Courtesy of the Office of Speaker Paul Ryan THE PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW The Playbook Interview: Paul Ryan The House speaker on his agenda, the GOP convention, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton.

It’s no secret: Speaker Paul Ryan and Donald Trump are on different pages on just about every subject.

The House speaker — a perpetually upbeat, rail thin 46-year-old — is getting ready to use the week before the convention to tout his vision for the GOP. No walls along the Mexican border. No banning of Muslims from the United States.


Ryan (R-Wis.) wants to talk about tax reform. He wants to talk about poverty. He wants to talk about the GOP solution to the opioid crisis. He wants to draw a contrast with President Barack Obama — and, at times, Donald Trump.

“Despite, all the noise around here, we’re still getting things done,” he said in The Playbook Interview, sitting in shirtsleeves and a tie in his Capitol office. His rollout continues Tuesday night in a Jake Tapper-hosted CNN town hall in New York.

Ryan has been a bit frustrated of late. As he has tried to roll out policy proposals, the public has been a bit distracted.

“We roll out our tax reform thing, and everybody is asking questions about Brexit at the press conference,” Ryan said, with a dash of exasperation. “It’s apparently the world we’re in now. Something is happening and popping. The way I look at it is keep going, keep pushing, keep talking."

He continued, “And what happens is — you guys are national media. At home, you can get messages out. At home, you can go on local TV and radio, local editorial boards, local newspapers and really push ideas and messages, and it gets through. You don’t see it up here, in this national media, but it gets through local and regional media. And if we have 300 people around the country pushing these ideas consistently for four months, I believe we can get these ideas through and we can show the country that we are actually offering better ideas.”

Make no mistake: Ryan isn’t solely focused on Congress. He’s assiduously following the 2016 campaign, and has begun expressing serious doubt that he can work with Hillary Clinton.

“I think she is actually a liberal progressive — I don’t think she’s faking it,” Ryan said. “I think she is a liberal progressive. And I think she’s sitting atop a party that’s now run by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. This is not the Erskine Bowles 1996 Democratic Party. This is not Alice Rivlin, Erskine Bowles, or Bill Clinton in 1996. This is a Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders party. Our party has moved right, their party has moved really left. I think the common ground, say that you had in the early 90s when I was here as a staffer is nothing like the common ground you have right now.”

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On his pre-convention policy push: “We want to push it out to the country. We want to push it out and talk about our agenda. Despite, all the noise around here, we’re still getting things done. We finally got opioids in a good place – we’re getting that done. We’ve got appropriations back on track – we just passed a big tough bill [Thursday] on appropriations. I feel like we’ve got some appropriations trains back on the tracks. We’ve got big progress on big issues we all want to get done and we want to get our agenda out there and promoted before Cleveland so we are also out there talking about it.”

On what he’ll tell Jake Tapper in his CNN town hall Tuesday night: “We have a better way for solving problems. And that we have ideas, and here are our ideas. I just think people are hungry for substance and solutions. Hungry for it. And we want to provide that. I think – it’s what I always wanted presidential elections to be about. It’s what I always wanted all elections to be about. And so, I think we’re in a position where we can help do that.”

On what the House will do on gun control: “So, this has gotten so bad and divisive – meaning the country – the last thing I want to do is amp things up and create more polarization. So I just think we need to settle it down, and think things through. We’re working on our legislation – we want to make sure we get it right. I don’t want to just add fuel to populism fires and then have more venues for divisiveness. I said this in my one minute, I really worry that we’re all going to harden in go into our corners and be even more divided. I’m talking about the country. In Congress, [we] can contribute or can make it worse. We can either help heal, or harden. So I want to see what we can do to heal. And so, I don’t know.”

On what’s next for Hillary Clinton on Capitol Hill: “I told Jason [Chaffetz] go ahead, you want to bring Comey in…He didn’t even answer questions. So I said well, OK, so let's bring him up here and we’ll ask the questions the press would’ve asked him. So that’s what I told Jason, just go ahead and ask the question that we would’ve expected the press to ask.”

“The motivation here isn’t partisanship, I know you don’t see it like that. The motivation here is you’ve gotta hold people accountable for these actions otherwise we’re demeaning the whole value of these things. You’ve gotta hold people accountable for this activity. The thing that bothers me most is the double standard that seems to be applied. That’s a big deal…When Comey said at the end of his statement, even though I’m not recommending criminal charges, he basically said that usually in this case an administrative action is warranted. Meaning denying classified evidence to someone who so mishandles it. Shouldn’t she be held to the same standard everybody else is? That’s my point. If we think somebody is already skirting above the law, then on the administrative stuff, let’s not let them skirt above the law. That’s the point I’m trying to make. I worry about the rule of law being equally applied in this country these days…."

On working with Hillary Clinton: "I think she is actually a liberal progressive. I don’t think she’s faking it. I think she is a liberal progressive. And I think she’s sitting atop a party that’s now run by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. This is not the Erskine Bowles 1996 Democratic Party. This is not Alice Rivlin, Erskine Bowles, or Bill Clinton in 1996. This is a Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders party. Our party has moved right, their party has moved really left. I think the common ground, say that you had in the early 90s when I was here as a staffer is nothing like the common ground you have right now.”

On his convention message: “I want to talk about our ideas, our solutions and how our party should unite…Our agenda, our solutions and how we ought to unite around our common principles and how we apply those principles to problems…. I really think the way we unite ourselves is we talk about our common principles, and we show how we’re applying them to problems and offering better ideas. And that should unite around these ideas and this agenda. And winning an election means you can put that agenda in place.”

On what will get done before the end of the year: “We’re getting an [opioid bill] done. We’re finding a place on [21st Century Cures Act]. We’re making good progress on cures. We intend to work over the recess on cures. It’s a pretty big deal. [Vice President Joe Biden calls it moonshot], we call it cures. It’s the same thing. It’s a cancer strategy. You combine that with a highway bill, with a customs bill, with a K through 12 education rewrite bill, with an extenders bill. That’s a pretty good list of things we’ve gotten done that have been stuck for years. I mean stuck for years.”

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