House Speaker Paul Ryan said Saturday that he and Donald Trump are still speaking about how to "get on the same page" when it comes to principles and policies the Republican Party can unify under, but insisted that Democrats and the ongoing battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for the party's presidential nomination are much more divided.
"What we're trying to do is unify around common principles and policies," Ryan told CNBC's Larry Kudlow on his
radio talk show Saturday morning. "We are further down the unity path than the Democrats. What I want to see is a successful fall where we can win everything."
But, the Wisconsin lawmaker said, that means "we don't want to fake it. We want it to be real and authentic . . . that takes some time to do."
Ryan has come under fire for not endorsing Trump as the presumptive GOP nominee, even after news broke this past week that the New York real estate mogul-turned-candidate had bypassed the 1,237 confirmed delegates he needs to clinch the GOP presidential nomination at this summer's party convention in Cleveland.
He also did not endorse Trump Saturday morning, preferring to discuss the extensive House GOP agenda and its policies on economic growth that he says will pull the country out of the economic issues it's faced through the Obama administration.
"We are living under what is going to be eight years of Obama's 'progressive economics,'" Ryan told Kudlow, and tax reform is the House Republicans' top priority.
"We need to reform the tax code, get the rates down, clean up the junk, and make it easier for businesses to invest," said Ryan.
The agenda also calls for a pullback on regulations being imposed by Washington bureaucrats rather than elected lawmakers, Ryan told Kudlow.
"We have a regulation tidal wave coming from the government," said Ryan. "We also want to change the way regulations occur in the first place. Whether overtime rules or investment advice, you've got unelected bureaucrats writing our laws, and no member of Congress has anything to do with it."
To restore an accountable government, Ryan said, such rules need to go through Congress, not non-elected officials.
Energy reform is also a large part of the agenda project, said the House Speaker.
"We have so much new energy development potential, it's incredible," he told Kudlow. "In Midland, Texas, there is one [oil] field as large as the Saudi Arabian field, just in Texas...we have huge energy potential, but for our government. We could realize more energy potential."
One of Trump's main calls has been for trade reform, and Ryan told Kudlow that the House has rewritten customs laws for the first time in 40 years through the Enforce Act, and now has laws on the books that go after countries that cheat on trade issues, such as China.
"Because they are in the World Trade Organization that gives us the ability to retaliate," said Ryan, giving an example of the steel industry, which will now have faster recourse if it finds that China has been shipping dumped steel through other countries in order to undercut American industry.
"It is in our interest to get other countries to play by our rules," said Ryan, noting that along with the United States' Asian allies, such agreements "help us put China on notice...we need to build and grow more in the United States and sell more overseas."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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