Paul Ryan, the former Republican Speaker of the House, has spoken out to label himself as a “never-again-Trumper” and issued blame for the horrid performance of the GOP in the recent midterm elections squarely onto the shoulders of former President Donald Trump.
This past Sunday while speaking during an appearance on an episode of ABC’s “This Week” alongside co-anchor Jonathan Karl, Ryan thought back on his time as the speaker and his overall relationship with then-President Trump. He also warned that Republicans would need to work with a number of Democrats in order to get any legislation pushed through, because of the GOP’s hair-thin majority.
“I’m proud of the accomplishments [during the Trump administration] – of the tax reform, the deregulation and criminal justice reform. I’m really excited about the judges we got on the bench, not just the Supreme Court, but throughout the judiciary,” stated Ryan to Karl. “But I am a never-again-Trumper. Why? Because I want to win, and we lose with Trump.”
Ryan issued the blame onto Trump for quite a few of the election losses suffered by the Republicans, including the loss of a few seats within the House back in 2018, both the Senate and the presidency back in 2020, and the overall failure to win seats in the Senate this year, which he states Republicans “should have and could have won.” The previous speaker marked the losses as stemming from what he called the “Trump factor.”
EXCLUSIVE: Just days after Donald Trump announces his third bid for the White House, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan calls himself a "Never-Again-Trumper."
The full interview with @JonKarl: https://t.co/v2FLG9cPFm pic.twitter.com/lyCGUCZD6X
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 20, 2022
Ryan made the claim that Trump was able to force his base to show up for the primaries, pushing quite a few Trump-endorsed candidates to a win, but it was not enough at all to make it through the general elections. he stated that he thought the Republican voters would “move on” in regard to their standing behind Trump.
“That’s why I don’t think he ends up winning the nomination at the end of the day,” stated Ryan. “I think we have a great stable of good, capable conservatives who are more than capable of winning this primary for presidency and winning the election, and I think Republican voters know that. So that’s why I think our voters, ultimately who really want to win, are going to give us candidates who can win,” he went on.
Karl put forth the question about what it would mean if Trump were to secure the Republican nomination for the president once again, to which Ryan stated that “we probably, likely lose the White House. We just did in ‘20, so I think we probably lose the White House with Trump, and if there’s someone not named Trump, my guess is we win the White House,” he stated, going further to add that he thought the former president was entirely “unelectable.”
When questioned about the very small Republican majority in the House, stated Ryan, “no matter what bill you’re gonna bring to the floor, it is almost impossible with that tight a majority to have just only your party passing legislation.”
“If you have such a narrow majority, it’s going to be really hard,” he went on. “Having said that, there’s nothing as unifying as a really razor-thin majority,” the man went on, highlighting that Republicans must work with Democrats to push through any kind of legislation.
