CLEVELAND – U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is the latest Republican leader to urge Texas delegates to unify behind Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, one day after a visible rift emerged in the party at the national convention.
Ryan spoke to the Texas delegation on Tuesday morning as the Republican National Convention entered its second day.
“If you’re not for Donald trump you’re helping Hillary Clinton,” the speaker said at a breakfast for the state’s 155 delegates.
Monday afternoon, that rift emerged in the conservative party when supporters of Ted Cruz made a last ditch effort to stop Trump’s candidacy. The raucous voice vote on the convention floor to reject the rules failed.
“We will not fix things if we are divided among ourselves. We will only fix problems if we are unified,” Speaker Ryan explained Tuesday morning.
Texas delegates heard similar arguments yesterday from other elected leaders including former Gov. Rick Perry, congressmen Pete Sessions, Roger Williams and Michael McCaul.
After Speaker Ryan, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn reiterated the same message Tuesday morning.
“Many of us might have supported other candidates,” Cornyn explained, “it is time for us to come together in unity behind the Trump candidacy.”
Ryan and Cornyn both criticized Hillary Clinton, the Affordable Care Act, and the federal bureaucracy.
There was no mention made at the Texas breakfast Tuesday morning about Melania Trump’s primetime speech the night before in which she is accused of using similar thoughts and words from Michelle Obama 2008 convention speech.
When asked about it by reporters afterward, Sen. Cornyn called it “trivial” and said voters likely wouldn’t “care a flip” about it by Election Day in November.
