House Speaker Paul Ryan Will Not Endorse Donald Trump
JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Good evening. I'm John Berman in for Anderson. The beast is still up. It's surrounding the city. Those ominous words a direct quote from the fire chief who had to evacuate his entire city. Tonight, a swath of Canada is literally burning to the ground. This is what people are fleeing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God! Our house is going to burn down.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got the cats. Is m| out? Yes, she's gone. She's ahead of us.</s>BERMAN: That is just terrifying. So the woman who shot that video and posted on Facebook, Erica Decker, she is safe tonight with her family. They have lost their home, though like so many other in Alberta. We will go live to that scene just ahead. We do begin tonight, though, with breaking news. The presumptive nominee Donald Trump has a new message for house speaker Paul Ryan. This is what the people want. This being Trump. Ryan's office announced today has announced today that he and Trump will meet next Thursday. That is after Ryan dropped the bombshell saying he can't support Trump, at least not yet. Now Trump has a new take on that. In an interview that just aired on ABC News, George Stephanopoulos asked Trump about the Ryan stalemate.</s>GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Talk about Paul Ryan.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: OK.</s>STEPHANOPOULOS: So he says you have to earn his support.</s>TRUMP: I really think I earned the support from the people. You know, we have gotten more votes than anybody in this position that's ever run for the office. And you look at the Republican primary votes, millions and millions of people came in that nobody expected and they voted for me.</s>STEPHANOPOULOS: So what are you going to tell him in that meeting?</s>TRUMP: I'm going to say look, this is what the people want.</s>STEPHANOPOULOS: Jeb Bush just said he's not going to vote for you.</s>TRUMP: Well, I understand Jeb Bush. I was rough with Jeb Bush. And I think if I was Jeb Bush, I wouldn't vote for me either if you want to know the truth, George.</s>BERMAN: Trump is on the campaign trail today at a rally in Omaha just a short time ago. Trump also had this to say about Paul Ryan.</s>TRUMP: Paul Ryan, I don't know what happened. I don't know. He call me two, three weeks ago. It was a very nice conversation. He was congratulating me. This is before we had the ultimate victory, but he was congratulating me for doing so well. I figured routinely he would be behind it. And the other day just in a big surprise --.</s>BERMAN: Those comments come as the rift in the Republican Party gets deeper as more prominent Republicans say they are not going to vote for the presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, much less endorse him or campaign for him. Senator Lindsey Graham is the latest voice to join the heck no chorus saying today that he thinks the Republican Party has been in his word conned. CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny joins us now from Omaha. Jeff, what did Trump have to say about Lindsey Graham's comments today? He really spared few words.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: He did, John. And it took him about 12 minutes to go after Lindsey Graham which is probably showing restraint for Donald Trump's usual sort of mean of speaking. But remember that unity pledge that all the other candidates signed to, you know, hoping it would keep Donald Trump in the party? Well now, the others who signed it are being called out for that. So that was in Donald Trump's mind there. That he went after Lindsey Graham aggressively for changing up his positions, his supporters throughout the race. Let's listen to what Trump said just a little bit ago.</s>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: He fails with his campaign horribly. He then endorses somebody else and then he endorses Bush and endorses everybody. He's like bad luck. As soon as he endorses the people, they drop out. And then I see him on television knocking me. You know, you're supposed to be coming together.</s>ZELENY: And then in the next breath, John, he also talked about Jeb Bush saying, you know, I'm not going to say he's low energy but he's low energy. Familiar refrains here but also took a bit of a swipe at president George W. Bush saying he is not surprised the Bush family is not signing on with him because he has been so critical of what happened during the Bush administration.</s>BERMAN: Yes. He told George Stephanopoulos, if I were Jeb Bush, I wouldn't vote for me either. So this meeting next week between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan. What more can you tell us about that?</s>ZELENY: Well, John, it is going to be couple of meetings. One is going to be with speaker Ryan and top congressional leaders and Donald Trump. And that's going to be a time for these congressional leaders to sort of have their say. But as we've seen from what Donald Trump is talking about, he doesn't frankly care what they think. He believes that he has the voters behind him. And John, I can tell you that just hearing this one crowd tonight here in conservative red Nebraska, he's right about that. The crowd booed as loudly when he mentioned Paul Ryan's name as when he mentioned Hillary Clinton's name here. So Donald Trump knows goes into that meeting with some support. Of course he wants a unified party here, but then he's having a private meeting with speaker Ryan and Reince Priebus whose job is all to try and keep this all together. But I can tell you Donald Trump has his voters on his side. The question is can he expand and bring in all Republicans, never mind independents and moderates who he actually needs to win the election, John.</s>BERMAN: All right. Jeff Zeleny for us in Omaha. Thanks a lot, Jeff. Joining us now New York City councilman and co-chair of Trump New York campaign Joseph Borelli, CNN contributor and conservative commentator Tara Setmayer and Michael Smerconish, host of "SMERCONISH" which you can see this Saturday airing at 9:00 eastern right here on CNN. Michael, you know, these lines are being drawn now ever more, I think, solidly. We just heard Donald Trump essentially say I'm going to tell Paul Ryan listen to the voters. The voters picked me. So if he goes into that meeting with that message, how do they come out of that meeting with any agreement?</s>MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST, MICHAEL SMERCONISH SHOW: Well, it's gotten him this far, right. And he has had more than 10.6 million individuals cast a ballot for him. I think it's about 40 percent of the votes that have been cast thus far. But he loses unless he grows to 10. He is trailing Hillary by 13 according to the latest CNN/ORC poll. He has viewed disfavorably by a stunning number of Republicans and it's time now to put this team together. I think Paul Ryan has unintentionally done him a favor in so far, he has given him the opportunity to come in, have a conversation, negotiate if you will because there are many who feel like Ryan feels. You know, they are unhappy about the fact that Donald Trump is their standard bearer, but he needs them. So I think it's in both of their best interests if they can put it together.</s>BERMAN: Tara, why should he move? Why should they move? He won, right? Lindsey Graham, Jeb Bush, you know, along those same lines say they are not going to vote for Donald Trump. They signed a pledge saying they would. They are the ones breaking the pledge. Is this topsy-turvy?</s>TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think the pledge thing is silly actually. But, more importantly, yes, Donald Trump won 40 percent. Yes, he won 10 million votes, but 15 million people did not vote for him. Close to 60 percent --</s>BERMAN: How this election works is you have to finish first.</s>SETMAYER: I understand that. But Donald Trump continuous to say the people want me. The people want me. He is not winning a majority of the people. He is winning a plurality. There are a lot of people don't want him. There are a lot of people in the general electorate as of right now that do not want him. So he keeps saying all the people he is not winning in a landslide. I mean, Ronald Reagan at this point was -- had a 70 percent, 80 percent approval -- 78 percent of people voter from him at this point in the race. So this not an overwhelming mandate. It was something that he was the last man standing after 17 people. So we need to put that in perspective. Donald Trump, when you run for office, you are a servant, right? You are supposed to be a public servant of the people. So, if there is a large swap of the party you claim to represent that have legitimate concerns about where you stand on issues that are gravely important to them, then it should be your job to earn their vote. You don't just say too bad. I'm installing myself like some dictator and, you know --</s>BERMAN: He ran against 16 other people, you know, and he beat them. But councilman, what about Tara's point and Michael's point for that matter. You know, you can't win an election if you don't have your own party, you know, behind you. And by your own party, that includes like the actual leaders of that party, the speaker of the house. It seems like it stops the world without him.</s>JOSEPH BORELLI, CO-CHAIR, TRUMP NEW YORK CAMPAIGN: I think Tara has it backwards. The onus should be on the party establishment, the party elite, people like Paul Ryan to respect the will of the voters. We had a process. We had 17 people. Everyone got to go out there and support their candidates and run their campaigns as hard as they could. At the end of the day, Donald Trump won. He has got more votes than any Republican nominee has previously gotten. He has earned the support of the votes. That means that he has a whole deck of cards to play in this negotiation with Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan has none.</s>SETMAYER: Not a majority.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just want to emphasize the degree to which we are in serious times and this is a really serious job. This is not entertainment. This is not a reality show. This is a contest for the presidency of the United States. And what that means is that every candidate, every nominee needs to be subject to exacting standards and genuine scrutiny.</s>BERMAN: Michael, this is a fight the president is itching to have. You can just tell. Is this a fight that Donald Trump, though, is itching to have?</s>SMERCONISH: Well, interestingly, it think it will mobilize the base of Donald Trump, that core constituency. If President Obama is out there taking on Donald Trump, that's like throwing meat into the water for the sharks, right? But it doesn't, again, help Donald Trump expand the tent because the president's approval numbers, you've watched them as they are climbing. In fact, at the White House Correspondents dinner as you anchored the post last week noting the fact that when Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are getting all the attention, what happens? President Obama sees his numbers rise. So I think there's a role for him to play. He'll be the most important surrogate in this election. And I think what's really at stake is he believes his legacy. So you c count on him to be an activist.</s>BERMAN: All right, guys. Stand by. We got a lot more to talk about with you after a quick break. What do you think about Donald Trump getting access to classified information? That will happen fairly soon. We will have much more about when, why next. Also speaking of intelligence operations, stay tuned for the 360 special that takes you inside the mission to get Osama bin Laden five years ago. "We got him, President Obama, bin Laden and the future of the war in Terror. This has details you've never heard before with exclusive access to the White House.