It is an earnest and legitimate question. If not a series of statements that he perceives to be the textbook definition of racist (and which Donald Trump refuses to apologize for), what would it take for Paul Ryan to withdraw his endorsement?

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” the presumptive Republican nominee bragged back in January. “It’s, like, incredible.”

— Paul Ryan was to unveil a 25-page national security plan Thursday at the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump is mentioned nowhere, but the document is an unmistakable rebuke of Trumpism.

While The Donald calls for turning inward, House Republicans are making the case for internationalism and American leadership in the world.

In stark contrast to Trump, the manifesto touts the value of free trade, calls for “modernizing and solidifying NATO” and warns repeatedly about the dangers posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Clearly responding to Trump’s ambivalence about Japan or South Korea getting nuclear weapons, the blueprint also calls for “combating proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and reemphasizing deterrence.”

Immigration was not expected to be a part of this rollout. There is a section that calls for securing the border, but it adds: “We need more than just fencing.”

— This is the second installment of the “Better Way” agenda project, which the House GOP is methodically rolling out between now and the convention. The primary goal is to put some distance between congressional Republicans and their standard bearer at the top of the ticket.It is also aimed at reassuring donors in the business community and the foreign policy establishment that Trump has not fully hijacked the party.

“Trade plays an important role in our economy, supporting roughly 40 million jobs in the United States-more than one in five-and providing immeasurable benefits to American consumers by lowering prices and improving our standard of living,” one section of the document says. “Because the vast majority of the world’s consumers live outside our borders, we must continue to open new markets for our businesses and build the capacity of tomorrow’s trade partners. . . . Trade can also play a key role in strengthening U.S. alliances.”

— Big picture, Ryan knows he’s between a rock and a hard place. He gets that the optics of calling Trump out one day and then urging Republicans to support him the next day (as he did at a closed-door meeting on Wednesday) are horrible. But people close to Ryan say he is merely trying to protect his members – and their majority – the best he can.

— Ryan’s life is made harder when conservative thought leaders like radio host Hugh Hewitt call on Republicans to make a last-ditch (though doomed-to-fail) effort to stop Trump at the convention in Cleveland. “I want to support the nominee of the party, but I think the party ought to change the nominee, because we’re going to get killed with this nominee,” he said on his show Wednesday. “They ought to get together and let the convention decide. . . . It’s like ignoring stage-four cancer. You can’t do it, you gotta go attack it. And right now the Republican Party is facing — the plane is headed towards the mountain after the last 72 hours.”

— Another of Ryan’s biggest boosters in the conservative press also turned on him Wednesday. “From entitlements to trade to the First Amendment, Trump has made it clear that his vision of government isn’t Ryan’s,” Jonah Goldberg wrote in a column for National Review. “And the gulf in temperament and tone between the two men is wider and deeper than the Marianas Trench. Trump, then, poses an Aesopian challenge to Ryan; the scorpion must sting the frog because that is its nature. The only way to avoid the sting is not to ally yourself with the scorpion in the first place. Trump will fade one day, but even Ryan’s halfhearted embrace of Trumpism makes it more likely Ryanism will fade too.”

— It’s harder still for Ryan when leading Republicans from his home state of Wisconsin go much farther than he does in bashing Trump:

“It’s just sad in America that we have such poor choices right now,” Gov. Scott Walker told the Madison ABC affiliate.

“Something that walks like a duck, talks like a duck, is likely to be a duck,” Rep. Reid Ribble told CNN Wednesday. “If you continue to say what I believe are racist statements, you’re likely to be a racist.”

— Ryan, for his part, said the other day that Trump’s comments about the federal judge’s Mexican heritage were “out of left field.” Maybe he has not been paying close attention? The Donald tweeted this 15 months ago, for example: “I hope the Mexican judge is more honest than the Mexican businessmen who used the court system to avoid paying me the money they owe me.”

— There have no doubt been many moments in recent weeks that Ryan wonders anew why he agreed to take John Boehner’s job. And there are still five months to go until the election. . .

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