Donald Trump has given House Speaker Paul Ryan lots of chances to hone his weaseling capacity, and Ryan put that practice to use on Monday responding to Rep. Steve King’s white nationalist tweet. Just as Ryan has often claimed not to be able to respond to Trump’s comments because he hadn’t personally heard every word of them, he said of King’s “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies” that “I disagree with that statement. I haven’t seen the context, but I disagree with it.” Psst, Paul: It was a tweet. Not a lot of context there. But Ryan didn’t just imply that there’s some context that might possibly have saved that statement while tip-toeing around his very muted disagreement. He was looking to give King an out:
"I don’t think that statement reflects what is special about this country. I’d like to think––and I haven’t spoken to Steve about this––I’d like to think that he misspoke and it wasn’t really meant the way that that sounds, and hopefully he’s clarified that," the speaker said.
Ah, maybe he “misspoke” and oops, came out sounding white nationalist after years of anti-immigrant statements. Can’t you just see Ryan sweatily hoping that King would walk it back just enough to avoid putting Paul Ryan in the difficult position of having to keep good relations with his white nationalist colleagues without losing his good reputation with the media? But King wasn't cooperating:
It does not appear that King misspoke. After sending the initial tweet, the Iowa congressman doubled down on his remark in a Monday morning interview on CNN. King claimed that there is an effort to fill a "void" left by abortion with "somebody else's babies."
"That's the push to bring in much illegal immigration into America, living in enclaves, refusing to assimilate into the American culture and civilization," he said.
It’s Steve King. Of course he meant it like it sounded. Of course he’s not backing down. This is the Republican Party Paul Ryan leads, and he will continue to try to deliver what its members—like King—demand. Pay attention to what Ryan does, not to his weak disagreement and ardent hope that some context will appear to bail him out.