WASHINGTON – (CT&P) – House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Wednesday he will not be rushed into an endorsement of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, tamping down speculation that he was moving toward a declaration of support.

“Look, I don’t have a timeline in my mind, and I have not made a decision,” Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters summoned to his Capitol office suite. “Nothing has changed from that perspective, and we’re still having productive conversations as part of our agenda project.

“You have to remember that this is the first time in the history of the United States that any party has nominated a turd for president, much less an orange one.

“The Republican Party is brimming with scat of various shapes and sizes. Take the Freedom Caucus for example, it’s loaded with feces, and let’s not forget the elder coprolites who have retired from politics like Newt Gingrich, so we in the GOP know a thing or two about excrement. I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around supporting a giant bipedal stool sample for president, that’s all.”

Ryan said that he was familiar with GOP turds that had run for president in the past such as Newt Gingrich, but this marked the first time that one had risen to the surface to become the nominee.

He added, “I think it’s important that we discuss the principles we all share in common and the policies that come from them and get a good understanding on those. And that’s the kind of conversations we’re having, as well as trying to teach the dumb son of bitch some basic civics.”

What has made Ryan’s hesitation so profound is the gravity of the issues on which he does not believe he and Trump are simpatico — issues like the constitutional limits on executive powers, which is a focus of the agenda project. “We want to make darn sure that that huge pile of orange poop understands, appreciates, respects and supports the Constitution and the kinds of principles that come with it, and those are some of the conversations we have been having,” he said.

Ryan was pressed on whether the House was preparing plans for the mass deportation of illegal immigrants — a key plank of Trump’s platform. Ryan, who opposes mass deportation and supports a path to legal status for the undocumented, noted that immigration is not part of the agenda project, but like any good Republican he wished there were no minorities in the United States at all, so he believes common ground can be reached.

Issues like trade and immigration that were cleaving the presidential field months ago were deliberately left out of the agenda project, in favor of issues where GOP unity is easier to find, like denying poor people health care, spending as much as possible on the military-industrial complex, and abolishing all regulations on anything other than abortion.

Ryan offered no definitive date as to when he would make a decision.