Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) is moving his family from Janesville, Wisconsin, to the Swamp of Washington, DC, according to a report.
Politico stated Tuesday that Ryan will rent a home in DC’s cozy Maryland suburbs. Despite the move, the Ryans have no plans to sell their home back in the Badger State, where the former speaker’s nonprofit, the American Idea Foundation, will continue to operate.
“Now in the private sector, Paul and his family are temporarily renting a house in Maryland, and he’ll be spending time there as well as their family home in Janesville,” one aide to the establishment Republican told Politico. Political observers say the move represents a significant shift for Ryan, who for years resisted moving his family to DC, instead opting to fly home to Janesville on weekends.
“Ryan studiously avoided putting down roots in Washington during his two decades in Congress, famously sleeping in his office. He consistently made clear that his career was based in the nation’s capital by necessity, not choice, and has worn his Wisconsin pedigree as a point of pride,” Politico notes.
Ryan retired from the House in January after serving three years as the chamber’s speaker and oversaw the Republicans lose the House majority in the 2018 midterm election.
Since bowing out of Congress, he joined Fox Corp. as a member of its board of directors and sits on the media conglomerate’s compensation panel.
Ryan made headlines in July after it was revealed he repeatedly trashed President Donald Trump since leaving politics, taking particular umbrage with the president’s nickname for pornographic actress Stormy Daniels.
Politico Magazine’s Tim Alberta writes in American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump that Ryan, “Now out of office and trading in his power suits for a blue vest” is once again criticizing the president and “saw retirement as the ‘escape hatch,’” read an excerpt published by the Washington Post.
“We’ve gotten so numbed by it all,” Ryan said. “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.”
President Trump famously mocked Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in October 2018 after a federal judge dismissed her defamation lawsuit against him, tweeting: “Great, now I can go after Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer in the Great State of Texas.”
Alberta’s book also details Ryan’s frustration with President Trump approach to governing.
“I told myself I gotta have a relationship with this guy to help him get his mind right,” Ryan recalled. “Because, I’m telling you, he didn’t know anything about government… I wanted to scold him all the time.
President Trump responded to Ryan’s attacks, branding him a “the failed V.P. candidate” and a “lame duck failure.”
“They gave me standing O’s in the Great State of Wisconsin, & booed him off the stage,” the president added.
The nature of President Trump and Ryan’s tense relationship dates back to the 2016 election, when then-Speaker Ryan vowed not to defend Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, after the Access Hollywood tape was made public.
“His comments are not anywhere in keeping with our party’s principles and values,” Ryan is heard telling Republican lawmakers during a conference call, according to an exclusive Breitbart News report. “There are basically two things that I want to make really clear, as for myself as your Speaker. I am not going to defend Donald Trump—not now, not in the future. As you probably heard, I disinvited him from my first congressional district GOP event this weekend—a thing I do every year.”
The record shows that without Ryan’s help, President Trump still went on to defeat his Democrat rival, Hillary Clinton.
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