Paul Ryan On Brokered Convention: ‘I’m Not Running For President … Period, End Of Story’

Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) delivers remarks on Capitol Hill March 23, 2016

Speaker Paul Ryan insists he is not interested in being nominated as a presidential candidate even if there’s a brokered Republican convention this summer.

During an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Ryan responded to a rumored scenario where he would be chosen by delegates as a potential Republican nominee for president. But Ryan rejected the idea, urging members of the Republican establishment to stop floating the the idea.

“I do believe people put my name in this thing, and I say get my name out of that,” he said. “This is, if you want to be president, you should go run for president. And that’s just the way I see it.”

After Hewitt referred to Karl Rove’s call for a “fresh face” as the nominee, Ryan replied, “I’m not the fresh face. I’m not that person.”

He then declined, a third time, to consider the idea.

“I think you need to run for president if you’re going to be president, and I’m not running for president,” he said. “So period, end of story.”

As Speaker of the House, Ryan is the chairman of the Republican convention but he did not specify whether the rules of the 2012 convention would be used for the 2016 convention.

“I’m going to be an honest broker, and make sure that the convention follows the rules as the delegates make the rules,” he said. He reminded the audience that the Rules Committee would meet the week before the convention to decide the details that the delegates would follow.

“I’m not going to make an opinion or a judgment one way or the other, because it’s their decision, the delegates’ decision, who are the grassroots of the party, by the way,” he said.

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