Ryan: Republicans should follow ‘conscience’ on Trump

The comments come days after presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggested in a national security speech that he would unilaterally be able to implement a ban on Muslim immigration to the United States without consulting Congress.

While Ryan is sticking by his endorsement of Trump, the Wisconsin Republican told NBC that fellow Republicans should follow “their conscience” when it comes to endorsing the victor of the party’s presidential primary.

Given the strife, a growing group of anti-Trump delegates are convinced that enough like-minded Republicans will band together in the next month to change party rules and allow delegates to vote for whomever they want, regardless of who won state caucuses and primaries. I get that this is a very odd situation.

The delegates involved are reportedly pushing for a “conscience clause” – which would mean they would no longer be bound to vote for Trump at the conference.

Stopping Trump at the convention would be exceptionally hard, however. More recently, there was Bill Kristol’s vow to recruit a third-party candidate, which failed to attract either a boldface name like Mitt Romney or a respected but obscure one like David French. The 16th District congressman has publicly said he can’t support Trump unless he tones down his rhetoric and gets in touch with the Republican Party.

The Washington Post first reported the details of the phone call.

“This is a coalition of Kasich, Cruz and Rubio (supporters) and we are all agreeing on one goal, which is: Anybody but Trump”, Unruh said Friday.

Other top Republicans, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Rep. Fred Upton, said this week that they will not back Trump.

“I will tell you, about every two hours people contact me about how to join this effort”, said Lonegan said. There’s only 2,400 of us.

“I don’t see myself making any drastic changes”, he said. “And if there is, we’ll see where it goes”.

Trump must still survive any last-minute efforts to derail his candidacy at the Republican National Convention that will be held July 18-21 in Cleveland. The convention’s rules chair, Enid Mickelsen, has gone on record as saying delegates can unbind themselves. A final list of names from each state and territory was due to the RNC on Monday, and party officials are reviewing the names to ensure that no elected delegate or alternate has a criminal record, according to party officials.

Kinzinger, who has sat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has been a vocal critic of Trump’s comments on worldwide issues. He admits that, from a political perspective, not supporting the GOP candidate is a hard position to take. “I think that should be absolutely disavowed”. He has been arguing that delegates should not be compelled to vote for the Republican presumptive nominee.