Charlie Sykes:

Well, this will be a referendum on Donald Trump, and I think that the prospects for the Republican Party just got a little bit darker.

I was a little bit surprised that Paul Ryan pulled the pin this early, because it is clearly going to embolden Democrats. It's going to add to that narrative of a blue wave. And I think it's going to be demoralizing for a lot of Republicans, when they realize that their electoral fate is tied up with one of the most erratic and unpredictable political figures in American history, Donald Trump.

But I'm figuring that Paul Ryan is feeling somewhat liberated that he's not going to have to go through this long slog of having to deal with and rationalize or, you know, answer for Donald Trump's tweets and perhaps his attack on the rule of law.

And imagine what it would be like to be the speaker of the House of Representatives in an election year if, in fact, the president were to fire the special prosecutor or members of the Department of Justice.

So maybe now we will see a Paul Ryan who is willing to be more independent and perhaps more critical of the president, when he's felt that he needed to bite his tongue, look the other way, and try to conciliate the president.