Palin said. “His political career is over, but for a miracle, because he has so disrespected the will of the people.”
Palin attacked Ryan for withholding his support of Trump, the assumed Republican presidential nominee. She suggested the move was aimed at bolstering Ryan’s presidential chances in 2020.
In interviews Monday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other news outlets, Ryan dismissed that claim, saying that if he really wanted to run for president, he could have run this year.
Nehlen’s campaign issued a statement calling Palin’s endorsement “incredibly welcome.”
Marquette University pollster Charles Franklin said Ryan doesn’t look to be in danger of losing his primary by any conventional measures. In the March Marquette Law School poll, Ryan had an 81 percent favorability rating among Republicans in his congressional district.
But Franklin said Cantor was also in a strong place to win his 2014 primary before losing a low-turnout election.
“This is the reason why we should be cautious about assuming that the race is safe for Ryan,” Franklin said. “This primary could be low-turnout. It could depend on how motivated the challengers are.”
Franklin said Ryan’s comments about potentially relinquishing his chairmanship of the Republican National Convention was “quite a remarkable statement in a year of remarkable events.” He said it showed a willingness by Ryan to wash his hands of the convention.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story featuring Associated Press content has been updated with original reporting.
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