With the Republican Party falling apart, conservatives are mounting a rebellion against Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.
Several influential House conservatives are privately plotting ways to use the legislative calendar this fall to push their hard-line agenda — including quiet discussions about possibly mounting a leadership challenge to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan.
The group has gone so far as to float the idea of recruiting former House speaker Newt Gingrich or former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum as potential replacements for Ryan (R-Wis.) should there be a rebellion. The Constitution does not require that an elected member of the House serve as speaker.
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There is zero chance that a non-House member can oust Ryan. The point here is that there are currents within the Republican Party that have been brewing for more than a decade that is coming to the surface and tearing the GOP apart. Trump’s dysfunction combined with an internal civil war is a forming a crossfire that has Paul Ryan right in the middle.
Just as the far right was getting ready to squeeze Ryan, Trump made a deal with Democrats, which only served to outrage some Republicans and turn them more against the Speaker of the House. The pressure of trying to govern is exposing the weak spots within the party and causing the whole house of cards to topple in on itself.
The far right House Republicans want to bully their agenda through, but they couldn’t have picked a worse time for their power play.
Republicans have been crippled by their own dysfunction, but it looks it will be Paul Ryan who will take the fall.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
