Paul Ryan is entering a crucial stretch of his speakership, with the White House pressing him to notch wins on President Donald Trump's priorities even as he faces the same internal dynamics that sunk his predecessor.

As lawmakers return from their two-week Easter recess, Ryan will be on the spot as the party tries to avoid a government shutdown and push a repeal of Obamacare through the House after failing the first time. Yet the House leader is being buffeted by forces beyond his control, including an unpredictable president unschooled on how to get legislation passed in Congress, and a group of GOP lawmakers who’ve so far resisted pressure to compromise on health care.


A victory on either or both issues would deliver a crucial boost for Ryan, coming off his rocky start as speaker under Trump. The Wisconsin Republican's failure last month to persuade his conference to pass his Obamacare replacement plan forced the White House to intervene. On top of that, the most critical piece of his tax reform plan has been dismissed by many Republicans.

The setbacks threaten to relegate the speaker to playing a backup role to the White House in the looming debate over tax reform, the speaker’s longtime pet issue. They also have undermined the influence of his position, as conservatives sidestep him to negotiate directly with the White House and moderates grow frustrated that they’re being steamrolled by a White House too busy courting the far right.

“Is Paul Ryan in a tough spot? Yes … In some ways it’s harder than it used to be because the president is now the leader of the party,” said a senior House Republican. “You do hear: ‘Is Paul Ryan the right person to lead the conference?’ But we’re still in the same place we were a year and a half ago. Who would lead the conference? He’s the best person to lead the conference, and there isn’t a close second.”

“He has a really tough job, and I think he’s managing it well,” an administration official added. “We all look back and see things we could have done better, but he’s got a very diverse conference that has a lot of different views.”

Without so much as a heads-up to the speaker, Trump administration officials last week began whispering to reporters that an Obamacare repeal vote was expected Wednesday, the day after lawmakers returned from recess.

That wasn’t Ryan’s plan at all; his team needed time to whip votes for the compromise the White House struck with wary conservatives. But impatient senior Trump officials wanted to pressure Ryan to move fast, administration and Hill sources said.

That very public and awkward display — which sent House GOP leaders into a frenzy trying to tamp down expectations — was just the latest example of the Trump administration pressuring Ryan to deliver. Over the past few weeks, White House officials have leaned on Ryan to show progress on the health care repeal: At a private meeting two weeks ago, chief ofstaff Reince Priebus said Ryan’s speakership could be in jeopardy if the House failed to revive the health care plan.

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When Ryan couldn’t persuade conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus to back the bill, the White House pushed him aside and started talking to conservatives about how to get them to “yes.” If those changes to the bill will win over a large slice of the House Freedom Caucus, as they’re expected to this week, Ryan will find himself under enormous pressure to bring enough moderates on board to ensure passage.

The situation carries a big upside for the speaker but also potential perils. Passage of a health care bill would be a huge accomplishment for Ryan — perhaps his biggest as speaker — but it’s bound to put him in the doghouse with moderate Republicans.

Some centrists are unhappy that the White House has taken the lead in negotiations and given concessions to conservatives. They say people with pre-existing conditions could be hurt by the compromise, and don’t want to vote on a bill they fear will put a target on their back in the midterms next year — only to see the measure stall in the Senate.

“It would be politically tone deaf,” a top staffer to one moderate member said of the pending deal struck by the White House and conservatives. “Are you going to go back to your district and say, ‘An amendment that lets insurance companies charge older or sicker people more got me to ‘yes.'”

Comments such as those are significant coming from centrists, who are often the strongest allies of GOP leadership. But hard-line conservatives are dissatisfied with the speaker, too.

Just as they did before ousting Speaker John Boehner in 2015, conservatives are grumbling privately that Ryan has not been inclusive enough in his stewardship of the conference. They've even coined a phrase to express their frustration, according to one congressional source: “It’s Paul Ryan’s world and we’re all just living in it.”

“Everyone has always said he’s this policy genius, who is the future of the party when it’s, ‘Actually, you gave us a half-baked bill that the Senate hates, conservatives hate and moderates hate,’” the source continued. “We think that’s probably going to be his hardest thing to come back from; we lost faith in him as a policy maker.”

Ryan's office did not respond to a request for comment. But the speaker’s defenders argue he has held countless meetings to discuss his bill with rank-and-file members. Ryan has said the tensions within his conference are the result of “growing pains,” as the GOP adjusts to governing as opposed to opposing a Democratic president.

No one is talking about ousting Ryan now. A handful of Freedom Caucus sources who played a role in taking out Boehner told POLITICO in recent weeks they weren’t planning a mutiny. Several of those members said they believe Ryan will remain in his post for the entire Congress if he wants to — though they said the election for speaker for the next Congress, in 2019, could be a different story.

That means Ryan has time to turn things around. In addition to keeping the government open and passing Obamacare in the coming weeks, the White House will be looking to make progress on a major tax cut Trump promised on the campaign trail.

This could be tricky for Ryan, particularly because the White House appears headed in a much different direction from Ryan's plan. The speaker, insiders joke, has been dreaming of doing comprehensive tax reform since he started walking. He’s envisioned a plan that would do away with tax loopholes and deductions and use the money to lower tax rates, thereby not increasing the deficit.

But Trump officials have made clear that they’re not necessarily with Ryan, suggesting tax cuts needn’t be paid for at all. The speaker, in that regard, may be forced to drop his own tax policy vision for Trump’s.