"I want to unify our team going into this election," Paul Ryan said. | AP Photo Ryan on Trump: It's 'no one person's party'

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Monday downplayed the notion that Donald Trump has reinvented the GOP with his convention-shattering presidential run, insisting that no single person represents the whole party.

"It's no one person's party," Ryan told Charlie Sykes, the Wisconsin conservative talk-radio host who has been a vocal critic of Trump. "As a party leader, as the highest elected official in the party, I have always felt a duty to the process to democracy to the primary voter that must be respected, and he won this thing fair and square. But no one person controls this party, this it is a bottom-up, organic, grassroots party based on conservative principles."


Sykes asked Ryan about POLITICO's report that the he is finally accepting of Trump after months of friction between the two Republicans. The change, Ryan said, comes down to a simple fact — a Hillary Clinton presidency would set back the conservative movement.

"What do you think helps Ron Johnson, Mike Gallagher and our candidates across the country more in the closing two days of an election — having party discord, having party leaders snub each other and go after each other, or unifying and prosecuting our campaign against Hillary Clinton?," Ryan said. "I don't want to harm our team going into the election. I want to unify our team going into this election."

The worst outcome on Tuesday, Ryan concluded, is if Clinton wins the White House and Democrats retake control of Congress, allowing them, in his eyes, to "transform the country permanently" like President Barack Obama did during his first two years in office.

