As the House GOP leaders were holding a press conference, Speaker Ryan was in no mood to discuss Trump's feud with AG Jeff Sessions and deferred to the power of the presidency.
I believe it was MSNBC's Kirsten Welker that asked the first question, "The president appears to be laying the groundwork to fire his Attorney General (garbled) - recess appointment...to fire the special council. Does that concern you?"
Ryan replied, "Look, the president gets to decide what his personnel is, you all know that. He is the executive branch, we're the legislative branch."
"He determines who is hired and fired in the executive branch. That's his prerogative. If he has concerns or questions or problems with the attorney general, I'm sure he will bring them up with him himself, " Speaker Ryan said.
Another reporter asked if it was obstruction of justice if he was fired because [Sessions] recused himself over the Russia investigation?
Speaker Ryan replied, "It's up to the president to decide what his personnel decisions is and any possible fallout that comes from that. If he has concerns about anyone in the administration, I'm sure he is going to talk to them directly."
At first I almost missed it, but he actually said Trump has to deal with the fallout of his personnel decisions, which means he'll have to deal with the mess and - leave me out of it!
Or, more to the point, "clean up your own mess!"
However, Ryan's subtlety is alarming in that he, like many of his GOP allies are all too afraid to engage with the president, who's making a mockery out of the DOJ, FBI, special counsel and independent Russia investigations.