Transcripts For CNNW At This Hour With Berman And Bolduan 20160512

Primary. So stand by for a key race alert any minute now. Youre looking at live pictures from the capitol where any minute now House Speaker paul ryan, he will hold a press conference. This comes after his First Official facetoface actually two facetofaces with the presumptive nominee. Facestofaces is harder to say. Its like attorneys general. Im not sure what the right plural is. Reince priebus hosted the meet and groo eet and called the meeg great and a positive step toward unity but what will paul ryan say . Thats so crucial. It comes a week after he dropped that bombshell on cnn that he is not yet ready to back donald trump. Year joined for this big event by cnn chief Political Correspondent dana bash who is live outside the rnc headquarters where these meetings just took place. Cnn senior political reporter manu radio. You is inside the capitol. First to dana, what are you hearing . Reporter ill tell what you were seeing, donald trump and his motorcade just drove by here. He was all smiles through his window though. He was all smiles and waving as he left. So it doesnt sound like that would be the face and the reaction from somebody who didnt have a very good meeting. But my understanding is that, first of all, the initial meeting, there were two meetings inside here, first was just with donald trump, the rnc chair Reince Priebus, and also with the speaker, paul ryan. The three of them met for about an hour, just the three of them. No aides, no staff, and i can just tell you on this leading up to this meeting, i am told by a source familiar with the process that Reince Priebus spent a lot of time talking to donald trump. Every day, sometimes multiple times a day. To be fair not just about this meeting, but about the fact that the Republican National committee has to now join forces with donald trump and his campaign, but that Reince Priebus also kind of got back and tried to have conversations with his old friend, paul ryan. The two of them go back a long time in Wisconsin Republican politics. So my sense is that Reince Priebus was really the bridge, the gobetween between these two men who really didnt know each other. Then the next meeting, and i can just tell you and as im talking to you im going to pull this up on my phone here, some reporting that i just got about that meeting, and that is, this is acovereding to a source in the room, that paul ryan made clear to trump on what trump needs to understand. Now, what is that, according to this source, paul ryan said to trump, there are a lot of people who voted against you and you need to unify. Ryan also discussed what is near and dear to his heart, which is, of course, the budget and the idea of entitlements, meaning sos securi Social Security and medicare, ryan said you need to change Social Security or medicare or there cant be a balanced budget moving forward, and also im told there was a focus on judges, which is obviously historically a big issue for conservatives, the conservative base, and although the house doesnt have anything to do with confirming judges, the rank and file and the conservative base certainly is very interested in that. But the fact that, again, according to this source familiar with the meeting, the fact that rn seemed to hold firm, particularly on medicare and Social Security which are two areas where we just know from covering donald trump through the primary season, from our debates, he has been very cautious about wanting to change those programs, critical even of paul ryans plans to do so, but apparently ryan made clear, look, we cant do anything about this budget unless those big highcost entitlements are dealt with. The reality check here for everyone, dana, in covering paul ryan, you know it would be another bombshell if paul ryan then all of a sudden turned around his position on entitlements. That is one thing if you know anything about him that he will never change on. Reporter he wont. He wont. And i dont think there was any expectation that he would change. I think that the question is from his perspective whether or not he could, you know, have a discussion with donald trump and let him know that this is a really big, important difference between the two, and not just between him and donald trump, but paul ryan had been the one who came up with the budget that really changed both of those programs, particularly actually both of them, and it was something that most of the rank and file in the house, republicans only, signed onto, so that is a huge policy difference between the two bodies, if you will. Absolutely. Dana, great to see you. Lets go from outside the Capitol Building into the capitol where were waiting any minute were going to be hearing from paul ryan himself. Manu raju is just steps from the Speakers Office actually at the will rogers. Manu, what are you expecting . What were you picking up from your sources . What are we going to hear from paul ryan . I think were going to hear a pretty positive message. Thats what were picking up from sources familiar with the meeting, that this was a good meeting. Its interesting danas reporting shows the differences that were highlighted. Internally, it will be interesting to see how donald trump responded to what paul ryan had to say, but i should note that going into the meeting paul ryan made it very clear that there are different bodies of thought within the Republican Party. He tried to make this sound like theres a big tent Republican Party, there are different wings. He represents a different wing than druonald trump and theyre not going to agree on a lot of policy issues, entitlement reform, immigration clearly another. Those are issues on paul ryans mind, issues close to him, but from what im gathering, that this was a rather productive meeting, not just from Reince Priebuss tweet, from people in the rnc seemed to feel pretty positive about it. Were expecting a statement from paul ryan any minute now talking about what happened before he actually goes and addresses the media, so we should get more of his thinking, but clearly paul ryan also feeling pressure from a lot of heiss colleagis collea manu, manu, stand by. Stand by, manu. In our email box as you were talking, we got a joint statement from House Speaker paul ryan and donald trump. That headline in itself is interesting. A joint speaker, its long but i think i should read the whole thing. The United States cannot afford another four years of the Obama White House which is what Hillary Clinton represents. That is why its critical that republicans unite around our shared principles, advance a conservative agenda, and do all we can to win this fall. With that focus, we had a great conversation this morning. While we were honest about our few differences, we recognize there are also many important areas of Common Ground. We will be having additional discussions but remain confident theres a great opportunity to unify our party and win this fall, and we are totally committed to working together to achieve that goal. We are extremely proud of the fact that many of millions of new voters have entered the primary system, far more than ever before in the Republican Partys history. This was our first meeting, but it was a very positive step towards unification. I see a lot of words there like unity, Common Ground unification. Joint statement. It was great. Everything is okay. Everything will be fine. Exactly. Lets tus b discuss this right now. Lets discuss this with cnn political commentator doug heye, cnns chief political analyst gloria borger, Senior Adviser Barry Bennett and cnn politics executive editor mark preston. So we have this statement, unity, unity, unity, it will be fine. What do you think, gloria . And were going to unite around a conservative agenda which i think is important to paul ryan, and it also spoke about their few differences. Not their many differences, but their few differences, and said theyre going to meet again. So what weve been saying today is actually true, which is that this is the beginning of many meetings. I dont think you know, i think they mapaid homage to the millions of new voters that donald trump has brought into the system and to the primary system. I think that was very important to donald trump to say that and to acknowledge that, and theyve got to be on the same page eventually because they need to mobilize their voters to go to the polls this fall, and you cannot do that if youre a hugely divided party along any line. Doug heye, did paul ryan just sort of endorse donald trump . Im sorry, this is a statement he put out a statement with donald trump. He put out a statement with donald trump talking about their unity and all their Common Ground. I guess what he did not do is say im definitely voting for him and endorsing him but he did everything short. You could say its a kind of, sort of endorsement. Were getting to the endorsement. To glorias point about them trying to get on the same page a joint statement is the same page. So this is i think the big significant thing. If they werent on the same page, wed hear a good productive dialogue from paul ryan, trump might have said it was a big beautiful meeting or whatever, but this gets them on that glide path to where paul ryans always wanted to go, but its also one cautionary note, its not just about issues. Its about tone. Its one of the big things that paul ryan and his office have been telling people all week. Its something orrin hatch and other senators will bring up in the meeting in the senate today. Barry, the few differences, but few can also mean great differences. I mean, if theyre talking about the few differences are on entitlements, the few differences are on banning all muslims from entering the country, there might be few in number, but they could be huge between these two. Do you not see that . No, i dont think its a big deal at all. You dont . No. I know youre surprised. You can fix entitlements without hurting anyone and thats what donald trump wants to do. Donald trump says he doesnt want to change Social Security. No change means no fix. It means its perfect as itself. He says no fix, correct . We dont want to hurt anyone. Thats the key. We dont want to hurt people. If you can come up with a change that doesnt hurt anyone, then, you know, no one is going to object, right . Donald trump until yesterday i think would have objected. I feel like the donald trump in the primaries would have. The donald trump who said i wont change Social Security. Its my absolute intention to leave Social Security the way it is, not increase the age, leave it as is. If you can fix it and not hurt those people and those issues, then lets do it, and we can. Then you would have won the pulitzer because why wouldnt that have been done . Mark, youre itching to say something. Can i take like seven different threads and tie this together here . Please. Lets see this. Its like a promise ring. There was a promise ring we saw today. Theyre dating. They havent quite got engaged. Theyre going to eventually get married. Thats what we saw today. Thats what happened in the last hour. Its a promise ring. Promise to continue talking, probably get engaged,en and the well get married. Berman is dying over there. Its my favorite thing youve ever said in my life. And ive known you for a while. This is awesome. Number two, barry, with all due respect, we all know donald trump is going to say what he needs to say. He says hes not a politician but he is a politician of all politician. Hes willing to adapt, to change his where he is on the issues, and were going to see that on Social Security. Theres no question we will, right, because the way its laid out right now its not going to work. I think barry is right when he says they dont want to hurt anybody, but theres a certain way you got to get there. And i will say this for donald trump, he did go to washington. He went on their turf. He went to their buildings. He did go down there with an olive branch. That takes a lot i think for donald trump to do as opposed to making them come to new york and to sit down with him. Let me ask barry this because if donald trump compromises too much with the Establishment Republicans on capitol hill, whom his supporters despise right. Doesnt that hurt his brand . Well, hes not going to compromise, right . But i mean he only cares about hurting people. We cant hurt people through entitlement reform. If we can find a way to do it that doesnt hurt anyone, then we should do it. What about paul ryans brand . Youre asking about Donald Trumps brand. Does this hurt paul ryans brand, which is, look, its been pretty squeaky clean for a long time now in many conservative circles. Hes navigated a lot of issues. Remember, he didnt want to be speaker but they loved him so much he had to be speaker. Now, he didnt want to support donald trump, hes not ready to endorse, there are things that dont represent conservative principles like the muslim ban but now there are it is shark infested and theres blood in the water and thats a can stand weve seen over the past couple years. I think this is a very good step for paul ryan but also speaks to why he says that this is the beginning of the process. One of the concerns that a lot of republicans have is that they may get an agreement on pick your issue with trump, but then in an interview the next day he may come to a different position or a different position the day after. And its that lack of consistency that i think on issues give a lot of republicans pause. Here is one of the questions that we were actually batting around this morning. Paul ryan billed this as a getting to know you session, but what does that mean getting to know you . Truly . Its like an arranged marriage. Theres some reality show an arranged marriage. Trying to bring everyone together. You are unity. The Republican Party is all about family and what have you. Is it like a dating game . It is what it is. I have a question for doug. Doug, im curious about this statement. Again, talking about a joint statement from paul ryan and donald j. Trump. If you have worked in congress and for members, when was this statement written, who wrote it, when would it have been signed off upon . I could almost imagine this being written before the meeting in some ways. This was an inevitability but how do you think it got from beginning to end. You have three or four statements in the can ready to go based on how things in the meeting go. So i think brenden buck who we all know is that why hes not returning my emails . That may be one of the reasons. There may be several. There were certainly several statements and then the question is which one do we go with . And thats the difficult thing if youre the press staffer outside of the room. You have to be told which statement to go to and whether or not you have to change the statement thats agreed to at the last second. And barry, you work for donald j trump, would he have had to sign off on the language of the specific statement. Absolutely. In negotiating these things which i spent a lifetime doing, was hard. The fact it was done so quickly suggests that reince probably played a pretty good role in this. Thats where all the conversations were in the last few days. Theres something in here for everyone. Trump brought in all these voters. We have few differences are you surprised this statement came out . Of course not. We knew they werent going to say, look, mom and dad, we arent getting married. I need one more. You knew they were going to come out and as far as brands go, you talk about paul ryan what is the reality though . What is the reality . Its the new normal which by the way is the new phrase in washington right now. The new normal is donald trump, is the republican nominee. But to brand donald trump right now is still antiwashington, antiestablishment. There is the olive branch. He did go down on their turf. Paul ryan to his point, too, has gone out there and he hasnt capitulated or caved. The reality is they all need each other. Do they really . In the longterm yes. They do to a great degree. They want to motivate their voters. Paul ryan wants to make sure he continues to have a Republican House. The senators want to make sure they have a republican senate. Donald trump is going to be at the top of the ticket and it gets a lot more difficult to bring out your base voters if donald trump is in a fight with the Republican Party. It doesnt help their troops one wit. So they have to find a way to make some kind of peace with donald trump. By the way, donald trump does too. This is probably like casserole for donald trump. He doesnt need this. But, but, you know, he was blindsided he felt by ryans statement legitimately. Right . And he didnt want to get out there and continue to have a fight with paul ryan. I dont think that does him any good, does it, barry . Wait a second, barry, his son just last night, yes, wed love to have paul ryan. We dont need him. We dont need his endorsement. I at first when this all started going down i was like, of course, donald trump needs paul ryan. He needs the republican House Speaker in line with him. Thats long term. Short term though, they say you dont need him . We want him. We want him. Thats the key. We want him. Can we win the presidency without paul ryan . Of course we could. But that doesnt mean thats the path we want to go. But look at what he does for the house and senate. Look at pennsylvania. Look at ohio. I got a bit of data yesterday it was astounding. In youngstown, ohio, mahoning county, before the primary there were 16,000 registered republicans. After the primary, 38,000 registered republicans. That gets rob portman reelected. The same thing is happening in pittsburgh and thats what gets to toomey reelected. Its going to help those guy approximates. Theres the other issue which is cash and i want to get to that in a second. We are waiting to hear from paul ryan. Paul ryan set to speak at the capitol. We just got this joint statement with donald trump. We can expect theyll say more along those lines, a lot of unity, a lot of Common Ground. He often takes questions at these press conservativeses afe thats where the interesting parts begin. Well be right back. Speaker ryans first comments after his high stakes meeting with drurp. There is a lot to discuss. I want to bring in jim geraghty, Mary Katherine ham, jackie kucini kucinich, and kevin sherton. Jim, i want to start with you. You work for the National Review which made it its reason deet tray. Now that you hear paul ryan, the highest elected republican official in the land talk about unity and Common Ground and how great this meeting was, is this what you wanted to see from paul ryan . Theyre all going to sell out eventually. You know, when the rick perrys and bobby gjindals of the world who said you cant trust donald trump with nuclear weapons, hes a mad man who needs to be stopped oh, never mind, hes better than Hillary Clinton. Ultimately every republican will fall in line. There will be a few exceptions. Weve had the biggest summit since malta. If they didnt go too far on the first day, eventually there will be more dates down the road. The theme continues, jim. Well done. Thank you. Ever see an old movie where two guys who hate each other are handcuffed together and they have to run away from the cops or Something Like that, thats ryan and trump right now. They at least recognize neither one of them is going to get what they want unless the other does well. Mary katherine, get in on this. Jim says everyone eventually will sell out. Theyll all kind of turn around on positions where they said hes horrible, hes horrible, forget about it. One of those issues could be on releasing his taxes. This was a big issue amongst his rivals during the primary. Ganging up on him saying release your taxes, release your taxes. What are they going to say now . That lasted 1 1 2 news cycles and then we moved on to whatever thing trump had said the next day. Mitt romney is a guy bringing it up because hes not running for anything. Jim is right that many of these guys will line up behind trump. Here is the other thing, paul ryan cracks me up because hes the guy in clarks who is like im not even supposed to be here today. He didnt want this job. He didnt want to be the highest elected republican in the country, and then he gets this conundrum dropped in his lap, guess who we nominated . A very prominent democratic donor who does not get down with entitlement reform, have fun. Like this is the thing that hes dealing with. Its really a remarkable turn of events. You know, its very interesting to see as you say, paul ryan and the situation he is and jim gareraghty saying hel sell out. One guy who hasnt yet is mitt romney, the guy who picked paul ryan to be his running mate. He is just still going nuts on donald trump right now. He was pushing on the tax returns. He put out a statement yesterday on the tax returns on facebook saying theres only one logical explanation for why he didnt do it, blah, blah, blah. We can only assume its a bombshell of unusual size. First of all, jackie, is that a Princess Bride reference . Kind of amazing. Right . I always associate Princess Bride is ted cruz now so its kind of confusing. You could not pick two more opposite people than mitt romney and donald trump in so many ways. Youll remember mitt romney was hounded for his taxes and he eventually released them. This is something he has to deal with in his race and hes seeing donald trump get away with im being audited, what do you expect me to do . But i think the biggest challenge for the republicans who do decide to endorse donald trump is keeping up with his positions. We saw reports coming from this meeting that the muslim ban that he talked about was just a suggestion. Its just hard to keep track of where he is day to day and theyre going to have to defend, whether they like it or not, theyre going to have to defend what their standard bearer says once they endorse him. By the way, sorry, jackie, i didnt mean to interrepresent you. I think thats whats going on here, paul ryan is attempting to negotiate art of the deal style. Im not giving you my endorsement youre going to have to work out but the problem as jackie points out is that his positions on issues change from day to day depending how donald trump feels, so i dont think his word is good if he says hes going to give you something. Right. Is kevin sherton with us . I dont see him in our shot mix. Kevin sherton, in the flesh. Kevin, mitt romney is your former boss. You worked for him. What do you think hes trying to do here . Well, i cant speak for what mitt romney wants to do. I think its different for people who are out of office now that arent seeking another office necessarily to speak their mind and, you know, hes a party elder at this point. He can say what he wants. I think paul ryan is trying to provide the space for his members who are kind of, you know, in three different places on whether or not they can actually get behind trump, whether or not they can actually support him. And god forbid, defend his daily statements. I think this is why everybody is kind of just pausing, theyre taking a minute, theyre trying to provide the space to be able to go forward with their own campaigns and let donald trump go forward with his and try not to kevin, stand by for one minute. Kevin, stand by. We want to get straight to dana bash outside the Republican National Committee Headquarters. I think dana has a very, very big guest right now. Dana . Reporter thats right. Were actually inside the Republican National Committee Headquarters with the rnc chair Reince Priebus. Whats the headline . I think the headline is positive first step toward unifying our party. It was a great meeting, and thats the only way it can be described. Reporter that doesnt tell us a lot. It doesnt but thats because it was a private meeting in my office and im not going to talk about the specifics other than to say things were discussed that were specific. It was a cooperative meeting. It was mutually i think cooperative and positive and thats the only way you can describe it. Reporter my understanding is you have spent a lot of time over the past week on the phone with donald trump, talking to him almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day. You talked a lot to your old friend paul ryan, you guys have known each other since way back from Wisconsin Republican politics. To be the Bridge Builder here. Is that how you feel . I think its an Important Role for the party. Unifying the party should be no surprise to anyone that thats one of the jobs of being the chairman of the Republican Party. Its important to be unified. Reporter but its not usually this hard. This was not a usual election. I mean, it was a very contentious, tough primary, and obviously no one can deny that. Something that a lot of us havent been through. Reporter do you feel like a couples therapist . You know, you wouldnt say that if you were in the room. It was very it was great, and i think it had very Good Chemistry twren the tbetween th them. Reporter i cant imagine two more different kinds of people than donald trump and paul ryan. They had Good Chemistry . It was positive, it was give and take, and it was also something that i think if anyone was a fly on the wall would agree with everything that im saying. Reporter but you are the fly on the wall so what else can you tell us . I cant say a whole lot else. I have to honor confidentiality. Im not going to say a peep about any specifics reporter did they discuss tone and toner, the things that ryan has said publicly hes not thrilled with, the policy differences, both . I hate to spoil the fun but im not going to get into the details other than to say that it was a meeting that i think went as well as i would have hoped. Reporter as i toss it back, you expect an endorsement soon from paul ryan now . Look, like i said, it was a great first step toward unifying the party, and i think if you read both of the statements that came out of Speakers Office and Donald Trumps campaign, they echo the same feeling. Reporter mr. Chairman, thank you very much for taking the time. That was great. Dana bash labeled Reince Priebus, hes not only chairman of the rnc, also a fly on the wall. Dana, thank you. Lets discuss this and the very latest on what is going on with everyone here. Doug, when Reince Priebus says there were things discussed that were specific, what do you think paul ryan specifically wanted to discuss and then obviously what did trump want to discuss . I would say two things. One, issues like entitlement reform, Social Security to be really specific about it. Two, the broader attitudinal things weve seen from trump and his campaign that cause real concern for a lot of republicans. If eric cantor was when you worked for him, if eric cantor was sitting in on this meeting and hes sitting across the table, is eric cantor is this leader of the Republican Party, are you laying out where we stand or is it just a discussion . Like how do you think this played out . Its both. Paul ryan obviously has been putting out a positive agenda that he wants to campaign on for House Republicans because his job, we talk about the troops in the field for as republican voters, hes also got house of representatives members hes concerned about with their reelections. A lot of republicans in the house and senate are being attacked for saying they will support the nominee. Kelly ayotte and john mccain being two. You say they talked about specifics. I was listening to the interviews, if you did a word cloud, unify, great, positive, great, chemistry. It is very important it seems to ranz prie Reince Priebus to give the impression it was a great, positive meeting. Hes trying to unify his party. Hes trying to raise money. Hes trying to win the election, and if you have a speaker of the house who is at war with the nominee, its not good for people running down ticket, first of all. You cant you cant be successful in keeping the house and keeping the senate if youve got a divided party at the top. So i think here it was mutually cooperative because there is mutual self interest here, and, you know, politicians are motivated to have a self interest. Lets be honest. Donald trump didnt want to be at this meeting except he felt he got blindsided by the House Speaker, so he needed to be there because it is in his self interest to have Reince Priebus make peace and help and it needs to be positive though. It needs to be and they have to find some kind of Mutual Ground because, as doug points out, you know, ryan has really worked hard on this agenda for House Republicans, and he wants donald trump to be aware of just what they are running on because they have committed on a lot of this stuff and they cant have their candidate disagreeing with them. Entitlements is the key area. If paul ryan is going in with spes that were discussed, and thats like the one specific we got from reince there is that they did touch on specifics, what specifically. Specifically. Mutually. Paul ryan is going to the podium right now. From drug overdoses than car accidents. Let me say this again, we have more of our fellow citizens dying from drug overdoses than they die of car accidents. Today the house continues to work on legislation to address the heroin and Opioid Epidemic across this country. And for those of you who were at our press conference yesterday, you heard from susan brooks and bob dole, authors of two of these initiatives. All told by the end of this week we are acting on 18 bills to deal with this. I will actually be signing one of them today. It is s32, the transnational Drug Trafficking act. This allows prosecutors to go after drug traffickers in Foreign Countries if we believe their drugs will make it to our shores. That is going to the president s desk today. But one reason we call this an epidemic is because it cuts across all demographics. It affects families everywhere in america. Take youth athletes. Youth athletes get injured, and then theyre prescribed some medication. Before they know it, they are on the path to dependency and addiction. Yesterday we passed a bill introduced by pat meehan of pennsylvania to help families and students deal with these dangers. You can also be born with a dependency. This is the saddest story of them all. That actually happens every 25 minutes in this country. These babies struggle to eat or even breathe. Yesterday we passed a bill introduced by evan jenkins of West Virginia to help protect infants and to make sure that they get a healthy start. The next step here is that we will take all of these bills we are passing out of the house and go to a Conversation Committee with the senate. Then we intend to send the bill to the president s desk, and i hope that each and every one of you will be back here when we sign this bill. This Opioid Epidemic is something we have to get on top of. Im very proud of the republicans and democrats that have come together to address this situation because this really is about peoples lice. It is about whole communities that are being torn apart, and i believe we can win this fight and we must. Questions . Chad . Thank you. Ive been reading the joint statement that you and mr. Trump put out a few minutes ago. I know this is a first meeting but all i can divine out of that statement is you just want to beat Hillary Clinton. That is true, we do want to beat Hillary Clinton. That cant be the only point of unity here. Youre having trouble passing a budget here in the house. What makes you think you can get on board with some of the things that donald trump is talking about when it comes to let me say this, i think we had a very encouraging meeting. Look, its no secret that donald trump and i have had our differences. We talked about those differences today. Thats common knowledge. The question is what is it that we need to do to unify the Republican Party and all strains of conservative wings in the party. We had a very good and endourgeing, productive conversation on how to do that. It was important we discussed our differences that we have but it was also important that we discussed the Core Principles that tie us all together. Principles like the constitution, the separation of powers, the fact that we have an executive that is going way beyond the boundaries of the constitution and how its important to us that we restore article 1 of the constitution. Its the principle of self government. We talked about life and how strongly we feel about this core principle. We talked about the Supreme Court and things like this. I was very encouraged with what i heard from donald trump today. I do believe that we are now planting the seeds to get ourselves unified, to bridge the gaps and differences, and so from here were going to go deeper into the policy areas to see where that Common Ground is and how we can make sure that we are operating off the same Core Principles and so, yes, this is our first meeting. I was very encouraged with this meeting but this is a process. It takes a little time. You dont put it together in 45 minutes. So that is why we had, like i said, a very good start to a process on how we unify. You dont think that its an issue jonathan. Mr. Speaker, i read that statement as well. Im still a little confused. Are you endorsing donald trump . If youre not what is holding you back and do you really have a choice . The process of unifying the Republican Party, which just finished a primary about a week ago, perhaps one of the most divisive primaries in memory, takes some time. Look, there are people who were for donald trump, who were for ted cruz, for john kasich, who were for marco rubio and everybody else, and its very important that we dont fake unifying, we dont pretend unification. That we truly and actually unify so we are full strength in the fall. I dont want us to have a fake unification process here. I want to make sure that we really, truly nunderstand each other and were committed to the conservative problems that make the republican, that built this country, and, again, im very encouraged. I heard a lot of good things from our presumptive nominee and we exchanged differences of opinion on a number of things Everybody Knows we have. There are policy disputes we will have. Theres no two ways about it, plenty of republicans disagree with one another on policy disputes, but on Core Principles, those are the kinds of things we discussed, and, again, im encouraged. Craig . Do you expect to endorse him . I think this is going in a positive direction and i think this is a first very encouraging meeting, but again in 45 minutes you dont litigate all of the processes and all the issues and the principles that we are talking about. I didnt catch that. Can you offer any assurances that he would change or moderate . Look, i think its important that the kind of conversation we had is between the two of us and no offense, but i dont want to litigate our conversation through the media because i think when youre beginning to get to know someone, you have a good conversation of trust between each other. So i want to keep the things we discussed between the two of us because theyre very important and they were personal in some senses and that means we talked about what it takes to unify, where our differences were, and hour we can bring these gaps Going Forward so that were strong as a party going into the fall. Wong. Mr. Trump reiterate a desire to see you as the chairman at the convention in cleveland and is that a role you still want . He did. I am the speaker of the house. I am happy to serve in this capacity at the chair of our convention if our presumptive nominee wants me to do so. Its the delegates who technically headache that decision but i would honor the decision of our presumptive nominee. To what extent based on his past statements do you think hes committed to reduce as you are the scope and size of [ inaudible ] and what did you think of his personality . I thought he had a very good personality. I met him for like 30 seconds in 2012. So we really dont know each other, and we started to get to know each other. So i actually had a very Pleasant Exchange with him. Thats point number one. Point number two, look, there are things we really believe in as conservatives. We believe in limited government. We believe in the constitution. We believe in the proper role of the differences in the operation of powers. We believe in things like life. Not everyone is prochoice in our party and accept all comers but were a majority Prolife Party and these are things that are important to us, and so we just had a Good Exchange of views. I think hes over having the same conversation with the senate right now. Our leaders met with him and everybody expressed opinions and exchanged ideas and so the point of this is i think were off to an encouraged start. It is important that we get ourselves to full strength so we can win in the fall because the stakes could not be higher but it takes more than 45 minutes, mark. Specifically on reducing the size of government, youre someone we discussed those issues at great detail. Mr. Speaker, you have defined modern conservatism along the lines of entitlement reform, protrade, and immigration, both on the muslim ban and dealing with the issue comprehensively. When you say few problems in this joint statement, arent you papering over those rather sizable differences in not only how conservatism is defined broadly but how you have tried to define it for this house conference . So i represent a wing of the conservative party you could say. He brings hes bringing a whole new wing to it. Hes bringing new voters we havent had for decades. Thats a positive thing. The point though is can we agree on the common Core Principles that unite all of us . We will have policy disputes. Theres no two ways about that. All republicans do. Mitt romney and i didnt agree on everything in 2012, so we will have policy disputes. Im not interested in litigating the past. I am interested in Going Forward and seeing where that Common Ground exists to make sure that we can have a unified Republican Party that, yes, there will be different republicans that have different views on various policy ideas. The question is can we unify on common Core Principles that make our party and by the way the principles that built this country and im very encouraged that the answer to that question is yes. One more over here. Hi, speaker ryan. Sorry, the lady first. You just mentioned the millions of new voters and hes bringing in new people. I was wondering how you actually interpret his success. Is it going to mean the real fundamental realignment of the party because of the new voters hes bringing in. Just how do you interpret his success . Its really unparalleled i think. He has gotten more votes than any republican primary nominee in the history of our country, and this isnt even over yet. He hasnt even gone to like california yet. So its really a remarkable achievement. So the question is, and this is what we think we can be a party to helping, how do we unify it all. So this is really a big and growing movement. How do we keep adding and adding and adding voters while not subtracting any voters, and to me that means a positive vision based on Core Principles, taking those principles, applying them to the problems facing our country today and offering people positive solutions and speaking to people where they are in life, addressing their anxieties and show that we have a better plan. Look, here is what we agree on. A Hillary Clinton presidency would be a disaster for this country. Its effectively a third obama term, and the other thing we all know is most americans do not like where this country is headed. Seven out of ten americans think america is on the wrong track. We agree with that. So the question is can we unify around our common principles to offer the country a compelling and clear choice and agenda Going Forward so that the men and women of this nation get a real and honest choice about how to fix this country and get us on a better track . And i am very encouraged that we can put that together. Ill go one more in the back. You got here late. I heard your Statement Last week on cnn. That donald trump was not ready to support your agenda. Did he change his mind today . Did he say hes supportive of that . We talked about all of these issues and our policy teams are meeting to just walk through details. So, again, this is a process. We just began the process. Im very encouraged at the first meeting of this process and Going Forward were going to go a little deeper into the policy weeds to make sure that we have a better understanding of one another. All right. Thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it. All right. You have seen the speaker of the house, paul ryan, describing what took place in a series of two meetings he just had with the Presumptive Republican nominee, donald trump. He called the meetings very encouraging. He said they talked about the Core Principles they share and importantly, he said he liked donald trump. He said he had a good personality. Hes a warm and genuine person. They talked about their differences, they talked about, again, where they think they could maybe work on finding Common Ground, planting the seeds i believe he put it on how to bridge the gaps and the differences between the two. Gloria borger is still here, doug heye, mark preston, and Barry Bennett with the donald Trump Campaign. Its great to have you sticking here with us. Mark, what is your takeaway from what you heard from paul ryan. Fascinating. Lets just tie it back to the marriage thing. Please. Basically why dont we . This is an exciting time in the relationship. Theyre getting to know each other, theyre going to go on another date and what have you, but the bottom line is this is a shotgun wedding. They didnt realize this was going to happen and theres going to be no honeymoon period. There isnt enough time for there to be a honeymoon period. Theyre just going to get through this, quite frankly, and as gloria has said and doug has said and barry has said as well, House Republicans and Senate Republicans need donald trump just as much as donald trump needs them. If they leave donald trump alone at the top of the ticket to get destroyed in key states, then thats really going to hurt the down ballot candidates. Gloria, who moved more here . We havent heard from donald trump yet so we dont know what kind of language hes going to use, but paul ryan seemed to have moved a lot, frankly. What i heard from paul ryan was trying to figure out a way to get to yes, okay . And what he was talking about was Core Principles. So he went very broad. The constitution. As in the constitution, as kate says, separation of powers, and prolife. Its hard to get more broad than that kind of if youre a republican. And if youre conservatives, those are things that if youre prolife, some arent, but if youre a conservative, the constitution and separation of powers is pretty easy to say yes to. If youre liberal, the constitution is easy to say yes to also. And separation of powers because they all object to Barack Obamas executive actions. So he said the staffs are going to get more into the policy and the weeds, but this was a meeting, i think, for them to find out where they can agree coming out of this meeting, and so they came out with this broad sort of set of Core Principles. So he could say, well, i like donald trump, and by the way, he and i agree on the broadest possible outline of what the Republican Party stands for. On who moved more and on the issue of talking about their differences, talking about where theyre similar, i have got to ask you because has donald trump moved on the muslim ban, barry . Now he said last night the muslim ban was a suggestion. Was that to do that, was he doing that ahead of the meeting for a reason . No, no, no. What he said is until we can figure out the good guys from the bad guys, we should stop allowing people to come into our country. That is originally what he said. Last night he said it was a suggestion. Last night they were talking to him about exceptions. What about the london mayor, what about the amir, what about all these folks . Of course you have to make exceptions for those people, but what we need to do is fix our immigration system. Not try to ban people from the country. What hes trying to say is until we have an immigration system that works, were putting ourselves at risk foolishly. Were joined by Mary Katharine ham. You listened to this whole event we just listened to as well. Paul ryan was asked specifically does this mean you are now endorsing donald trump . Are you supporting donald trump . He did not answer that question. He chose to dodge and weave around that question, but does that even matter . Now that hes come as far as he has right now and talked about the fact that he finds donald trump a warm and genuine person, he talked about their encouraging meeting and how they both believe in Core Principles, is an endorsement even significant at this point . Here is my thought on this. Hes doing this for two reasons. Hes slow walking this because it is a weird unification process. On both sides of the party the outsider candidates just joined the party. We shouldnt be that surprised that this isnt a normal unification process on either side. So there is a reason for sort of making this a process if he wants to actually come to some agreement. I have disagreements about how much agreement you can come to with a guy who i dont think has those core beliefs and whose feelings change all the time as to what he believes. But as to johns metaphor, paul ryan two times now has gotten two days of coverage of the positive agenda that the Republican House wants to put forward using the enticement of donald trump and the conversation theyre having. I think well see some engagement photo shoots, a lot of Facebook Action about these two coming together and doing it in a slow way so that he can continue to get that coverage. Doug, on this endorsement, does it matter at this point or not, and he talked about, you know, hes getting closer, hes kind of laying the groundwork. You cant fake unification is how paul ryan put it. Is paul ryan in a stronger position if he gets on board now or if is he in a stronger position if he gets on board later . Because whoever or later . Bhie are you holding out is a legitimate question. I think paul ryan feels he is in a stronger position by having this process play out longer. One thing i think he did that was pretty interesting is he proactively removed a big piece of leverage that donald trump had saying if donald trump doesnt want me to be chairman of the convention he can do that. One challenge is not just about an endorsement. A lot of people throughout the country elected republican senators and members of congress will say very milk toast fashion i will support the nominee. That is not an enthusiastic endorsement. There is not a lot of enthusiam from the broader coalition. We heard from paul ryan talk about the fact that they share Core Principles. Mary katherine saying she is not so sure about that. Bill crystal tweeted this saying this is one of the most depressing press conferences i have ever seen. Pretty interesting to hear. Bill crystal is still very committed to finding a third way and continuing to oppose donald trump. I think any speaker of the house that would be in this position will be in a really tough position because he has members for, against and thinking about how they can come on board with this. We dont know how that looks. If we can get on board and build a unity ticket around some shared principles as broad as you can make them which you were saying you have to kind of widen the lens to get to the very most basic things about our party, then we are going to try to do that. If donald trump is out and starts saying things that we cant support then maybe that falls apart at some point during this summer or fall. At this point this is what they should be doing. On the everyone had said in one way or another a positive first step. How many steps are there in this process . Do you have any idea or any guess . Its a great question because this is ort of beta. When was the last time you had a speaker of the house have to say im really trying to support my partys nominee for president . This hasnt happened since i have been around covering this stuff. It is hard to say. I dont know if it is a grief step thing or it is hard to say. It is interesting. He said this is paul ryans every day until november. Patrick healy of the New York Times joins us now. Paul ryan talked about unity and Core Principles and this being a first step. This isnt going to go away for paul ryan and in some ways is this the only answer you expect he will give between now and november . I think paul ryan wants a process. Its very clear what he is looking for ultimately and its a normalization of donald trump. What happened last fall with all the republican candidates was that they were asked about supporting the eventual nominee. They went on the record about saying they were going to do that. And then they went through months and months where they were confronted with donald trump shooting at the hip, saying things that they found offensive and they were just cringing over it. Paul ryan doesnt want to get himself into a situation over the next month and a half where he is going to have to be answering every time donald trump says something that is strange or controversial. He wants this process to sort of give himself time to come around it, i think, and also see if trump is capable of changing. I want to get to jim acosta in just one second outside the next meeting that donald trump is in with senate leaders. As patrick was saying what folks say about donald trump is he is shooting from the hip, there is no message control. Do you believe that donald trump will stay on message and on script and on the same page with paul ryan Going Forward . Do you believe that he can . He will stay on his message. They have to find areas where paul ryan can talk about his issues that is helpful for paul ryan and they have to find Common Ground. What im hearing you say is donald trump will stay the course and paul ryan has to find a way to work with that. Paul ryan has a couple hundred constituents in the house. Donald trump has over 10 million, and 13 million votes in the primary. He has to stick to his message for those people. You have to go. This is the most uncomfortable situation i can imagine for a House Speaker. You can understand in a way why john boehner left. This is tough for him. He has to thread this needle. He has made it public that he has a lot of differences with this candidate. He has to save his House Republicans and figure out a way to deal with donald trump with whom he disagrees with just about everything. He is talking. He has to thread this needle and go big to do it. The way he is doing it is the constitution. At some point next to your name. Paul ryan is not the only guy Holding Meetings with donald trump today. Donald trump also meeting with senate leaders. Want to go to jim acosta who i believe is outside where those meetings are taking place. What do we know . Reporter just outside the National Republican Senatorial Committee offices on the other side of capitol hill this is a much more civilized side of capitol hill right now. I guess the senate feels like that is the case, not as crowded, not as many members of the media and not as many protesters. Donald trump does not have as big of a task on the senate side of the aisle. You know that Mitch Mcconnell has already basically endorsed donald trump. He is not trying to get to a place where paul ryan is right now which is a very difficult task. I talked to a top House Republican aid who said house members are all over the place. On the senate side there is a challenge for donald trump and that is the down ballot challenge. You have endangered members of the senate on the republican side like pat toomey who are a little concerned about wrapping their arms around donald trump at the convention in july. That is why you are hearing about senators who may not be showing up at the convention because they have campaigning to do for their seat coming up this fall. As paul ryan mentioned during the press conference that was just short of an endorsement. Inside the Trump Campaign i will tell you they did not have expectation of an endorsement from paul ryan today talking to top Trump Campaign officials. They feel like this is the opening conversation thrks beginning of the process of healing this Republican Party. Keep in mind as you know donald trump won this nomination basically where through political combat. There are republicans on capitol hill who can hear the names little marco, low energy jeb ringing in their ears. When i asked house aid what would paul ryans nickname be. It is principle paul. They are feeling good about how paul ryan is dealing with donald trump right now. Both men seem to have leverage. But from the sound of what paul ryan was saying during that press conference and what the Trump Campaign is saying keeping the rhetoric down it sounds like they may be able to get there eventually. Outside this meeting where donald trump is meeting with senate leaders. We are expecting to hear from some of those senators. We could hear from donald trump at some point, as well. A lot to follow and we will continue following special breaking News Coverage continues in a moment. I use whats already inside me to reach my goals. So i liked when my doctor told me i may reach my blood sugar and a1c goals by activating whats within me. With onceweekly trulicity. Trulicity is not insulin. It helps activate my body to do what its supposed to do release its own insulin. Trulicity responds when my blood sugar rises. I take it once a week, and it works 24 7. It comes in an easytouse pen and i may even lose a little weight. 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If you want help improving your a1c and blood sugar numbers with a noninsulin option, ask your doctor about onceweekly trulicity. And click to activate your within. This is cnn breaking news. Hello. Im ashleigh banfield. Welcome to legal view. He got to where he is on feverish rally. Now donald trump has reached what may be the single most critical day in his political career and taking place behind closed doors on capitol hill. Any minute now the republican president ial nominee in waiting will meet with the Republican Leadership of the senate having met this morning with the Political Leadership of the house and the chairman of the gop and speaker of the house, paul ryan. It was one week ago today you will recall that the top elected republican in the United States