President Donald Trump on Saturday lambasted former House Speaker Paul Ryan once again, calling him “Weak, ineffective & stupid” and said the now-retired lawmaker “almost killed” the Republican Party when he was in Congress.
“House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is a far superior leader than was Lame Duck Speaker Paul Ryan,” President Trump began on Twitter. “Tougher, smarter and a far better fundraiser, Kevin is already closing in on 44 Million Dollars. Paul’s final year numbers were, according to Breitbart, “abysmal.””
“People like….Paul Ryan almost killed the Republican Party. Weak, ineffective & stupid are not exactly the qualities that Republicans, or the CITIZENS of our Country, were looking for,” he added. “Right now our spirit is at an all time high, far better than the Radical Left Dems. You’ll see next year!”
President Trump’s latest salvo comes after ripping Ryan on Thursday in what appeared to have been a response to the former Speaker’s reported attacks on the president’s character and governing style in a soon-to-be-released book.
According to a Thursday Washington Post report, Tim Alberta of Politico Magazine writes in American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump:
Now out of office and trading in his power suits for a blue vest, Ryan is back to critiquing Trump in unflattering terms in conversations with Alberta, who writes the former speaker could not stand the idea of another two years with the president and saw retirement as an “escape hatch,” in Alberta’s words.
“We’ve gotten so numbed by it all,” Ryan says. “Not in government, but where we live our lives, we have a responsibility to try and rebuild. Don’t call a woman a ‘horse face.’ Don’t cheat on your wife. Don’t cheat on anything. Be a good person. Set a good example.”
Ryan depicts Trump as uneducated about the government.
“I told myself I gotta have a relationship with this guy to help him get his mind right,” Ryan recalls. “Because, I’m telling you, he didn’t know anything about government . . . I wanted to scold him all the time.”
Soon after the report, President Trump slammed Ryan as a “failed” vice presidential candidate and Speaker.
The president tweeted:
Paul Ryan, the failed V.P. candidate & former Speaker of the House, whose record of achievement was atrocious (except during my first two years as President), ultimately became a long running lame duck failure, leaving his Party in the lurch both as a fundraiser & leader. When Mitt chose Paul I told people that’s the end of that Presidential run. He quit Congress because he didn’t know how to Win. They gave me standing O’s in the Great State of Wisconsin, & booed him off the stage. He promised me the Wall, & failed (happening anyway!)
President Trump concluded the series of tweets by blaming Ryan’s “poor leadership” and “bad timing” for losing the majority in the House in November 2018. “Never knew how to go after the Dems like they go after us. Couldn’t get him out of Congress fast enough!,” he added.
As Breitbart News senior editor Joel Pollak reported Thursday, President Trump and Ryan shared a rocky relationship dating back to the last presidential election:
In the spring of 2016, he hesitated before accepting Trump as the party’s candidate, even though he was to chair the Republican National Convention at which Trump would be nominated. In the fall of 2016, Ryan infamously told members of the Republican caucus in the House that they did not have to defend the president when he was accused of using offensive language toward women in a leaked Access Hollywood video.
Once Trump was in office, the two forged a working relationship, albeit sometimes a rocky one. They worked together on passing tax reform. But Ryan and Senate Republicans failed to deliver on Republican promises to repeal and replace Obamacare. Ryan announced his retirement from Congress, several months before the 2018 midterm elections, leaving his party to fight the surging Democratic opposition without the benefit of a strong Republican leader in the House.
On Friday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) came to Ryan’s defense, blaming himself for the pair’s loss in the 2012 presidential election to their Democrat rivals, former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden.
“The fault for our 2012 loss is mine alone; @SpeakerRyan was a tireless campaigner, fundraiser, and conservative champion. As the sole person who could unite the House, he acquiesced to be Speaker as a service to the country,” tweeted Romney.
“His selfless leadership and lifelong policy work were critical to the tax and regulatory reform that have helped propel the economy. A man like Paul Ryan does not often come along,” the senator added.
Romney’s comments on Friday come as no surprise. The Utah senator quickly set himself apart from other new Republicans in the 116th U.S. Congress by attacking President Trump in an opinion-editorial for the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, writing that the president’s “conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions last month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.”
Though President Trump endorsed Romney in 2012, the senator heavily criticized then-candidate Trump during the 2016 presidential race, describing him as a “con man,” and a “fake.” In a show of unity, president-elect Trump put aside Romney’s criticism and interviewed him for secretary of state, a job which ultimately went to former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. During the 2018 midterm election, President Trump backed Romney’s Senate bid in Utah, an endorsement Romney gladly accepted.
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