Paul Ryan says he's not ready to support Trump Trump fires back with a snarky statement: 'I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan's agenda.'

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday declared that he cannot currently support Donald Trump, throwing a wrench in the presumptive nominee’s efforts to unify the Republican Party and giving cover to lawmakers nervous about being tethered to the brash billionaire.

Ryan was diplomatic, but firm — Trump must prove that he deserves the nomination.


“Well, to be perfectly candid with you, I’m just not ready to do that at this point,” Ryan told CNN's Jake Tapper about extending his support to Trump. “I’m not there right now. And I hope to, though, and I want to.”

It was a partial reversal for the Wisconsin Republican, who had previously pledged to support the nominee. He said on Thursday that Trump needs to do more work to show that he is a true conservative who can unify the different wings of the Republican Party.

“I think what a lot of Republicans want to see is that we have a standard-bearer that bears our standards,” he said.

“I think conservatives want to know, 'Does he share our values and our principles on limited government, the proper role of the executive, adherence to the Constitution?'” he added. “There are lots of questions that conservatives, I think, are gonna want answers to, myself included. I want to be a part of this unifying process. I want to help to unify this party.”

Trump fired back with a snarky statement. "I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan's agenda. Perhaps in the future, we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people," Trump said. "They have been treated so badly for so long that it is about time for politicians to put them first!"

Trump, speaking later at a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, did not mention Ryan directly in his speech, though the crowd booed when one of his warm-up speakers mentioned the Wisconsin Republican’s name.

Ryan's comments come two days after Trump delivered a blowout win in Indiana, knocking both Ted Cruz and John Kasich out of the race. The decisive victory led Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus to declare him the presumptive nominee.

But Ryan’s statement was a stark reminder that not all Republican leaders are ready to fall in line behind him. And it wasn’t a one-off or an accident — Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, told POLITICO that the House speaker gave Priebus a heads up about his declaration.

Through his announcement, Ryan is acknowledging that Trump owns the party’s big top — but he wants to isolate him into a corner of the big tent where his unpopularity and unpredictability can’t trample down-ballot candidates who are panicking over being attached to the most reviled major party nominee in generations.

Ryan’s solution may be tenuous and unsatisfying. But it temporarily, and perhaps permanently, protects his members from having to answer the are-you-with-Trump question as an up-or-down, yes-or-no response. By putting the onus on Trump to prove he’s worthy of support, he allows Republicans to dodge Trump without having to contradict the will of millions of the billionaire’s voters who will turn on the establishment if it overtly opposes their anger-fueled movement.

It may be too little, too late for some lawmakers. Most of the vulnerable Senate Republicans have already said they would begrudgingly support Trump, while emphasizing it’s not an endorsement.

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s campaign, for example, said she would “support the nominee” but “isn’t planning to endorse anyone this cycle,” while Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Texas Rep. Louis Gohmert suggested they would only offer conditional support.

Lawmakers are still uneasy about Trump’s inflammatory statements, including his proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S., his statement that many undocumented Mexican immigrants are rapists, and his refusal at times to disavow white supremacist support.

Ryan’s statement also provides an awkward break between the House speaker, who will play a pivotal role as chairman of the convention, and the RNC, which is trying to close ranks ahead of Cleveland.

Priebus has been trying to improve the party’s working relationship with Trump, especially as the real estate mogul creates a general election campaign apparatus that includes fundraising not only for the battle against Hillary Clinton but down-ballot races, too.

RNC spokesman Sean Spicer on Thursday evening said the Republican Party was not in a crisis, and urged that everyone take a deep breath and relax. He expressed confidence that the GOP could still come together. "This is still early in the process. We’ve got plenty of time," Spicer told CNN.

Ryan and Trump will meet sometime next week, Spicer said, adding, "They need to sit down and have a good talk."

Priebus later Thursday told Fox News: “Both Donald Trump and Paul Ryan are meeting up next week to talk about these things. I think it’s going to work out, but you know in some cases, people are not going to be instantly on board. I know that can be frustrating for people, but I think everyone has to have a little bit of the steam to get out and get everyone settled down, and I think that this is going to come together."

Other Republican leaders said on Thursday that it’s up to Trump to close the schism in the GOP. They suggested one surefire method: a let-it-all-hang-out speech by Trump that explains his uneasy relationship with the Republican Party — and why he wants to be its standard-bearer.

“What Ryan did is almost is calling out for that kind of moment,” said Tom Rath, a veteran New Hampshire GOP leader who had endorsed Kasich and is slated to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention in July. “There are pages in his book that are blank, and I think he needs to fill them in. He’s not an intellectual politician. He’s much more an emotional and a visceral one. But there’s still a place to anchor that emotional and visceral connection to an intellectual one.”

Several prominent GOP elders agreed that Trump needs to deliver a speech along the lines of Mitt Romney’s 2012 conversation about his Mormonism or Barack Obama’s 2008 speech about race. Trump, though, would have to identify his views on the core conservative planks of the Republican Party and whether he’ll champion them heading into the fall campaign.

That clarity could ease his strained relationship with segments of the party that are distrustful of his principles and question his true connection to the GOP. Trump has held left-leaning positions on numerous issues over the years, including on abortion, and while he’s renounced most of them, conservative leaders have questioned his sincerity. Laying a marker about his ideology now could help clear that up, some GOP leaders argued.

“He does need to come up with that statement,” said Bruce Hough, the Republican National Committeeman from Utah. “I think Paul Ryan is using his position of leadership to say, this is a great time to really show everyone that you can unify the party by delivering the right messages and delivering them the right way.”

One operative inside Trump Tower tried to downplay Ryan’s comments, saying they were “not a big deal around here.”

“Nobody seems to be preoccupied by it,” the insider said.

But Ryan's comments could fuel Trump’s nagging concern that he cannot trust the party brass or Priebus' assertion Tuesday night that the party recognizes him as the presumptive nominee.

Adding to the campaign's continued wariness is an understanding that Cruz, after suspending his campaign Tuesday night, has laid off his staff with the exception of his delegate team — an indication, some people in Trump world believe, that Cruz and perhaps some establishment Republicans could be trying to maintain the option of adopting rules changes that could somehow wrest the nomination away from Trump in Cleveland.

Ryan said in the CNN interview that the onus is on Trump to show that he can be a true leader for conservatives. “I think what is required is that we unify this party, and I think the bulk of the burden on unifying the party will have to come from our presumptive nominee,” he said.

The Wisconsin Republican did give Trump some credit during the interview, saying he should be congratulated for the success of his campaign, but he suggested the reality TV star is no Ronald Reagan or Abraham Lincoln.

"We don’t always nominate a Lincoln and a Reagan every four years, but we hope that our nominee aspires to be Lincoln and Reaganesque, that that person advances the principles of our party and appeals to a wide vast majority of Americans,” he said.

“I was pretty clear and I was outspoken on a number of occasions where I think that he did the wrong thing or said the wrong thing, and I’ll do that in the future if need be," Ryan continued.

Ryan has previously called out Trump, slamming his proposed ban on Muslims and other controversial statements. He’s often been careful not to mention Trump by name, but the message has been clear — Trump’s principles are not the Republican Party’s.

Ryan also did not exude confidence when Tapper asked whether Republicans would be able to hold on to the House and Senate in November.

“The one thing I think you can predict of this year, it is gonna be unpredictable. So I just don’t think you can draw parallels or make projections at this point. So I just think you always run like everything’s on the line,” he said.

Clinton’s team was all too happy to seize on Ryan’s comments. Her campaign quickly blasted out an email to supporters stating, “Speaker Paul Ryan Joins Growing List of Conservatives Rebuking Trump as He Captures GOP Nomination.”

The fresh GOP turmoil comes as Trump is ramping up his outreach to establishment Republicans, especially those in Washington. Trump had been expected to visit Capitol Hill as early as next week.

In the meantime, Trump's congressional allies have been trying to shore up support among their colleagues, while urging his critics to pipe down.

“Eventually, positions are gonna soften on Donald Trump, whether it’s now or two weeks from now or two months from now,” California Rep. Duncan Hunter’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, told POLITICO before Ryan’s interview. “That’s inevitable. It’s gonna happen.”

"The Speaker has just as much right as anyone else to decide when he's ready to support the presumptive nominee or not," Kasper told POLITICO in a follow-up statement. "The fact is the Trump train is moving. And it's going to start steamrolling — so there's good cause for everyone to unite behind the guy who will decimate Hillary Clinton in November."

Even with the latest obstacle in Trump’s march to the nomination, some Republican leaders said the real estate mogul still has time to step up and show that he’s worthy of his party’s support.

“There’s a lot of people who have had questions about Donald Trump and his suitability to be president in terms of temperament and tone. You have someone in Paul Ryan who may be the master of temperament and tone,” said Hough. “This is the time to kind of show us.”

Glenn Thrush, Eli Stokols and Brianna Gurciullo contributed to this report.