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John Berman interviews Katrina Pierson

JB: ... going to meet next week in Washington. What does Donald Trump intend to do at that meeting?

KP: Well, I think he’s going to talk to Paul Ryan and just say “look, you are not just against me, you are against a lot of your voters,” and this is something that has been indicative for the last couple of cycles. We have had the leadership rejecting its own voters, silencing them, ignoring them, campaigning on one issue and not following through. That’s why we have a nomination of Donald Trump.

JB: If the Republican speaker of the house does not come around to supportin the Republican nominee, do you think that Paul Ryan is still fit to be speaker?

KP: No, because this is about the party. Look, you have to understand, the last two presidential cycles, we were told “John McCain was a Conservative.” His Conservative Review report card is a 37%. We were told “Mitt Romney was a Conservative,” and he was pro-abortion, pro-gay-marriage, pro adoption, he gave us ObamaCare. We were told to hold our noses and vote for the sake of the party. These same people are now telling us that because their guy didn’t win, they want to hurt the party. The issue here isn’t about Donald Trump. If you can’t hold yourself to the standard that you hold everyone else, the problem is with you.

JB: So just to be clear, when I said should Paul Ryan still be speaker if he doesn’t support Donald Trump, you say “no.”

KP: He’s speaker of what? He’s speaker of the house of representatives? We are a party. Paul Ryan needs to be a... he’s the leader right now, we’re told Donald Trump “is only the presumptive nominee,” “he’s not the nominee until 1237.” So really, it’s incumbent upon Paul Ryan to help bring unity to the party.

JB: Is that the issue of the Donald Trump campaign right now, “either Paul Ryan gets on board or we don’t want him” ?

KP: Well, they’re going to meet next week, we’ll find out.

One thing I would like to say: Katrina Pierson strikes me as an extremely well-organized thinker. I wonder how long that will last, after she’s been Trump’s press secretary for a few years. If she can maintain that sharpness over time, she’ll be amazing.