Ryan emerges bruised in role of arm-twister
For two days in January, all seemed right in the Republican Party. Gathered in Philadelphia for their annual congressional retreat, less than a week after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, lawmakers exulted in the possibilities of total government control, grinning through forums about an aggressive 200-day agenda that began with honouring a central campaign promise: repealing the Affordable Care Act.
Adult beverages flowed. Members were given Trump-themed socks. And the president showered praise on his most important partner, the man with the billwriting pen, the man who would find the votes.
“Speaker Paul Ryan — very, very special,” Trump said. “He is writing his heart out, right? And we’re actually going to sign the stuff that you’re writing.” “Now,” the president said, “it’s going to happen.”
It is not going to happen. At least not this time.
Less than 18 months after being elected speaker, Ryan has emerged from the defeat of the health-care bill badly damaged, retaining a grip on the job but left to confront the realities of his failure — imperilling the odd-couple partnership that was supposed to sustain a new era of conservative government under unified Republican rule.
So far, to the surprise of some close to Trump, the president has remained upbeat on Ryan, a frequent punching bag during the 2016 campaign and an ideological mismatch whose instincts informed the moulding and selling of the health bill far more than the president’s own.
But after a humiliating defeat, which many Trump advisers are eager to pin on the speaker, Ryan is now tasked with defending not just his leadership abilities but his very brand of conservatism in a party fitfully searching for a coherent policy identity that can deliver tangible victories.
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll get blamed,” Rep. Billy Long, Republican-Missouri. and a vocal Trump supporter, said of the speaker as he left the Capitol on Friday.
The episode not only demonstrated an inability to honour a long-standing pledge that powered Republicans through a string of election cycles.
It was also a remarkable setback for Ryan as the body’s principal arm-twister, in his first major test as the speaker under a Republican president.
“We were a 10-year opposition party, where being against things was easy to do,” Ryan said shortly after the bill was pulled, adding with uncharacteristic candour that Republicans were not yet prepared to be a “governing party.”
“We will get there,” Ryan said, “but we weren’t there today.” fallen on Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, who coordinated initial legislative strategy on the health-care bill with Ryan, his close friend, according to people briefed on the president’s recent discussions.