Sarah Palin sets her sights on ousting House Speaker Paul Ryan
Sarah Palin has a new project: Ousting House Speaker Paul D. Ryan over his reluctance to fall in line and support Donald Trump.
Palin announced Sunday she is backing the Wisconsin businessman challenging Ryan in Wisconsin’s GOP congressional primary in August. The goal, she said, was to dispatch the speaker the same way a little known upstart toppled former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014.
“I think Paul Ryan is soon to be ‘Cantored,’ as in Eric Cantor,” Palin said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“His political career is over but for a miracle because he has so disrespected the will of the people,” she said. “For him to already come out and say who he will not support is not a wise decision of his.”
It’s tough to gauge Palin’s influence these days. Once a kingmaker among the GOP’s tea party wing, the former vice presidential nominee has faded from the political spotlight.
Ryan has certainly faced challenges since taking over the speaker’s gavel last year after John A. Boehner’s sudden retirement. But he has been re-elected for almost 20 years.
Paul Nehlen, the Ryan challenger, who backs Trump, welcomed the unexpected attention.
Donald Trump flips again -- says his proposed tax cuts are just that, a proposal, not final product
Donald Trump offered fresh evidence Sunday that he is no typical candidate as he dismissed one of his key policy proposals — large tax cuts — as not likely to happen.
“Let me explain how the world works, okay?” Trump said on “Meet the Press.”
Trump went on to describe his proposal as a “floor,” a starting point for negotiations.
“I don’t think that’s going to be the final plan,” he said. “I put it in. But that doesn’t mean that’s what we’re going to get. We have to negotiate.”
The more likely outcome? Higher tax rates than he initially proposed for both the wealthy and business owners, he said.
“It’s called life,” he said. “It’s not my word, of course.”
The businessman’s shifting positions on key policy issues have fueled discomfort among Republicans, as the party struggles to unite around the presumed presidential nominee.
The divisions spilled into the open last week when House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said he could not yet support Trump. An avalanche of party leaders followed suit.
Ryan, perhaps the party’s leading policy guru — and an architect of tax cut proposals — and Trump are expected to meet in Washington this week.
But hopes are slim for a resolution to their substantial differences.
Bill Clinton delivers commencement address at Loyola Marymount
Former President Clinton delivered the commencement address Saturday morning at Loyola Marymount University, urging students to “set the world on fire” with their dreams and passions.
Clinton spoke at the ceremony attended by hundreds of undergraduates. His nephew Tyler Clinton was among them.
He told the Class of 2016 that they were “graduating in the most interdependent age in human history.”
“Whether we like it or not, for the rest of your lives, what happens to you will in some measure be determined by what happens to other people, by how you react to it, how they treat you, how you treat them and what larger forces are at work in the world.”