Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan and RNC chairman Reince Prebus met at the Republican Party’s headquarters on Capitol Hill this morning in an attempt to unify the GOP.
“The United States cannot afford another four years of the Obama White House, which is what Hillary Clinton represents,” Trump and Ryan said in a joint statement.
“We will be having additional discussions, but remain confident there’s a great opportunity to unify our party and win this fall, and we are totally committed to working together to achieve that goal,” they continued.
Ryan said last week that he was not ready to support Trump in the general election, something that is extremely rare for a party leader. Priebus has been calling for the party to unite and support Trump in an attempt to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House.
“It is unprecedented in our nominating history,” CNN’s John Berman said, for a party leader not to support the presumptive candidate.
There was significant media frenzy outside the meeting with Fox News, CNN and MSNBC all devoting the majority of morning programming to covering it. CNN’s Chris Cuomo joked that “there is an ‘SNL’ skit in the making,” because of how aggressively the media blanketed the meeting.
The media members were joined by various protestors, creating a chaotic scene. Prebus tweeted, “The meeting was great. It was a very positive step toward party unity.”
Trump is also slated to meet with Senate Republican leadership before he leaves Washington around 2 p.m.
NEW: JOINT stmt from @SpeakerRyan and @realDonaldTrump: pic.twitter.com/NDVXk4VBSo
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) May 12, 2016