POLITICS/PAUL RYAN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “It’s hard to overstate how much is on House Speaker Paul Ryan’s plate right now. He presides over a restive group of Republicans who deposed his predecessor. He’s dealing with a new president who — even on his best days — refuses to stick to the script and has no trouble throwing party orthodoxy out the window. Many of the top staffers he has to work with in the new administration have no idea how Congress works.
And the legislative agenda President Donald Trump is demanding and administration officials say he will reiterate Tuesday during an address to Congress — a swift repeal and replacement of Obamacare and the first overhaul of the tax system in three decades — is ambitious, to say the least.
The speaker’s battle to overcome those obstacles and ultimately reshape two pillars of the American economy is unfolding a few steps away from Statuary Hall in the Capitol. It’s here, in a conference room deep inside Ryan’s second-floor office, where top House lawmakers — including key committee chairs and each member of the leadership — filed in for a series of recent meetings to figure out the path forward.”
– Phil Mattingly, “How Paul Ryan is getting Trump’s team ready for battles in Congress,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Feb. 27, 2017