WASHINGTON (AP) – A presidential campaign throws policy differences into stark relief and so it is this time, on immigration, spending, trade, foreign affairs – you name it.
In this cockeyed campaign year, though, the divide at the moment is between the country’s top two Republicans: the presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, a conspicuous holdout from the candidate’s bandwagon and a man once denounced by Trump for producing a “death wish” budget.
Trump the businessman’s “art of the deal” may get its first big test in the political world at an expected meeting next week with the speaker aimed at some version of common ground. It will bring together a sober, policy-driven, consensus-seeking conservative and a crowd-rousing improviser with indistinct ideology and a handful of core issues, several of them combustible.
Here are some of the contours of the chasm between them :
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