Speaker Paul Ryan “is distributing $1.2 million from his personal political accounts to roughly half the House Republican Conference today,” according to Playbook.

“Ryan has already transferred millions of dollars to the party’s re-election arm, but now the speaker is cutting checks directly to lawmakers’ campaign committees — a move that underscores his newfound brand as a top Republican money man. The donations are going to virtually every House Republican being targeted by Democrats, and conservatives and moderates alike. Members of the House found out about the Ryan largesse when Kevin Seifert, Ryan’s political director, emailed chiefs of staff, telling them a check was waiting at the RNC for pickup this morning.”

“This is important: Members of leadership usually either cut checks to the party committee, or directly to members. Ryan is doing both as he tries to keep the House in GOP hands in 2018.”

Nate Silver: “Republicans have been running on repealing and replacing Obamacare for seven years, and they’ve won a lot of elections in that period. You can argue that they have a mandate on the issue, even if they don’t have one overall. But Ryan and Trump pretty much ignored where public opinion stands on health care. Medicaid, which the AHCA would have rolled back, is extremely popular, for instance. About two-thirds of voters support government funding for Planned Parenthood; the AHCA would have cut it. But the bill didn’t do much to address the problems voters were actually concerned about, such as rising premiums.”

“Furthermore, Ryan and Trump advanced this bill despite receiving a warning shot from the public: Obamacare had almost immediately become more popular after Trump won the election. I don’t recall a lot of other times when public opinion shifted so quickly on a bill in response to an election result. It was as though voters were throwing up a big yield sign to congressional Republicans — we didn’t expect Trump to win the election; instead, we elected you to serve as a check on Hillary Clinton, so proceed with caution. Ryan barreled right on through it.”

New York Times: “Less than 18 months after being elected speaker, Mr. Ryan has emerged from the defeat of the health care bill badly damaged, retaining a grip on the job but left to confront the realities of his failure — imperiling the odd-couple partnership that was supposed to sustain a new era of conservative government under unified Republican rule.”

“So far, to the surprise of some close to Mr. Trump, the president has remained upbeat on Mr. Ryan, a frequent punching bag during the 2016 campaign and an ideological mismatch whose instincts informed the molding and selling of the health bill far more than the president’s own.”

“But after a humiliating defeat, which many Trump advisers are eager to pin on the speaker, Mr. Ryan is now tasked with defending not just his leadership abilities but his very brand of conservatism in a party fitfully searching for a coherent policy identity that can deliver tangible victories.”

Politico: “No one is prepared to challenge Ryan for his job, said GOP lawmakers from across the Republican Conference. While some right-wing media and outside groups are agitating to replace the speaker, and his antagonists on the White House staff needle him anonymously in the press, there is no way he will be ousted. President Donald Trump hasn’t turned on him, either – at least not yet. And Ryan remains popular with his rank-and-file members, who genuinely like him. Critically, Ryan is not a liability for them back home, the ultimate litmus test for any congressional leader.”

Breitbart has obtained a never-before-released private October conference call with House Republican members in which Speaker Paul Ryan said he was abandoning then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump forever and would never defend him ever again.

Said Ryan: “I am not going to defend Donald Trump—not now, not in the future.”

Jonathan Swan: “These conservatives know the President prizes personal loyalty over all else. Trump often talks about who was with him and who wasn’t. In that frame — it’s one thing for Trump to read about Ryan’s words in the papers. It’s quite another for him to hear the audio.”