During the presidential campaign, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) was one of the most passionate and eloquent defenders of House Republicans’ multipronged investigations of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s actions as secretary of state.
When some accused Republicans of clamoring for investigations of Clinton’s emails and family foundation just to undermine her campaign, Ryan reframed the inquiries as a matter of principle:
.. It probably won’t surprise you to hear that Ryan is not nearly as bullish on investigating Trump as he was Clinton. He has been repeatedly asked over the past week or two how he feels about Trump’s potential for conflicts of interest, and his answer has boiled down to: It’s not my problem.
.. When pressed on it again, Ryan said: “I have every bit of confidence he’s going to get himself right with moving from being the business guy that he is to the president he’s going to become.
Trump’s Cabinet
On economic policy, Wilbur Ross is a known quantity and promises to be among the most influential Commerce Department heads in history. I expect whoever Trump picks as Trade Representative to be a similarly forceful character. But the big question is what Steve Mnuchin wants, or believes, which is something nobody really knows. If the answer is “nothing much” — which is very possible — then we can expect a Trump administration to rubber-stamp whatever Paul Ryan delivers him.
.. Appointing Betsy DeVos to Education is an indication that Trump has no particular plans for that department, and is happy for it to become a conservative ideological playground, whereas appointing Jeff Sessions as Attorney General is an indication that he intends to follow through as much as possible on a purely law-and-order approach to questions of policing, immigration enforcement, etc.
Verbruggen describes this as Trump choosing by issue whether to tack in a movement-conservative or populist direction; I’d say he’s picked people who matter for departments he cares about, and for departments he doesn’t care about he’s chosen people who don’t matter.
.. The big domestic policy question mark is whether Trump intends to keep his respective promises to repeal Obamacare and to protect Medicare and Social Security from cuts. Paul Ryan wants to help him keep the first promise and break the second.
Dave Brat Urges Delay on Speaker Vote; A ‘Better Way’ Did Not Animate This Historic Election
Before lawmakers cast their vote, candidates for GOP leadership ought to identify the specific policy agenda they plan to enact in response to the mandate that the American people gave Congress with the election of President-elect Donald Trump, Brat says.
Brat explained that Speaker Ryan’s “Better Way” agenda is not what “animated this historic insurgent election”.
.. “While I am a fan of much of the ‘Better Way’ agenda, it is not what fueled or animated this historic insurgent election,” Brat added. “’The Better Way’ is a very rational set of policy prescriptions put forward by Speaker Ryan, a policy expert, but our leadership has acknowledged that Trump saw something they missed. The ‘Better Way’ agenda has been in play for a year now– yet Trump saw something new. So what was it?
.. “While I am a fan of much of the ‘Better Way’ agenda, it is not what fueled or animated this historic insurgent election,” Brat added. “’The Better Way’ is a very rational set of policy prescriptions put forward by Speaker Ryan, a policy expert, but our leadership has acknowledged that Trump saw something they missed. The ‘Better Way’ agenda has been in play for a year now– yet Trump saw something new. So what was it?
.. We’re being asked to vote on the Speaker on our first full day back in D.C. And it is absurd to think that we have processed the full meaning and implications of this seismic election in less than a week.”
.. Why the rush? Let’s slow down, think and properly plan this so we get it right. Look at what happened in the last two years when we didn’t make our agenda absolutely clear to the American people. If we rush this Speaker election, the American people will feel manipulated once again. This is no time to undermine morale and do an end-run around them.
.. Conservatives have noted that Ryan’s personal policy agenda was “rejected” on November 8th– particularly his views on immigration, trade and crime. According to polling data, Ryan’s open borders vision on immigration and trade is opposed by roughly 9 in 10 GOP voters.
.. It is unclear whether members of the House Freedom Caucus and conservative lawmakers—including Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Jeff Duncan, Jim Bridenstine, Brian Babin, Steve King, Matt Salmon, Alex Mooney, Gary Palmer, Barry Loudermilk, John Fleming and others—who voted for Ryan last year, will vote to elect him again as House Speaker on Tuesday.
What Trump’s chief of staff pick says about his presidency
Whether it’s Priebus or Bannon — or a dark-horse candidate — Trump will send a big message with his selection.
Priebus is a Wisconsin political operative who has long been a close ally of House Speaker Paul Ryan, a relationship that would be crucial to any of the legislative priorities Trump has outlined thus far — from amending or repealing Obamacare to passing a massive infrastructure package.
.. But picking Priebus could provoke a revolt among Trump’s fervent supporters on the right, who thought they were voting for a president who wanted to “drain the swamp” of Washington — not stack his administration with the very people he vowed to overthrow.
.. Under Bannon’s guidance, Breitbart became a ferocious critic of Ryan’s tenure, casting him as a “saboteur” in favor of amnesty for undocumented immigrants and describing him as “universally despised” by conservatives. One article published under Bannon’s co-byline, headlined “Paul Ryan Betrays America: $1.1 Trillion, 2,000-Plus Page Omnibus Bill Funds ‘Fundamental Transformation of America’,” portrays the speaker as a sellout secretly working to boost Obama’s policies — complete with a photograph of a bearded Ryan posing with a grinning president.
.. Bannon reportedly described the mild-mannered House speaker as “the enemy” on conference calls, and once swatted down Breitbart staffers seeking a more conciliatory approach: “Long game is him gone by spring,” he wrote in one leaked email.
.. Many in the GOP establishment view Breitbart with scorn — not only for its scorched-earth attacks on fellow Republicans, but also for promoting views well outside the conservative mainstream.
.. Bannon’s own copious writings and commentary would likely come under intense scrutiny should Trump select him for any White House job, let alone chief of staff. In July, for instance, he weighed in on the racially charged topic of police shootings by musing: “[H]ere’s a thought: What if the people getting shot by the cops did things to deserve it? There are, after all, in this world, some people who are naturally aggressive and violent.”
.. Former Breitbart staffers have savaged their ex-boss for allegedly “verbally abusing supposed friends and threatening enemies,” though current employees