The White House made it clear Tuesday it did not weigh in on the question increasingly discussed among House Republicans, whether Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., should keep his promise to step down as speaker after the November elections, or simply quit now and let his fellow Republicans elect a new speaker.
Newsmax asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders if the president agreed with the view of Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and other members of the conservative Freedom Caucus that Ryan should stay and let the new GOP House Members elected in the fall have a say in the election of a new speaker.
"I haven't spoken with him specifically about that statement," Sanders said. "So, I wouldn't want to weigh into that right now."
Sanders was subsequently pressed on the same question by Charlie Spiering of the Washington Times.
"Does the president back Speaker Ryan's decision to stay in office until after the election?" Spiering asked. "Or is he concerned that there may be a period of time when he's not getting as much done as he could, serving as a lame-duck speaker?
"[A]t this point," replied the president's top spokeswoman, "that's something for Speaker Ryan and members of Congress to make that determination, not something that the White House has weighed into at this point."
The speaker and the president have had an up-and-down relationship — from the 2016 election, when Ryan was openly critical of his party's presidential nominee and even disinvited him from his Wisconsin district — to a cordial working relationship, in which Ryan once praised what he called Trump's "exquisite presidential leadership."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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