Former House Speaker Paul Ryan left office in 2019. Since then, he’s receded into the board room at Fox News… but he came out of hiding Sunday to give an interview with ABC News.
Ryan went on ABC’s This Week ostensibly to promote his new book about our nation’s “unsustainable debt trajectory.” However, he began the conversation by praising House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi… and by bashing Trump.
“I was not a Never Trumper,” Ryan said, in his first appearance on a Sunday show since leaving office. “But I am a Never-Again Trumper.”
Ryan blamed Trump for the GOP’s underperformance in the midterm elections.
“I think we would have — clearly have won the Senate had we had traditional Republicans in the general election like these governors did. I think we would have won places like Arizona, places like Pennsylvania, New Hampshire had we had a typical and traditional conservative Republican, not a Trump Republican,” Ryan argued.
“So, I think what we now know, it’s pretty clear is, with Trump we lose. So, I don’t mean this personally, it’s just — it’s just evidence. We lost the House in ’18. We lost the presidency in ’20. We lost the Senate in ’20. And now, in 2022, we should have and could have won the Senate. We didn’t. And we have a much lower majority in the House because of that Trump factor.”
Despite wanting to leave Trump in the past, Ryan praised the former president’s accomplishments.
“I governed with him, and I’m very proud of those days. I’m proud of the accomplishments of the tax reform, the deregulation, of criminal justice reform. I’m really excited about the judges we got on the bench, not just the Supreme Court, but throughout the judiciary,” Ryan explained. “But I am a never-again-Trumper. Why? Because I want to win. And we lose with Trump. It was really clear to us in ’18, in ’20, and now in 2022.”
Ryan had made similar remarks in October.
“Whether he runs or not, I don’t really know if it matters,” Ryan said in an October interview. “He’s not going to be the nominee… Trump’s unelectability will be palpable.”
During Sunday’s interview, Ryan took a break from slamming Trump… to praise the retiring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
“It’s an impressive legacy. I mean, obviously, she and I usually disagree on things, but first woman speaker, a career to be proud of,” Ryan gushed. “She has an incredible legacy and career.”
Ryan left Congress in January 2019 with a favorability rating of 34 percent, according to Gallup.
Still, Ryan has expressed ever lower expectations for Speaker-presumptive Kevin McCarthy.
“When I was speaker, we had better majorities, bigger majorities. We could pass bills on our own. But if you have such a narrow majority, it’s going to be really hard,” Ryan said on ABC News. “I had double digits when I was there.”
Watch Ryan’s interview here —
The Horn editorial team