House Speaker Paul Ryan had an upbeat message about the midterm elections when he spoke to Republicans supporters at the Lincoln Day dinner in Waukesha Saturday night.
Ryan also expanding his comments about the Florida school shooting saying the gunman had "slipped through a whole bunch of cracks."
It's been ten days since 17 people were killed in Parkland, Florida. Since then we've learned there were numerous warnings about the shooter and multiple missed opportunities.
"We've got to make sure that people who are mentally unstable, and we just passed recent law on this," said Ryan, "so they don't have the ability to go do this."
Florida's Republican governor and a growing list of Republican lawmakers are calling for raising the age to buy a semi-automatic rifle - like the one used by the 19-year-old shooter - from 18 to 21.
Ryan did not mention gun control.
"It's important that we get to the bottom of this and that we fix this while preserving citizens rights," said Ryan.
The Speaker was more upbeat about the Republicans record in the House including the most recent tax cuts. " You know what has happened since then, about five million people in this country have gotten bonuses."
Ryan knows Republicans face a tough road for the midterm elections.
Recent history has shown the party in power in the White House loses on average 32 seats in the House - Republicans currently have a 24 seat majority.
"We are proud of the fact that we have a president and a Congress that is working with him to get this country back on the right track," said Ryan "and because of that and because of the results and because of who we are, we are going to win, we are going."
