Wisconsin Republican describes a clean slate for Congress but says he will not work with ‘untrustworthy’ Obama on immigration reform

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

In his first Sunday interviews since becoming speaker of the House this week, Paul Ryan promised a “new day” for long-gridlocked Congress. That “new day” included, however, a vow that he would not work with Barack Obama on immigration reform.

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“We’re wiping the slate clean,” he told CNN in the first of five such interviews. “It’s a new day.”

Ryan repeatedly said, though, that Obama had proven “untrustworthy” by bypassing Congress to introduce by executive action immigration reforms that would grant relief to more than four million undocumented migrants. These reforms have been held up by the courts.



“You cannot trust the president on this issue,” Ryan said on CNN, in a comment he repeated on ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox.

“He [Obama] tried to go it alone, circumventing the legislative process with his executive orders, so that is not in the cards,” Ryan told CBS. “I think if we reach consensus on how best to achieve border and interior enforcement security, I think that’s fine.”

Ryan was less clear about how he would handle the House Republican party in its efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Obama has said he will veto any legislation that seeks to defund the women’s healthcare provider in light of videos released by an anti-abortion group which purport to show officials discussing the sale of fetal material. The head of the agency has denied such charges.

“We need to be very clear about what it is we can and cannot achieve,” Ryan said. Moments later, he added: “We also have to push issues where we can push issues.”

Pressed by CNN’s Dana Bash to explain how he would do this regarding Planned Parenthood, Ryan said that was now in the hands of the investigating House committee.

“I don’t know what the outcome is going to be,” he said.

Bash also asked how, amid conservative dissent over his appointment, Ryan would control the hard-right Freedom Caucus, the group of Republican representatives whose rebellion against John Boehner helped push the Ohio congressman to resign as speaker last month.

Ryan said he thought the dissenting members just needed a better opportunity to voice their concerns and goals.

“That frustration is frustration I shared, actually, as a House Republican before becoming speaker,” he said.

Ryan, who was the GOP nominee for vice-president in 2012, said he was “perfectly happy” that in taking the speaker position he had apparently drastically reduced his chances of reaching the White House. The only House speaker ever elected president was James Polk, in 1844.

“That’s OK with me, that doesn’t really bother me” Ryan said. “If I really wanted to be president, I would’ve run in this cycle.”

Ryan, who commutes to work in Washington from his home in Wisconsin, is known as an extremely hard worker. On taking the speakership, he made a public plea for him to be allowed continued time with his family. “I cannot and will not give up my family time,” he said.



Nonetheless, on Sunday he said that as speaker he would continue to sleep on a cot in his office while Congress was in session. “I just work here, I don’t live here,” he said.

Boehner also spoke with CNN. He discussed the way he convinced Ryan to take the post, saying he imbued Ryan with “Catholic guilt”.

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“Paul was the right guy at the right time,” Boehner said. “I knew he didn’t want to do it, he kept telling me he didn’t want to do it, but it was obvious to me that he was the right person for the job.”

Boehner added that the thing he was most looking forward to in life as a civilian was not being followed around by security.

“I get to walk to Starbucks and back, by myself,” Boehner said. “I get to walk to Pete’s Diner and back, by myself.”

Ryan discussed moving into an office formerly used by Boehner, who smokes cigarettes.

“You know when you ever go to a hotel room or get a rental car that has been smoked?” he said on NBC. “That’s what this smells like.”

Ryan suggested he might employ “ozone machines” that “can detoxify the environment”. He also said he would get to work on the carpeting.