House Speaker Paul Ryan is considering retiring after the 2018 midterm elections, Politico reported Thursday. A spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Republican called the reports "pure speculation."

"As the speaker himself said today, he's not going anywhere any time soon," AshLee Strong, a Ryan aide, wrote on Twitter.

Reports that Ryan was thinking about retiring also reached the White House, where press secretary Sarah Sanders said they prompted President Donald Trump to reach out to the Speaker.

Trump "made sure that the Speaker knew, very clearly and in no uncertain terms, that if that news was true, he was very unhappy with it," Sanders told reporters at the daily press briefing.

In response, she said, Ryan "assured the president that those were not accurate reports, and that they looked forward to working together for a long time to come."

From Politico: