House Speaker Paul Ryan firmly set aside the anti-Donald Trump move to let GOP delegates vote their conscience on the party's presidential pick – declaring delegates knew the rules binding them to the presumptive nominee and must abide by them.
At
a CNN Town Hall hosted by Jake Tapper Tuesday, Ryan deflected a question from audience member Steve Lonegan, a New Jersey Republican, whom CNN describes as a supporter of a revolt to stop Trump from claiming the nomination.
"It is not my job as chairman of the convention to tell the delegates how to run their convention," the speaker told him.
But he also added: "When you run for delegate in whatever state you come from, you run on the terms of the conditions that you're state binds or does not bind those delegates."
"That's a contract," he said. "You ran knowing those things. That's the point I would make for people who ran for delegate – they ran knowing the rules of the road when they did so."
The remarks refute his own unease about Trump during an interview last month.
"The last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that's contrary to their conscience. Of course I wouldn't do that,"
Ryan said in an NBC interview.
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