Wisconsin businessman Paul Nehlen, a former Paul Ryan supporter, tells Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon he’s had enough of Ryan’s cronyism and weakness against Obama as Speaker, especially on trade, and is now challenging the GOP Speaker back home in Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district.
“He’s abandoned this district,” said Nehlen, adding, “Eighty-three percent of Paul Ryan’s campaign financing came from outside this district. And of that 83 percent, 65 percent of it came in the form of large campaign donations from his special interests.”
“This trade deal is the worst trade deal you can imagine,” said Nehlen, “If you think NAFTA was bad, this trade deal will export our jobs overseas and even worse, it will import workers that will replace us in our own jobs.” Later Nehlen added, “Paul Ryan isn’t representing anyone. Paul Ryan is representing the special interests.”
Nehlen said Ryan is a perfect example of the “Peter Principle,” which holds that people tend to be promoted to their level of incompetence. “He’s failed in his role now,” said Nehlen of Ryan, “We hired him to be our representative here in Wisconsin’s first district.”
He then blasted Ryan on the trade deal, saying that’s the main reason Nehlen decided to run against him. “I was a Paul Ryan supporter. I pounded signs for him. I made phone calls for him. I bought his book and gave it out to my friends. That’s how invested in Paul Ryan I was. … and then when Paul Ryan went for Fast Track Trade promotion authority for President Obama, my head did a full 720.”
“Paul Ryan doesn’t own this district and special interests don’t own this district, ” said Nehlen, when asked if Ryan can be beaten. “Paul Ryan, essentially, has sold his vote to special interests. That’s where Paul Ryan finds himself today. And that’s why the people of the first district have had it with him,” he added.
The businessman then highlighted his professional career, a summary of which can be found here.
Nehlen’s professional resume reads like an all-American private sector success story. He began his professional career as a maintenance mechanic in a factory before getting a degree in engineering and working his way up to eventually run the business. “And then I ran businesses around the country before I started my own business,” he said, also recalling how he earned his MBA at night while working full-time.
Eventually he found his way into the private equity sector. “I was the guy with Fortune 500 corporations who would buy a broken or damaged bicycle [referring to a failing corporation] and they would say, ‘fix this while you’re riding it,’” he remembered. “And it was great, I loved it.”
Nehlen even recalled a situation where he was able to use his private sector influence to bring jobs back to the United States. “I remember at the first private equity company that I came to work for one of our businesses was in Monterey, Mexico and we were making the shipping companies rich so I brought those Jobs back to Tallapoosa, Georgia [a town near the Georgia-Alabama Border on Interstate 20]…we closed most of that business and brought most of those jobs back.”
Nehlen directed individuals wanting to learn more about his challenge to his campaign website, which currently highlights Nehlen’s Dump Paul Ryan campaign, which has been getting a lot of buzz in conservative circles.
…the Nehlen for Congress campaign is taking the message of Paul Ryan’s betrayal on the road with the #DumpRyan tour. A large dump truck emblazoned with the #DumpRyan message has begun touring Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District in order to build awareness of the ways Ryan has sold out his own district.
“Wisconsin’s 1st District has deep roots in manufacturing and industry, in design and engineering,” noted Paul Nehlen, Ryan’s primary challenger. “We’ve been a powerhouse in these respects. But Paul Ryan is now undermining us at every turn—on spending, on trade, on immigration, and more. He’s broken every single promise he’s made to us. A lot of us, me included, have had to ask ourselves why his votes no longer line up with our interests. We’ve had to ask ourselves who exactly Ryan is representing, because it’s clearly not us any longer.
“It turns out that his campaign finance reports explain the discrepancy between what Paul Ryan says to us here at home and what he does when he’s in Washington. Eighty-three percent of Ryan’s funding comes from outside of our district—and of that 83 percent, 65 percent has come in the form of large donations from in and around Washington D.C. Paul Ryan isn’t representing us anymore—he’s representing his special-interest buddies in D.C. The #DumpRyan tour is a powerful way to shed light on that fact.”
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6 AM to 9 AM EST.
Listen to the full interview below:
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