What Is Ryan's Motivation In Kissing Up To Trump In This Last Week

I don’t believe that it is possible that the Democrats will win the House in this election cycle. But I do find it interesting that Paul Ryan is embracing Donald Trump much more openly than he has in months in the last few days of this election. Ryan was scheduled to actually physically appear with Trump in person on Saturday but the Trump campaign ended up canceling that event. Last week Ryan admitted voting for the GOP nominee, although he could not bring himself to actually mention Trump’s name. Today, after the release of James Comey’s latest ill-advised letter saying there was nothing new in the Abedin emails, Ryan came out and gave a full-throated endorsement to Trump, saying, “The American people have the opportunity to ensure Secretary Clinton never gets her hands on classified information again. Let’s bring the Clinton era to an end by voting for Donald Trump on Tuesday.”

The question is what is Ryan’s motivation for kissing up to Trump at this point. Even if he believes Trump could win the election (which I doubt), he must know that Trump and Bannon despise him and are determined to destroy him. So that’s not it. Perhaps he really is worried about the GOP losing control of the House and feels he needs the Trump voters to come out for the down-ballot races. But none of the polls indicate that the Democrats really have a shot to win the House. So that’s not it. More likely, Ryan is making a last-ditch effort to appeal to the members of the Freedom Caucus in the hopes that he can garner enough support from them to maintain his position as Speaker. But the effort is so weak and transparent that it may turn out to infuriate those members more than sway them.