House Speaker Paul Ryan says not to expect any Donald Trump-style mass deportations under his watch.
In a
"60 Minutes" profile that aired Sunday, Ryan told interviewer Scott Pelley he doesn't advocate the GOP presidential front-runner's plan to deport every illegal immigrant.
"I can't imagine how it could happen," Ryan said.
Ryan, who at 45 is the youngest House speaker since the 1860s, said he doesn't see the job as a long-term proposition.
"I was just planning on serving out my tenure as Ways and Means chair, and then going finding out something else to do with my life," he said. "I really don't know how long this is going to last. This wasn't something I was planning on doing in the first place." In fact, Ryan had to have his arm twisted to take the job. He has three children between the ages of 10 and 13 and said he didn't want to spend weekends away from them and attending fundraisers all over the country.
His wife, Janna, agreed.
"I am a big thrift store shopper, and I was in my car in front of the Salvation Army here in Janesville when the phone rang," she said of how she first found out Republicans wanted her husband to take the top House job.
"And he said, 'Well, this is coming our way. And you think I should say no, right?' And I said, 'Oh, yeah, you should say no.'"
But he was told he could redesign how the job works, and that convinced both him and Janna to change their minds.
"I see myself as more of a policy maker than a political leader. I do politics in order to do policy," Ryan said. "I came into it no. Then, I realized the situation in our caucus was fairly dire, and that I sort of had an obligation and a duty to step up and do it."
Even his wife admits it "felt right" for her husband to take the job.
"And now that I'm doing it, I feel it's a great honor," Ryan said. "I'm actually excited about it."
He has spoken to President Barack Obama and feels he is someone he can work with even though his predecessor, John Boehner, didn't have much success.
"He's president of the United States," Ryan said. "My president, too. … this government does have to work."
As for plans, Ryan said, he would like to simply the tax code dramatically.
"I would collapse the rates down to two or three. And I would change the way we tax ourselves internationally, so businesses can take their money and bring it back home so American businesses stay American businesses," he said. "And we have to drop our rates on our businesses."
The "elephant in the room," he said, are entitlement programs.
"It's Social Security, it's Medicare, it's Medicaid," he said. "And the good news on these issues is that if we reform them for the next generation now, we can guarantee – guarantee – that people in or near retirement don't have any changes in their benefits."
He believes he can find common ground with Democrats on highway infrastructure funding, tax policy and funding the government.
"Those are three things that will produce certainty in this economy in the next few months," he said. "Let's go do that."
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