Margaret Carlson, Columnist

When Principle Takes a Back Seat to Politics

Breaking with Trump depends mostly on how when a politician next faces voters.

August 10, 2016 at 1:00 PM UTC

Margaret Carlson was a White House correspondent for Time, a weekly panelist on CNN’s “Capital Gang” and an editor at the New Republic.

Putting things in perspective.
Photographer: Alex Wong

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When there’s any question whether Paul Ryan, the U.S. House speaker and 2012 Republican vice-presidential candidate, would win his primary in a carefully sculpted Wisconsin district against a neophyte challenger with ties to the Tea Party and Sarah Palin, you know the political world is upside down.

The back and forth over whether Ryan would, or wouldn’t, endorse his party’s nominee, Donald Trump, dominated news coverage for weeks. Ryan, tugging his chin, hemming and hawing, finally did. But then the tables turned with Trump refusing to endorse Ryan while making very nice to his opponent, Paul Nehlen.