Last week, Paul Ryan announced that he was taking a wait-and-see approach to supporting Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee. This week, he is watching his back, as Trump loyalists attempt to “convince” him to make up his mind—in their trademark style, of course —with a three-pronged attack on his RNC chairmanship, his House seat and role as Speaker.
Donald Trump himself has begun antagonizing Ryan over his lack of support for the New York businessman’s presidential run, threatening to remove Ryan as chairman of the Republican National Convention. If Ryan fails to endorse him, Trump says, “I’ll be very quick with the answer” as to whether he’d make a move to oust Ryan.
If Trump believes that forces within the party are actively working against his nomination—and how could he not, as rumors of a Cruz-led platform mutiny swirl, and the speaking schedule fills up with speakers lukewarm on the idea of Trump at the head of their party—it would be Trump’s prerogative to find a chairman more attuned to the “will of the people” (or at least one that voted for Trump). The RNC rules don’t specify who, exactly, chairs the convention, just that the chairman is nominated by the Permanent Organization committee, which could easily nominate anyone, if directed to by the RNC staff that usually guides the committee’s choice.
If challenged, Ryan would likely comply with Trump’s wishes:
After all, Ryan, who has already expressed a desire to disengage from Trump politically, probably wouldn’t want to preside over his nomination. And it’s also unlikely that the fractured GOP would want to start the convention with a public fight between Trump and Ryan.
But while the news is bad for Ryan on the RNC front, his home district primary challenger, Paul Nehlan, is likely to be nothing more than comic relief for the embattled House Speaker.
Nehlan is a political novice who, according to his LinkedIn profile, has spent most of his career “streamlining business processes” and shining up his motorcycle in sleeveless tee shirts —a pastime he featured in his first, hilarious campaign commercial:
The Styx-esque theme music really seals it, as do the cows in the background looking skeptically at the camera.
Nehlan, who has pledged to support Trump if he wins against Ryan, has an uphill battle ahead of him, and not just the six hours he’ll spend in a tattoo artists chair to fix those blown-out shoulder tattoos.
Ryan has an unheard of 75% in-district approval rating, and his district, Wisconsin 1, which sits right on the Wisconsin/Illinois border, went overwhelmingly for Cruz in the Wisconsin primary, 51% to 32%. Nehlan does have Sarah Palin’s endorsement going for him, though. And a way with winning the hearts and minds of his detractors on social media.
Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson has even been floating the idea that Ryan doesn’t “deserve” the honor of being Speaker of the House. But she seems to be the only one who feels that way. Ryan’s victory in the House was hard fought and built on compromise, and his fellow Congressmen don’t seem malleable to Trumpian edicts.